The Witness (Miami Private Security #4)

11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Michael

“ S hit. Man, it's been too fucking long.” Coyote draped one of his thick tattooed arms over my shoulder and pulled me in for half a hug. I let it happen, leaning in stiffly and slapping him on the back. My skin crawled at the smell of stale cigarette smoke that clung to him.

Smith lingered near the bank of hospital elevators, waiting for my reunion with my old club president to run its course. Beside Coyote there was Sly and a young kid in a leather cut so new I half expected the vest to have tags hanging off it like he’d just purchased it at Bikers-R-Us .

“Had one hell of a night. Been in the ER since about 3am. Got a recruit that’s all cut to shit. This here dumbass ‘accidentally’ slashed him with a blade.” Coyote jerked his thumb at the young man with the excess of dried blood on his shirtfront. “It was a gusher. He must have nicked an artery or something.” Coyote laughed until he started coughing like the two-pack-a-day smoker he’d always been.

I hated when my two worlds crossed. My time in the club was long past, but somehow Coyote, like a bad penny, always turned up when I least expected it. Like today at the hospital. I vowed each time it would be my last encounter with Ray “Coyote” Buller, but then Smith would send me looking for him, needing an unsavory favor or a tidbit of information from the club. Unsavory was the nicest way to characterize the criminals that were part of The Rogues MC.

It was a combination of luck, an innate sense of self-preservation, and John Smith that saved me from leaving the MC either in an orange prison jumpsuit or a body bag. But somehow, I wasn’t completely free of The Rogues even a decade later. Some part of me still belonged to this ugly world.

“Never good when it's two brothers getting into it.” I stepped back, putting much-needed space between me and Coyote.

“Ain’t that the truth? So, what brings you to Jackson Memorial on this fine day?” Coyote asked.

“Here with Smith for a client.” I jutted my chin at my boss.

I compared the two men as they eyed each other. They were close in age, but that was the only similarity. Coyote was almost as big as me with a gut starting to droop over his belt. Smith was average height, trim, and lean. Battle-hardened in a different way than the dissipated biker. The pressures of John’s life had made him hard like a diamond, while Coyote had bowed and was about to break under the strain.

Coyote was dried up and beat down—a husk of what he’d been in his prime.

“We miss having a man like you at the compound. You’d have saved us a trip to the ER, right? This kind of shit didn’t happen when you were around.” Coyote shoved his hand deep in his pocket and came up with a lighter. The pack of smokes I knew was in his shirt pocket.

“I was good at keeping the peace.” I said the words softly, not wanting Smith to hear any of this. My past was best forgotten.

“We miss you, brother,” Sly said with a solemn nod.

I looked down the hall at the busy nurse’s station to avoid his eyes.

Deep down in my core lived an angry, twisted-up younger version of me that reveled in Sly’s comment. The damaged shadow loved knowing that if the life I’d built since joining the Smith Agency a decade ago fell apart tomorrow, the MC would take me back. I’d never do it—step back into the polluted realm of the one percenter. But I couldn’t kill that remnant of my younger self, no matter how I tried.

I shoved my hands into my back pockets and shifted my weight back onto my heels, leaning away from the three bikers and closer to Smith. Meetings between my old life and new were getting more awkward every time.

My last interaction with the MC had been when I arranged for a few of The Rogues to hand off a mobster to his own crime family. The whole situation had gone sideways when an FBI raid scooped up Tony Delgatto. The bikers making the delivery had managed to get away, and they’d gotten paid handsomely. But… I was sure the FBI raid hadn’t earned me any friends in the MC.

“I should get back to the job.” I turned away.

“You never got distracted from your goal.” Coyote tapped a cigarette from his pack and popped it between his thin lips.

He wasn’t talking about my work ethic. He was reminding me that I’d gotten my revenge, then left The Rogues when a better offer had come my way.

I nodded, acknowledging the truth of the cryptic statement even as I turned my back on him and walked away.

“Charming men. Next time you should introduce me.” Smith's stoic expression made it impossible to know if he was being sarcastic or not.

I reached for the elevator call button, ignoring the uncomfortable tingle between my shoulder blades caused by Coyote’s stare. The doors slid open, and I was relieved to step inside the car and out of view of my former MC brothers.

Smith and I rode to the fifth floor in silence, only interrupted by the hospital paging system calling doctors and nurses to their stations.

Lewis Wright was one of the few Miami FBI agents Smith still respected. More than once, Wright had sent people to us when either corruption or incompetence at the bureau had left him without another option.

This time, his efforts to stay on the straight and narrow path had landed him in the intensive care unit.

The doors slid open, and we got out. Down the corridor, Damon Brooks leaned against a wall waiting for us outside Wright’s hospital room. He straightened as soon as he saw us, standing almost at attention like the former soldier he was.

“All quiet?” Smith asked Brooks.

“So far. No visitors.”

“Good.”

Smith and I slipped inside Wright’s room and Brooks returned to his post.

The FBI agent had IV tubes in one arm, and the leads from four different monitors snaked out from under the sheets tucked around his chest. One upper arm and one exposed leg were heavily bandaged. A constant beep, beep counted his heartbeats.

Wright slowly turned his head as it lay on the pillow. He blinked, taking a few moments to focus on Smith and me.

“Do you have her?” Wright’s raspy voice was sandpaper on the ears.

I poured water from a plastic pitcher into a paper cup with a straw that sat on the table next to his bed. Wright’s gaze landed on me, his eyes going wide. The scrutiny made my skin feel too tight and too loose all at the same time. I wasn’t anything like most Smith Agency employees with their clean-cut military appearances. I looked more like the men Wright put in jail. No way he was comfortable lying prone in his sickbed before me.

It was running into Coyote that had me thinking like this. Nothing more. Wright hadn’t just shot me the hairy eyeball; I’d probably imagined it. Fuck, one chance meeting with The Rogues and I was rattled.

I held the cup out, the straw angled to his lips. After a brief hesitation, he took a greedy sip. And my discomfort eased at his grateful smile.

“Yes, the witness is with us,” Smith answered.

“Sabrina is a good woman. Doesn’t deserve to be involved in this.”

I nodded in agreement and focused on why we were here before I asked a stupid question about how Wright knew Sabrina, a question that had nothing to do with keeping her safe and everything to do with my growing attraction to her.

“I was at her place this morning. A few of your colleagues showed up.” I pulled out my phone and showed him the photo of the men in Sabrina’s driveway.

“Wells and Lopez.” He tried to shrug and grimaced in pain.

“There were two others in a car watching.” I flipped to that image.

“Not FBI.”

“But somehow I think all four are playing on the same team, don’t you?” Smith rubbed out Wright’s name on the patient information dry erase board on the wall.

“Yeah. It took two bullets, but I believe you and your damn conspiracy theory about Sandoval and my office. It's dirty from top to bottom.” Wright closed his eyes; his head sank into the pillow.

“You were the last good man in that office.” Smith had found a marker and was printing a new name in bold block letters on the board.

“Thanks.” Wright didn’t open his eyes. He sounded exhausted.

“Your cooperation will make this much simpler. I’m having you moved. It will be safer. I can’t protect you here. Too many people are taking money from Sandoval in this city.” Smith was all business. If he had a shred of compassion for the FBI agent’s injury or situation, it wasn’t apparent. But I expected nothing else. Smith solved problems expeditiously, not with finesse.

“Moved? I just got shot. I’m having a second surgery tomorrow.” Wright lifted his head as far as he was able and glared at Smith in disbelief.

“Yes. At the University of Florida’s Shands Hospital in Gainesville. The doctor there is the best. He is the foremost expert in a new robotic assisted surgery that speeds healing after gunshots. The medical helicopter will be here within the hour to transfer you.” Smith produced a small, deadly, sharp-looking switchblade and sliced the barcoded hospital bracelet off Wright’s wrist, then replaced it with a new one.

Wright twisted back his wrist and read the name on the bracelet. “Joesph Tidewater?”

It was the same name Smith had printed on the patient information board.

“Here is your date of birth and social security number.” Smith put a scrap of paper in Wright's hand. “Memorize it.”

“Do you think all this is necessary?”

“I do. Sandoval doesn’t leave loose ends.” The look Smith gave Wright implied that he would be on the clean-up list. “You know, the beautiful thing about big hospitals is they rely on bar codes and social security numbers for everything. When you land in Gainesville no one will have the faintest clue you are actually Lewis Wright.”

“What about my insurance and—”

“It’s handled.” The command in Smith's voice cut off Wright’s protests and seemed to hammer home the danger in a way nothing else had. Wright looked from the ID bracelet to the scrap of paper and nodded.

Wright understood this wasn’t Smith overreacting; it was what needed to be done. His acceptance of the situation broke free a flow of words that came so fast he tripped over his own tongue. Like he had to say all of it before he lost his nerve. “I couldn’t believe you about the FBI corruption. I’ve been with the bureau for fifteen years. But you are right. I was blind. They won’t stop. Sandoval will keep coming for her. If half of the whispers I’ve heard about his organization are true, she needs to run.”

“Yes. I am aware.” Smith said. His assurance didn’t slow the flood of words from Wright.

“It’s why I sent her to you when I realized my boss sold me out and that witness protection had never been coming to get her. The crime she witnessed is nothing. One dead girl, a byproduct. Sabrina can identify one of the most wanted men in the world. She is a dead woman walking. You have to help her disappear.” Wright sagged into the pillow, his eyelids fluttered closed, pain and exhaustion lining his face.

My jaw clenched so hard, my teeth ached. It could have been Sabrina in this hospital bed. Or laid out downstairs in the morgue if she’d not been in the Oceanfront kitchen poaching a stupid egg. I wanted to shake Wright and curse him for not having brought Sabrina to us the moment she told him what she knew. His willful blindness almost cost her and him their lives.

“Or she can help us,” Smith said.

I turned to my boss, a thousand protests poised on the tip of my tongue. Sabrina wasn’t a tool for him to use in his shadow war against Sandoval. She was a woman with a life and dreams. My complaints dried up. She’d never get to live her life if Sandoval was hunting her.

“Fuck, Smith. Don’t get that girl hurt.” Wright said his voice weak.

“I’ll protect her.” I’d spoken on reflex, and I didn’t regret my vow.