Although I never saw Pepper or Rosa again, Elizaveta and I started spending a lot of time together. She was promptly fired from her position of governess—“No respectable family can continue to employ someone of your newfound notoriety,” the Russian oligarch had explained to her—so I invited her to move into my place…and the intimacy that had developed between us that night on the island grew into something real and sustainable. At first I felt guilty courting her. But I told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Pita might have been Elizaveta’s friend, but Pita was dead now. I couldn’t change that. There was no reason her memory should stand between our happiness.

And the other side of the coin, the fact Elizaveta was Jesus’s ex? Well, fuck that. I couldn’t have cared less about his feelings. The guy would have happily put a bullet between my eyes if he had his way. He could rot in prison—which, incidentally, was exactly what he was doing. His trial had lasted one week. Given our testimony, along with the forensic evidence the police gathered from the cabin and Jesus’s clothing, the eventual verdict of guilty had never really been in question. The judge fined him $300,000 and sentenced him to life in Altiplano, a maximum-security federal prison that housed some of the most infamous drug lords and murderers in Mexico.

For my part, after Elizaveta and I were married, and we bought the place in Tucson, I cut back on drinking. I didn’t go cold turkey. I didn’t think I could do that, or wanted to do that. But I became what I guess you would call a moderate drinker, preferring wine over spirits, eventually garnering a taste for some of the older nutty vintages. Moreover, during that first year back in the States, my migraines cleared up, I got back out on the track, and it wasn’t long before I returned to top form.

Jump to the present, and I’d just capped the 2010 season with my fifth Cup series championship, and my overall numbers now stood at 68 wins, 301 Top 10s, and 25 pole positions.

Not too shabby for a guy whose career was supposed to be over before it really got started.