Chapter 47

Everything has changed in a second.

His master had died and, suddenly, by a pact he had made with me, his honor, his loyalty, his fidelity, was for me. I had, in my hands, the lives of a hundred men who, up to that moment, wanted to kill me and mine. I had a lot to assimilate.

In that second, when Juan Luis shot Braulio, I became the most powerful man in Colombia. Nothing, no one, can stop me. I guess the only one who can tell me something is Mireya. I must go back home and talk it over with her since, as of this moment, things have changed, whether she likes it or not. I don't need to work for her, maybe with her, but certainly not under the same conditions. I have no idea how she will take this. I'm sure it will cause me some trouble; I can't forget that she's crazy.

Maybe he is trying something against me; I don't know. The first decision is to let Don Braulio's hacienda and the adjoining lands remain for his family. After all, they