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My dad drove me home from the hospital. I don't know what time we left, or in what order anything happened. I was there, but not there. It was like a nightmare. I walked around the rooms and saw Adonis's clothes on the bed and our groceries still on the kitchen table from the night before. I walked into the bathroom, and there was Adonis's towel, still draped over the shower rod from this morning. It occurred to me then that of course Adonis hadn't known it would be his last day on this earth, either. I started to cry.
My family gathered at the house. Certain details were starting to emerge about the shooting and were slowly filtering into my numbed consciousness. I knew that Adonis had gone to the Comfort Inn to meet Giovanni that morning, and had taken him to the hospital and called me when they were on their way back to Giovanni's room.
There had apparently been some kind of confrontation in the motel room-probably about the missing financial records-just before noon.
When Adonis told Giovanni that he just couldn't trust him anymore and not to contact him ever again, Giovanni had drawn the gun from his pants. As Adonis turned to leave the room, Giovanni had fired three times into my husband's back, severing two arteries to the heart.
Adonis had somehow managed to run across the parking lot toward the lobby, leaving a 180 foot long trail of blood and calling and crying for somebody to please help him. He staggered into the front doors, smearing blood all over the windows and upon finally entering, had collapsed on the lobby floor, soaked in blood, and begged the clerks to lock the door. He identified Giovanni as the shooter to one of the clerks, who then dialed an ambulance. The phone call to the ambulance was recorded, and in the background, you could literally hear Adonis slowly dying. When I heard what Adonis's last words were, I couldn't handle it.
"Giovanni López. Room 158. Please. Please help me, man. Somebody please fucking help me! My wife. I...I need my wife. Please. Selena Quiñ....Please. I don't...I don't wanna die. Selena..."
Adonis was sobbing uncontrollably at first, desperately begging, but his breathing was slowing down and he could barely speak. Needless to say, no one from the hotel was ever able to contact me.
My husband's last words were the name of his murderer, and mine. My husband's last words were him begging for me and begging for someone to not let him die. My husband was really gone. Adonis was gone.
The paramedics tried to stop Adonis's internal bleeding and performed CPR; Adonis was still alive when they arrived at Memorial Hospital. He had apparently taken off the ring that Giovanni had given him, because when one of the paramedics tried to find a vein for the IV, Adonis's hand opened and the ring fell out.
