“I’m glad you told me,” she said. “It’s hard…when it lives inside you. I held Mexico inside for so long. It hurt. It’s painful letting it out. But it’s far more harmful to keep it in,” she added.

“If Jaime finds us—if he comes for you or Babette—I will end him, Pia,” Sam said. “I’ll make it so you never have to look over your shoulder again. And I owe him for every sleepless night you’ve ever had. For every day you had to wade through to find yourself again, I will put that son of a bitch in the ground.”

She didn’t know how to take that. Sam, pure and true, wanting to take a life. Not as a soldier in the name of his country.

Even if that life belonged to her personal demon… Not Sam, she thought with a slight shiver.

She would learn this island, in and out. If Jaime came, she would be ready for him.