Laura didn’t answer right away. She simply sat down next to him.
Alejandro told her who he was. His company, his fortune, the partners who smiled at him and conspired behind his back. The board of directors who had pressured him for years. The night of the accident. The car that cut him off on the highway. The impact. The darkness.
“They left me for dead,” he concluded. “And they’ve probably already divided everything up.”
Laura looked at the damp earth.
— So… are you going to leave?
It wasn’t a complaining question. It was simply the truth.
Alejandro looked at the house, the roof he’d repaired himself, the barn half-destroyed by the storm, the laundry drying, the muddy boots by the door. He looked at Mateo, who was playing with a stick as if it were a saber, and at Sofia, who was trying to teach the hen to stay still.
Helicopters, glass-walled offices, and lawyers ready to oblige awaited him in the city. Loud headlines awaited him: “Millionaire Returns from the Dead.” Enemies awaited him.“I have to go back,” he said. “Not for the money. But because they tried to kill me. And if I don’t come back, they’ll win.”
Laura nodded. She knew she couldn’t stop him.
“But I don’t intend to go back and stay there,” he added. Not this time.
