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He pauses before turning to face me.
“The things I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room,” he says.
I agree, and he begins.
“I figure if you’re divulging information that can subsequently incriminate yourself, then I can at least let you know what I know.”
The idea that the two of us are coming together to save Keaton from whatever mess she’s in… I know it would make her smile.
Sander informs me of the movements being made by gangs in Las Moreto, slowly moving their drugs in Sancte Alto a little at a time. Testing the waters if you will. I guessed as much when I saw that news piece a few weeks back. I think Sander is only just now putting together that this is bigger than a couple of gangs slinging their drugs from one town to the next.
“I don’t know how long Mateo has been working for Santiago, but the hold he has on Keaton is enough to keep her scared of him,” I say.
“Why?” he asks, bracing himself for the worst.
“She said he came to her house after her brother was put away. Threatened her at gunpoint.”
“Mother fucker,” Sander says, shooting to his feet. I watch him pace, running his hands through his hair.
“If he had only threatened her, she probably would have told him to piss off. But he threatened her mom…” I pause, and he turns to look at me. “And you.”
I see it then. The moment his heart breaks. Knowing that she dealt with all of this alone for years, protecting him in the process, when he was the one who vowed to protect her.
“I’ll kill him,” he growls, repeating the exact thing I’d told Keaton upon finding out.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to say that,” I note with a lightheartedness I don’t really feel.
“I don’t really care right now, and you already promised not to speak a word of this conversation to anyone, so I think I’m okay to say I want that piece of shit gone.”
“I agree one hundred percent,” I say, and Sander resumes his seat beside me.
“Is there anything else I need to know?” He asks.
I tell him about the money she pays him every week. That she had to start racing in order to make enough, and that’s inevitably what caused her to start distancing herself from him. It was hard to do illegal shit when your best friend was a cop. I tell him that the night she and I met, we had been in a race. I was still at fault for the accident, but I only found out everything about her later on, and that's when I offered her one of my personal cars.
“So that she could continue racing,” he says, everything starting to make sense.
“Exactly. But last week after I found out about her eviction warning, I got in touch with one of our friends and asked him to set up a race. Word got out somehow and Mateo showed,” I blow out a breath, the memory of that night still pissing me off. “We had words, and Keaton just wanted to leave, but Mateo threw out an offer he knew I couldn’t pass up.”
“What?”
“He said that if Keaton won that race, he’d let her off the hook once and for all, but if she lost, he got my car. It was simple in my eyes. I know how good she is and figured she had it in the bag. So, I accepted. Only then did he mention the part where he’d be joining in the race,” I say.
Sander shakes his head, knowing that this can’t end well. The dimly lit room cast shadows across his face, making him look much more tired than when we first sat down to speak.
“She would have beat him, too,” I say, remembering how close they were there at the end.
“What happened?”
“He pulled up beside her and aimed his hand right at her,” I show him the same way Keaton showed me, pointing my finger at him like a gun. “It freaked her out, and she pulled back. He won.” I shrug.
“And you lost your car,” he says, finishing the story.
“Yup,” I say.
“Wait…” he says, pulling back. His eyes search frantically int he empty space before him before he says, “It was you. You’re the one who filed the stolen vehicle. You’re the reason he was picked up outside the bank the other day.”
“Yeah,” I draw out the word.
