The One Who Got Away is Back

Present 17 ♡ The Exclusive Bernal Solis Club

Those first few minutes where Miguel lost his senses were the most horrible of my entire life. Some of the guys from the company helped me settle him on the floor, which helped me keep applying pressure on the wound with my dress. Blood kept trickling out from the back of his thigh where the bullet had exited.

"Quick," I said, my voice sounding foreign to me. "There's a roll of taffeta under my work bench, someone bring it to me."

I tried to spread my skirts all across his thigh, not caring if I was flashing everybody, but I couldn't reach both ends of the wound at the same time. A sob tore from my throat. Why had I wore a midi dress instead of a maxi one? Or why didn't I have a jacket? Where was the damn fabric?

Finally someone brought it to me and helped me unfurl it. We wrapped Miguel's leg as tight as we could. Meanwhile someone else announced the paramedics and police were on their way, and two other people fretted about Angela as she woke up.

"What the hell just happened?" she asked.

I couldn't answer. There was chaos around me, people shouting worse epithets at Jean Paul than I could presently come up with. People cried. I heard someone throwing up. There was a sudden commotion as Angela put two and two together and tried to get up to beat up her former employee, who continually snarled insults left and right. But I didn't care about any of that. All I cared about was that Miguel's eyes were closed.

I kept pressing on the wound, hoping with all my heart that he would be okay. That we'd make it out of this one. I couldn't lose him when I'd only just found him. When I hadn't clearly told him that I loved him back. I closed my eyes and prayed like we'd been taught at Trinity, what felt like a lifetime ago.

When the paramedics finally arrived, they had to pry me away from Miguel. I sat on the floor, stunned out of my senses as they worked around him. The police was there as well, restraining Jean Paul and taking all the evidence that they could.

One of the paramedics looked around and asked, "Any kin of the victim?"

"Victim?" The question came out from me like a squeak. No one cared to answer.

"Yes," Marisol said amidst the madness, pointing at me. "This is his significant other."

That allowed me to get in the ambulance with him. I held his hand and only let it go when I was forced to at the hospital. I collapsed on a waiting area and closed my eyes, conscious of the gory mess down my skirt, legs and hands, but I couldn't move.

After a while someone stirred me. It was Marisol and a few of the guys from the office. "Any news?" she asked me, and I shook my head.

I swallowed with difficulty a couple of times before I was able to speak. "Is everybody okay?"

"For the most part." As she sat next to me, she placed my handbag by my feet. "I brought you this and a change of clothes because, um, I don't know if you've noticed but you look kind of bad."

I probably shouldn't remain looking like a walking crime scene. She and the other guys promised to wait for any news from the doctors taking care of Miguel while I cleaned myself up. It was surprisingly difficult to find a bathroom for guests that included a shower, but eventually a really nice nurse took pity on me and helped me out. I was trembling like a leaf while I showered and got myself dressed on some sample clothes from last summer's collection. Marisol had had the foresight of packing up a neutral blue dress with little frill or flavor that we had discarded.

Then I called Charlie and broke the news to her.

"Qué?"

I recognized the word. The tone. I felt it in my bones. She said she was on her way but I knew that would take three hours if she wasn't careful about speed limits.