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“They what?” he asks, a menacing calm falling over him.
“Hey,” I call his attention to me. “I’m okay. Pretty banged up and yeah, I broke my wrist, but I’m okay. As for your car, well, that’s another thing,” I say, the guilt weighing on me with the admission.
“Fuck the car. I don’t care about some car. Those fuckers think they can come after my family and there won’t be a price to pay? They’ll see,” Eli says, and I don’t like the thinly veiled threat.
“Eli, don’t do anything stupid,” I say.
“I won’t,” he says, and leaves it at that.
“Anyway,” Bodhi says, stopping me before I freak out on my brother. “Sander made sure the guy got arrested, but now Mateo is in the wind. Sander said he wanted to put Keaton and your mom in a safe house until they found him, and they’ve been staying at my grandparents’ house, but yesterday a flower delivery came for Keaton with a note from Mateo, so clearly, they weren’t as hidden as we thought.”
“That son of a bitch,” Eli mutters in annoyance.
“Yeah, pretty much. Sander said the only way we can put him away for good is with a confession from his mouth. There isn’t any proof to pin him with anything. The fucker is good. I’ll give him that. But that’s why we’re here. I was hoping you could give me something… anything, to get him talking.”
Bodhi and my brother watch each other for a good minute, weighing their options, it seems. When Eli finally speaks, the guard calls out over the room, announcing that we’re down to our last two minutes.
“Listen to me,” Eli says, and Bodhi and I lean forward, giving him all of our attention. “There is shit I can’t say in here for the sake of my own life. But what I can say is that there is more going on behind the scenes than even I ever had the time to figure out.
“You know that Mateo works for Castillo, but what you don’t know is the shit Castillo has his hands in. It’s bad, and not even Mateo dared to fuck with him. I don’t know the details, but I got the feeling that he was running shit against his will. It doesn’t change the shit he did, but you have to worry about a lot more than just him if you tackle this.”
Bodhi and I exchange looks, knowing that we’re already too far in to back out now.
“What if we act like we don’t know anything? Just go after Mateo over the threats and the shit with my brother. Play it off like it’s more of a personal vendetta than anything else?” Bodhi asks.
We’re down to thirty seconds.
“Then you better play the part well. I found out too much and look where it landed me. They have no problem getting rid of people if they need to. Play it safe, whatever you do.”
Eli stands from the table when the guard announces that our time is up.
“If I were you, I’d find the guy responsible for your brother’s accident. Mateo had a way of scaring people into submission, and I bet this guy was no different. It’ll be hard, but anything worthwhile usually is.”
I circle the table and wrap my arms around my brother, fighting back tears. I don’t want him to see me cry. Especially because I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to see him again.
“Be safe Keat. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you,” he says, pulling back and dropping his hands to his sides.
“I will,” I say, pressing my lips into a thin line, holding back the emotions swelling in my chest.
Bodhi steps forward, and when he extends his hand this time, Eli takes it.
“You take care of her,” Eli tells him, squeezing his hand firmly. “Take care of them both.”
“Always,” Bodhi says, and I watch something pass between the two of them.
“Tell Ma I love her,” Eli says, backing away toward the exit.
“I will,” I smile, tears stinging my eyes.
“I’m gonna fix this, man,” Bodhi says, and Eli gives us one final look, taking it all in, before he turns and leaves.
Bodhi
I thought about our conversation with Eli all the way home last night. He was clearly a smart guy, and I had the feeling that a lot of that came from personal experiences.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when we showed up to visitation yesterday, but he wasn’t it.
Eli King was the kind of guy that could make a guy piss his pants with just a look. The way he carried himself was beyond being stand off-ish. He screamed fuck around and find out, and I believed that anyone who dared to test him would do more than just find out.
