“Yes,” I said. “He was.”
“And Esteban?”
“He was there too. Right by his side. I don’t know if we’ll ever really know why he was trying to have you killed, but we know that he wanted the world to think that he didn’t do it. That’s why I was brought in. He needed someone to take the blame, the fall. I think he’s trying to overthrow your brother. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went after his wife next.”
“Luisa?” she asked, craning her head away to look at me with wide eyes. “Luisa loves Javier. I know this. She would never go for Esteban.”
“I’m not saying that she would. But it looked like that might be the next step. Take out the sister, take over the wife, take over the cartel.”
“But why me?”
“Because,” I told her gravely, “whether you believe it or not, you mean more to your brother than you think. The man I saw today was a destroyed man.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. “I can’t stand him to feel that way, to think that I’m dead.”
“But it’s the only way. You said so yourself.”
“I know,” she said, her voice choked up. “I know I did and it’s true. If I show my face, if I even give him a hint that I’m still alive, I’ll never be free. Not as long as Esteban is in the picture. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk us. What we might have.”
“What we will have,” I corrected her.
There was a pause and then she asked, quieter now, “And Luz and Dominga?”
I squeezed her to me. “They were there. They were taking it pretty hard.”
She sniffed and a tear rolled down her cheek before she buried her head back against me. “They were everything to me. I can’t imagine how they must be feeling.”
“I know,” I said.
“It doesn’t seem fair. To just let people hurt when they don’t have to.”
“It’s not fair. And it’s not fair that you have to leave them too. But I would rather you be alive, living a life unfair than be dead and not living at all.”
“Maybe one day I can let them know the truth.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Until that day comes though, they must believe that the body in the coffin is you.”
“Whose body is it anyway?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Someone else. One of the prostitutes on the boat, I’m guessing. Whoever the body is though, it fooled the police.”
And it had fooled me. When the boat exploded and I saw Esteban disappear in the distance, I really thought Alana was dead. There was no way she would have survived that and it was all my fault. I was the one who put the bombs there. I had let my emotions get in the way and in a moment of weakness, I messed up. I should have made sure Esteban was dead before I did anything else. I still can’t believe I didn’t.
I lay back on the zodiac for some time as the debris rained down on me and smoke and flames filled the air. I was so close to jumping off and letting myself sinking to the bottom of the sea with her. So damn close to dying.
But then, in the middle of the cold, dark night, something bumped into the boat repeatedly and when I finally found the strength to see who it was, I discovered Alana, hanging onto a life ring in a state of semi-consciousness. She had listened to me in the end. She made sure she had something that floated to hold onto and then she jumped before the boat exploded.
It was still a miracle but it was one I would gladly believe in.
“And Esteban escaped into the night, wiping his hands clean of everything,” she said bitterly.
“Yes, he did. But so did we.”
“Our hands aren’t clean.”
“No,” I smoothed my palm over her head. “But in time they will be.”
That night she fell asleep in my arms as Anna Bardem. When we woke up the next morning to a beautiful sunny day, we started our new life together.