CHAPTER 3

Walking from one place to the next, not knowing what to do, Enrique was holding his head over and over again. Everything had become complicated in a second, they only hoped that the woman was really dead because if not, she was going to say who were the people who kidnapped her and shot her. Enrique had to leave the country, but what about his wife?

Poor Isela, he had to go to the house and leave together, maybe in time he would explain to her what happened.

“What do we do, boss?” asked one of the men who had helped with everything.

“We have to go anywhere and not be anywhere near where it all happened.”

“What about the necklace?”

“When I sell it myself, I'll give them your share. Now get out. I'll get my wife and we'll leave together, I swear I'll be back to give you your share.”

“I think it's too late for that, sir," said the third man.

“What are you talking about?”

“The police have arrested your wife.”

“What? What on earth are you talking about?

“Seems like your wife arrived on the scene to alert you that the police were coming.”

“Did my wife know about what we're doing?”

“I don't know, sir, but they've arrested her.”

“What happened to the woman?”

“That's the problem.”

“Why is that the problem?”

“Happens that the woman died in your wife's arms.”

Unluckier than that, Enrique fell down sitting in one of the armchairs. That couldn't be possible. Isela couldn't say anything.

“Sir, I'm very sorry, but she's going to talk at any moment. We have to get away from here, far away. I'm sure she already knew what you were doing, you have to accuse her, sir, it's our only way out before she talks.”

Enrique at that moment understood that it was true, his wife was going to end up telling the truth.

“You're right, guys, you're right, we have to leave before it's too late, but not before making a phone call. It's a shame Isela went to the scene of the accident.”

Banging hard on the lieutenant's desk, Stefan demanded an answer. He knew that no matter how much he cried, nothing was going to bring Elisa back.

More than five hours had passed since her death and he couldn't rest easy. The groom's suit was already completely undone.

“I demand to see my wife's murderer! I swear I'll make him pay with my own hands! I swear I'll kill him!”

“Please, sir, we still don't know why he did it!”

“Where's my wife's diamond necklace?! Isn't that enough?!”

“We can't charge her until we get the results. The lady's already in jail.”

“What? Is it a woman who did this to us?”

The lieutenant was silent.

“I asked you a question!”

“Yes, yes, Mr. de la Barrera, it was a woman next to your girlfriend's body!”

“Even if you don't, I, Stefan de la Barrera, will make her pay for this pain she's causing me by taking from me what I loved most in this world... I swear it!” A tear spilled from his eyes.

With her hands cuffed on the table where she was being interrogated, Isela's tears could no longer be held back. She was scared, she had no one but Enrique, the man she loved with all her heart and for whom she was willing to do anything, even the unthinkable. It was for him that she had come to this place.

“Confess once and for all that you were the murderer of that woman!”

“I didn't do anything!”

“Then what were you doing at the scene of the crime?”

“I just happened to be there by coincidence.”

“The way we found the car doesn't speak of a coincidence, madam.”

At that moment the door opened, more police were arriving with her, ready to torture them after finding nothing else.

“Did you find anything else?” asked the policeman who was interrogating her.

“No, there was no one in this woman's house. Everything seems to have been planned, she must have been working with someone else.”

Tears dried on Isela's cheeks. Did that mean they hadn't found her husband at home? It might be a relief, as long as he was okay she didn't care about anything else.

“It can't be, the worst thing is that this woman doesn't want to talk anymore.”

“But that's not all, sir.”

“Is there more?”

“Of course there's more! Sir, we received a call from one of the men who saw the people who came to the warehouse. A neighbor close to all that.”

Isela looked up. For the first time she felt there was hope.

“What did the man say?”

“He clearly saw this lady present coming in where the bride was, she was armed.”

“What?” Isela asked, she could not believe what she was hearing.

ONE WEEK LATER

Feeling his life slipping away from him as he lay on the grave of the woman who was almost his wife, Stefan could not bear the pain that was killing him in his soul. His wife had been killed in cold blood, and the reason was as yet unknown.

I want her to rot in jail!” At his side was his best friend Ricardo, who had been with him through all his pain. Someone who didn't intend to leave him alone in such a sad situation.

“Please, Stefan, we have to get out of here. Nightfall is coming and tomorrow will be the trial of the woman who did this to Elisa.”

“I don't want to know anything about her other than that she's rotting in fucking jail.”

“Please, Stefan, let's get out of here, you can't keep crying at Elisa's grave.”

“What's her name?”

“What are you talking about, Stefan?”

“What's the name of the bitch who killed Elisa?”

“There's no point in me telling you!”

“Tell me right this goddamn minute!”

“Please, stop it, stop hurting yourself.”

“Just tell me once and for all!”

“All right, all right, I'll tell you! Her name is Isela, Isela Velar.”

“Isela Velar?”

“Yes, Isela Velar. A simple woman, she was a housewife.”

“Isela Velar, well... I want you to remember that damn name for the rest of your life! Remember it and don't you ever forget it! Is that clear?!”

Her gaze was lost in a random spot. She'd been in that place for a week now, with no one visiting her. The police told her what was going on outside, but with only one thing in mind, even if she was sentenced, it was only a matter of time before Enrique realized what his wife was going through and cleared her name.

Aggressively hitting her cell, they brought her back to her reality as she sat on her bed. Now her eyes had lost their sparkle.

“Hey, you've got visitors!” said the policeman. “It’s your lawyer!”

Slowly she got up from her place so that the policeman would open the cell and let her out.

At a table in the visitors' room, a man dressed in a grey suit while carrying a briefcase, the same one the state had given Isela to defend herself, waited for her.

Suddenly the brown-uniformed prisoner appeared in front of him. There was no sparkle in her eyes. Antonio had been seeing her for more than three days and the only thing he could attest to was that this woman was dying in life.

“Good morning, Miss Isela.”

She didn't answer, she just sat down in front of her lawyer.

“They've already given me the date of...”

“My trial. My trial will be today, in a few hours.”

Those words surprised Antonio, who had the right to speed up the trial of a very delicate case like that?

“What? But who said that?”

Isela smiled incredulously. “Please, lawyer, don't waste your time on me. Today will be my trial and with that, there will also come hope. My husband will come for me, he's going to clear my name I know that, I know that very well.”

The lawyer looked down. As soon as he became acquainted with her case, he knew that she was married to a man who was engaged in business, just as he suspected that she had not been the murderer and that it might have been her own husband.

With that thought, the lawyer did not stop searching for the man she claimed until he came upon a single truth. That man had left the country and it was time to tell her. And not only that, the phone call the police had received accusing Isela was also from her husband.

“He's coming, I know that," she said with a blank stare.

“Miss Isela.”

“He's coming.”

“Miss Isela?”

“He's coming.”

“Miss Isela, I'm very sorry, but your husband has left the country!”

“What?” The tears came silently from her eyes.

“I'm very sorry, but there are no more traces of your husband. It all seems to be that.”

“He has deserted me?”

“It's just that that's not all, miss. It so happens that... the call the police received accusing you of that woman's death also came from... from... from... from your husband.”

And suddenly, Isela's heart broke into a thousand pieces. He never cared about what she was going through, he didn't care what her fate was, he never cared about anything because that man had gone so far as to accuse her of his actions.

March 10th, 2023 at twelve o'clock noon. A day she would never forget. Sitting next to her lawyer, feeling him guilty for not being able to do much, he always stood by her side.

“Stand up, guilty Isela Velar," said the judge.

Lifeless, Isela stood up from her place ready to receive her sentence. Many things were going through her mind, all the lawyer's words, everything he had told her a couple of hours ago. Her husband, the man she had loved the most, was the same man who had abandoned her and left her alone in hell. And not only that, in her soul she had already imprinted the name of the person who had moved heaven, sea and earth so that the trial would go as quickly as possible. The man who had paid so much money to have her recast in prison. His name, Stefan de la Barrera.

“For the crime of robbery, kidnapping and murder, Mrs. Elisa Avila is sentenced to eight years in prison. Case closed!”

A tear slipped from Isela's lifeless eyes. Her sentence was passed, now all the hatred was in her heart, she was no murderer, she had only come to alert her husband and in the end she only found injustice because while her husband was free outside, she was going to pay for a crime she did not commit.

Sitting cross-legged, sipping a glass of wine, a smile came to her face. By this time the woman who killed his wife should have been sentenced.

“What's so funny?” asked his friend when he saw him smiling.

“Do you know that by now the woman should have received her sentence?”

Ricardo stood up. “You know I will never agree with what you did. You know very well that there was not enough evidence against that woman, she claims she came there to save Elisa.”

“And you believe her? Of course that's not the way things are. I don't care! She's Elisa's murderer and that's why I paid so much money, so that she'll be recast in prison.

“I hope you don't regret it, Stefan, I really hope she's the murderer, because otherwise it's a shame that you've put an innocent woman in prison.”

Stefan just smiled. Hatred and grief had blinded him completely.