More than three thousand people died. From a sheer production standpoint, they’d been set back twenty to thirty years, not to mention the human toll on families and fatherless children and childless parents. As for the Cinco Padres Coffee Company, four of the five farms sat in the hurricane’s path. Leveled. No more Cinco Padres Café Compañía. The lone padre teetered on the verge of bankruptcy.

*  *  *

I flew home. Rode the elevator to Marshall’s office. My skin tanned from spying in the sun. He gathered us in his office—​Marshall, Brendan, me, a few other guys. He asked my opinion. I told him there was an opportunity. Might take some time, but if he ever wanted a corner on the Central American coffee market, this was it. It struck me as I spoke that Marshall’s attention was elsewhere. His head was aimed at me, but his ears were not. He’d checked out. Which meant he was three steps ahead. Whatever his next move was, he’d made it long ago.

He turned to Brendan. “Brendan?”

Brendan had developed a habit of pretending to shoot an imaginary six-gun when he spoke about stocks or decisions involving money. He’d practiced the whole routine: draw, cock, shoot, blow smoke off the barrel muzzle, and then holster. He thought it made him look like a gunslinger, which became his self-adopted nickname—because he didn’t like “Oz Brown.” Brendan brandished his finger pistol. “It’s a loser. Close up shop. We’ve accomplished what we set out to do.” He blew the smoke off the barrel. “Cut our losses and run.”

The words “We’ve accomplished what we set out to do” echoed in my mind.

That’s when it struck me how perfectly Marshall had played this hand. It was never about the coffee. In the last six months, he’d successfully removed me and inserted Brendan. My limited experience with Brendan told me that Brendan loved Brendan and would sell his soul for Marshall’s money. Which he did. And it didn’t take a genius to realize that while I’d been gone making them money, Brendan had been dating my girlfriend.

*  *  *

Overnight, Marshall called in the loans on the remaining family members of the Cinco Padres. Penniless and coffee-less, they and their families lost everything. The farms were foreclosed on and became the property of the bank. If the hurricane had set that region back two decades, Marshall’s business tactics would set it back five more. Then, like a man who’d slept with the town whore, he took a shower and walked away. As was his right given him by his money.

Entire villages, dependent upon the plantations for work and sustenance, lost everything. And all for what? His money? His daughter? His entertainment? As the bitterness settled in my mouth, I realized it was about none of that. Marshall’s life had one overriding urge—power. And this game he was playing, in which I was imprisoned and little more than a pawn, was how he wielded it.

The following week, I returned to Nicaragua to deliver the papers Marshall and his lawyers had signed and to clean out the hotel room in León, which I’d converted into an office and had served as my home. The night I left, I rode out of town on a rented motorcycle up into the mountains. Until then, I’d spent some time examining warehouses in town where the coffee was stored once it had been harvested, cleaned, and brought to town for sale, but I’d never actually made my way deep into the mountains—onto the plantations—where the coffee was grown. Where the people lived who grew it. Never gotten my hands dirty or talked to a single family working in the plantations. I can’t tell you why I did. I just did.

Entire families were walking down. Mothers and fathers with three, four, or five kids. No shoes. No shirts. No food. No nothing. They carried their lives in sacks on their shoulders. I didn’t know them because I hadn’t tried. I didn’t speak Spanish, nor had I attempted to learn. But something inside me, what might have once been called a moral plumb line, told me that I’d helped orchestrate their misery. No, I didn’t create the hurricane, but they could have survived that. Rebuilt. What they could not survive was Marshall. Me. The empty and gaunt eyes told me that we’d broken these people.

One woman in particular still comes to mind. She was pregnant. Wore a black scarf that matched her black hair, her face ashen. She looked like she’d just lost everything that ever mattered. She stared down the road, numb to the tears shining on her cheeks. I cut the engine, crossed my arms, and watched as the line of people filed down the mountain like ants. Most didn’t know where they were going. They were just walking until they got tired, then they’d sit down and sleep for the night. I cranked the engine, idled down the mountain, and put that place, those people, and that country behind me. I didn’t want anything more to do with Nicaragua, its coffee, or the people who grew it.

I stepped onto the plane, buckled in, and within minutes we were climbing past ten thousand feet. I looked around me. Plush leather. An air conditioner control nozzle above my head. Food on the table before me. Drinks in the bar. In three hours, I’d touch down in Boston, where I’d eat sixty dollars worth of sushi—by myself. I stared out the window and down upon the lush, green landscape of Nicaragua still raw with a thirty-mile scar down its heart. I shook my head. I hadn’t just robbed these people—I’d held them down while the classroom bully stole their lunch money and shattered their hope.

Sitting in Marshall’s plane at forty thousand feet, I realized that Marshall’s money was not worth what it was costing me. His daughter was, but by his own design, the two were inseparable. I couldn’t have one without proving my worthiness of the other.

And I had not been found worthy.

*  *  *

New Year’s Eve, Pickering and Sons met for their annual party. It was also the night Marshall handed out bonus checks. The week prior, Marshall had me off “assessing” an oil exploration company in Texas, so I flew into town and Amanda was noticeably distant. Cold. Her eyes were red. We’d spent no real time together in months. Whenever I’d come home, she’d been busy. Or her dad had her off traveling. The “face of Pickering.” Part of me hurt and I didn’t understand why. It would take a few weeks for me to figure out that that painful aching place in my gut was my heart breaking.

My days with Pickering were numbered. I wasn’t sure where I’d go or what I’d do, and I was pretty sure Amanda would not go with me. She loved me, but there was one thing she loved more.

I walked in the door and Marshall was warm as ever. Hugged me, introduced me to all the older guys as “his eyes and ears on the ground.” An hour into the party, he put his hand on my back and invited me to share a cigar. Just the two of us.

After he shut the door, he offered and I once again refused. After emptying his lungs, he set an envelope on the table between us. A smile. “You’ve earned it.”

I had a feeling it was a good bit of money. I also had a feeling it was more than a bonus. I was right. His tone changed. A glance out of the corners of his eyes. “Think of it as a ‘going away’ present.”

I folded my hands, saying nothing.

I let him continue. “After tonight, you’ll be seeing less of Amanda.” I sat with my hands in my lap. He wanted me to reach for the money. To take his deal. The problem with Marshall was that at the end of the day, I didn’t want his money. Never had. That’s one lesson he never learned. And the only card I had left to play.

A pause. “How so?” I asked.

He scratched his chin. One of his “tells” that he was about to lie. “She and Brendan are looking at dates now.”

I smiled and nodded. “Does Amanda know this?”

He lit his cigar, drawing deeply. Exhaling, he spoke. “She knows her role.”

I waited.

He stared at me through a cloud of smoke. “Brendan will make the announcement in an hour or so.” He eyed the envelope and then me.