I told him I felt rested enough.

He said Zaul had been living in the house. “No piercings. No friends. He’s been hanging out with Maria, and the first night we were all home together, Marguerite made dinner. When we were finished, he got up, disappeared into the kitchen, and had most of the dishes cleaned by the time we got there. Strange. What did you do to my son? Oh, and did you know he plays the drums? Pretty good, too.” He finished by telling me that everyone had been worried, and in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, he had teared up and said he, too, was worried I might not make it. I held up my left wrist and asked if anyone had seen my watch. He said Zaul had been wearing it, keeping it safe until I got well. I told him Zaul could keep it. I’d get another. Not sure that one was good for me. In the time that I’d had it, Maria had been hurt, I lost my fiancée, I nearly drowned in a well, and I had been attacked and nearly bled to death. I told him I’d find another or not wear one.

He also told me that once Zaul had explained the situation in Valle Cruces, he sent the jet back and Zaul returned with Paulo and Isabella. They’d been here ever since. Maria and Isabella had become fast friends. Colin explained that neither Paulo nor Isabella had passports, but that he had contacts in immigration who fast-tracked a visa. He shrugged. “It pays to have friends.”

Three days later, they unwrapped my face, and thanks to Shelly and her gifted hands, I could still see out of my right eye. Things were foggy, as was expected, but I’d recover. The first image I saw when I lifted my lids was Maria’s smiling face. She pressed her nose to mine. “In case you’re wondering, you look a lot worse than me.”

Later that afternoon, they had me up, walking the halls, and straining my muscles in therapy. After two weeks in the hospital, when I finally asked if I could go home, Shelly relented and said, “Yes—” She then looked at Leena. “Provided she goes with you.”

Leena knew the story of Shelly and me, so when she sensed Shelly wanted a moment with me alone, she disappeared in search of bad hospital coffee. When Leena left, Shelly held my hand and said that operating on me was one of the more difficult things she’d ever done. But she was glad she could do it. She laughed and said that putting my face back together helped patch up a few things in her. When she finished, I told her I was sorry for keeping the truth of me from her. That she deserved better. That if I had it to do over, I wouldn’t do it that way. And that I hoped she found someone that made her happy.

She nodded toward the door and said, “You can be kind of thick when it comes to women and the signals they send, so I’m going to help you out a bit.” I waited. “That woman—” She pointed in the direction that Leena had walked. “That gorgeous Nicaraguan goddess, who’s got all of the rest of us looking in the mirror to see how we measure up, has fallen for you. She’s crazy for you. You realize this, yes?”

“Well, actually—”

“Charlie—” She laughed. “You need a keeper.” The laughter was healing. For both of us. “Have you told her what you do for a living? Your occupation?”

I held up a finger. “Previous occupation. With emphasis on ‘did for a living.’”

She smiled. “Well?”

“Yes. She knows.”

“You may as well know now…we may have patched you back together, but she’s the reason you made it here alive. Somehow”—she shook her head—“she kept you alive on that plane. And she hasn’t left your side since you arrived.”

I turned the tables. “Thank you for what you did for me.”

She kissed me. “My pleasure, but I’d rather not ever do it again. Now don’t change the subject, you do understand why she’s still here?”

“Well, I guess—”

“Charlie?”

“I don’t know, I—”

“Let me put it in terms you can understand: She’s ‘all in.’”

That did make sense.

*  *  *

The hospital discharged me and Colin took us to his house where, in about fifteen minutes, I’d convinced him to take us in the helicopter to Bimini, that the saltwater and ocean air would do us some good. Leena helped persuade him, as she’d never ridden in a helicopter and never been to the islands. By sundown, fifteen days after the attack, unstable on my feet and trying to wean myself from pain medication, I was walking on the beach in Bimini, Paulo and Isabella plucking lobster from the rocks, and Leena’s arm tucked in mine. And while her heart tugged on mine, so did the one thing I had yet to confess.

For the life of me, I just could not figure out how I was going to tell Leena.

Colin left us alone for three days, allowing me to introduce them to the island. I showed them where Hack had lived and where we worked. Paulo was incredibly interested in his tools and how we used them. I showed him the unfinished skiff that lay in his shack collecting dust, and he just could not get over how smooth the edges were and how seamless the boards met one another. He wiped his fingers along one of the joints and said, “It’s magic.”

Morning and evening, the four of us spent hours walking the beach. I tried to get my strength back, which was slow in coming, and Paulo and Isabella sought to catch every lobster on Bimini, as they’d developed quite the taste for large crustaceans. I taught them how to drive my boat and discovered that not only was Leena good at it but she enjoyed going very fast. At one point, idling back into the dock, with her hair blown into a wild state of disarray in which she looked like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket, she turned and joked with Isabella, “You know, life just gets so much better at a hundred and ten.”

Leena’s love of speed was exceeded only by that of her daughter, who looked like someone had not only plugged her into an electrical outlet, but set her hair on fire and looped the sides of her smile around her ears.

Colin offered to return them in his jet, which they’d accepted. Leena was hesitant to be overly forward, but I could tell from her body language and from Isabella’s outright requests that she was wanting to make plans for my return “visit.”

The clock was ticking.

The night before they left, Paulo orchestrated circumstances in which Leena and I had time on the beach to ourselves. She could tell I was trying to get something out of my mouth so she walked quietly beside me—evidence of how comfortable she’d grown around me. There was no easy way to do this, so I finally just dove in. “Leena, do you remember, prior to Hurricane Carlos, when an American company made an offer to buy Mango Café from your father?”

She was surprised I knew the name. “Yes.”

“You remember how much they offered?”

“Ten cents.”

“You remember the second offer.”

“Twelve.”

“And do you remember when someone bought the competition and flooded the market with coffee so cheap that you couldn’t sell your own?”

A surprised nod.

“You remember your father slaughtering his own animals to feed his workers?”

“I remember.”

“You remember him working without sleep to harvest what would be his last crop, thinking by some miracle that he might salvage something and be able to feed his family and his workers?”

“Charlie, what are you getting at?”

If I hadn’t hurt her yet, the last question certainly would. “Do you remember climbing down from a mango tree, placing a rain jacket across your father’s shoulders, and crying in the mud next to him as the world he’d built crumbled around you both?”

Her eyes turned cold and welled up with tears. Her voice rose as she spoke. “Charlie?”

“Leena, I did that. I am that company.”

We had walked knee-deep into a tidal pool rolling in gentle waves. Disbelief spread across her face as she shook her head. “How?”

I told her. I told her everything. Told her how I’d caused it, then hired people to spy on their misery and report back so we could strategize how to capitalize on that, turn the screws, and make it worse. Then do it again.