The Witness (Miami Private Security #4)

18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Michael

I shouldn’t have said anything about my past. I rarely did. Nothing good came of it. Sabrina had enough of her own problems. She didn’t need to hear about my sordid past.

“Yes.” I closed my eyes and the image of Maxwell Payton’s dead body flashed into the void behind my lids. Funny thing about revenge; it’s not sweet and it never ever makes you feel any better.

Why the hell had I brought this up? Sex with her had melted my brain.

“Yes, what? You can’t toss something like murder out and not explain. That isn’t how it works. Shit, I don’t even have internet to google you here.” She reached over the table and grabbed my wrist. Her fingers couldn’t circle all the way around.

“It’s a long and shitty story. I shouldn’t have said anything.” I shook my head and pulled back from her hold before she noticed my racing pulse. She resisted for a moment before letting go and curling her fingers into a lax fist.

“I told you about Hailey. You held me while I ugly cried. We just had mind-blowing sex. I think I deserve to know some of your history.” She had a point.

She leaned forward in her chair, her expression open and kind. Not something I deserved based on how Smith and I had manipulated her. It was my job to help her, not use her as an unpaid therapist that would listen to a laundry list of my past woes.

She cocked her head and waited silently for me to talk. Her green eyes overflowed with understanding. Fuck, it was worse than a guy ripping off my toenails with a pair of pliers. Against my better judgment, I folded and started talking.

“It all started with, ah, my sister Marney, I guess.” I kneaded a painful knot in my left shoulder. “I was away at school. She fell in with the wrong people. My parents tried to help, but…”

I didn’t plan on starting my story so far back, but it was too late to change my mind. Too late to shy away from the part of the story that made my heart hurt.

Sabrina made a sympathetic sound and covered my hand with hers. Her small fingers were cool from holding her wineglass. I didn’t pull my hand away, this time.

“She’d gotten hooked up with a guy, a dealer, named Maxwell Payton. He was a first-rate scumbag. Marney was too young, but he didn’t care. She was pretty and he—” I stopped talking before I got more angry. No point in it. The past wouldn’t change. “She overdosed.”

The overdose was the sad end of a long story. Watching her devolve from my beautiful little sister into a shadow of what I loved had been as painful as her death. Every failed attempt to get her into rehab tore at the foundations of our family. By the end, only blame and memories held us together.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It wrecked my parents. And me. I wanted Payton to pay for her death. I needed him to pay. Every waking moment, I focused on Payton. I learned everything about him. I’d just finished a master’s degree in sociology, I’d learned how to research, and I used those skills to pick apart his life. He was loosely connected to a biker gang in Miami, The Rogues. I’d gone to high school with a few of the members, back in the day. It wasn’t hard to get invited into their world.”

“You were really a biker?”

That was one hell of a loaded question that I wasn’t sure I knew how to answer, even in my own head.

“The club was supposed to be a means to an end. But The Rogues became more. My parents had withdrawn after Marney’s death. I was angry, and I think it scared my family to see how I’d changed. I blamed Payton, my parents, and myself for what happened to her. The bikers fed my rage. Everything my parents hated about me, The Rogues loved. It started out as playing a role, but soon I was too far in.”

I should have known better than to fall prey to the club’s lure. I’d studied closed societies in sociology, but it didn’t matter. For too many years, I wasted my life as a member of the MC.

I shook my head at my hubris. I’d thought my education would protect me. That book learning would insulate me from the draw of the MC. But when you’re damaged emotionally, intellect won’t protect you. Not from men that have perfected indoctrination.

“Another lost soul looking for a place to belong. I’ve seen too many of the guys that work in the kitchens over the years fall into gang life.” Her regret at the waste was written on her face.

“I was the club’s enforcer.” I shrugged one muscled shoulder and hunched in my chair, trying to make myself small so I looked less the part.

“Okay.” Her eyes were searching my face, looking for something, but I wasn’t sure what.

“Back then, The Rogues owned a dive bar. I was the head bouncer. My job was to keep the peace and keep the cops out. I was involved in so much illegal shit but drew the line at drugs. So the president, Coyote, kept me out of that side of the club’s business.” A thug with morals. It was amazing how I’d justified what I did and said back then.

“But eventually you ran into Payton.” She gave me a single crisp nod. It felt like a benediction.

I exhaled, she understood.

Payton walking into our bar was the best moment of life with The Rogues and the worst. Revenge had driven me to join the club. Fear made me stay until my path crossed his. What happened that night could have landed me in prison for life.

“Yeah. The piece of shit showed up at the bar, even though he wasn’t welcome. He had a young girl with him that looked enough like my sister to push me over the edge.”

“Oh, God.” She pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back whatever else she wanted to say.

“I tried to tell the girl, warn her. She was too high to listen. But Payton came unhinged at my disrespect. Later I’d find out he was high too. He attacked me with a knife. I couldn’t have planned it better. He lunged. One of The Rogues pulled out his phone to record what was happening. Watching me kick some guy’s ass was entertainment for the club guys. And they liked to record the fights. Payton was different. I fought him off, but he kept coming. It was inhuman.”

“The drugs,” she murmured.

I nodded.

I replayed the fight in my mind’s eye like a movie montage. The memory of the white-hot pain as Payton slashed open my side. The satisfying crunch of his nose when my punch connected. Payton lurching to his feet, blood pouring down his face. Coming at me like a rabid dog. The bloody knife still in his hand glinted in the light of a neon sign.

“In the end, I put a broken beer bottle through his jugular.”

Sabrina sucked a shocked breath in through her teeth. I jerked my hand free from hers.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see her disappointment. My fist clenched around an imaginary beer bottle. The remembered sensation of hot blood spraying over my hand, my wrist, my whole arm. It had been years, but it might have been yesterday.

I’d never looked at a Bud longneck the same way after that day. The brown bottles were a ubiquitous reminder of everything I wanted to forget.

I was a killer, no way around it.

“And Smith?” she asked.

My eyes shot open. I’d gotten lost in the past and had almost forgotten the point of this shitty trip down memory lane. I stood and started moving our dinner dishes from the table back to the tray sitting on the desk. Cleaning up gave me a reason to move and stop wallowing in history.

“Come to find out an undercover cop had been in the bar watching The Rogues. I was arrested for first degree murder that night. The police tried to get me to trade information on the club for a lesser charge. Smith was in the squad room when I explained to the officers that I wouldn’t be taking any deal. It was self-defense. My loyalty and how calm I stayed while rationally explaining my position time and time again impressed him.” I remembered him lingering nearby as a detective asked me the same question over and over. At the time, I’d figured him for a lawyer with time to kill. How wrong I’d been.

“What did he do?” She turned in her chair to face me as I loaded the room service tray. Her fingers traced the tattoo on her wrist, an unconscious gesture as she considered me and my story.

“The next day, Smith had the video of the fight released to a local news station. My image was cleaned up in an artful PR campaign about a bouncer fighting off a drug-crazed criminal. He turned me into a local hero for a millisecond, getting me set free. No charges. Then he offered me a job. He’d investigated my situation and decided I was a good person to cultivate.”

“Cultivate? Like you’re a plant.” She refilled our glasses with the last of the wine and handed me the bottle to add to the tray.

“Yes. He sees most relationships as transactional. He does something for you and then you owe him. You’ll see.” I stacked the last plate from the table on the room service tray and covered it with a silver lid. Neither of us had eaten much.

“Great, something else to look forward to.” She sighed and ran her hand through her newly short, newly bleached blonde hair. I’d done the same less than an hour ago, but somehow our passionate encounter felt more distant than the bar fight. It unsettled me how much I longed to rekindle our desire and leave the past where it belonged… in the past.

“He never asks for more than you can give.” Unlike others’ relationships with Smith, Sabrina was prepaying her debt. A situation that put her in a far better place than most with dealing with the mercenary ex-spy. My situation with Smith had grown over the years into a twisted web of feelings that would take a machete to untangle. He was my boss, but so much more.

“I’ll save him a table at the opening party for Viande.” She shrugged, a sassy smile playing over her lips that lightened the oppressive mood instantly. I quashed the urge to swoop down and brush a kiss over her mouth, not sure if she would welcome it.

“I’m sure Kira will love that.” We shared a smile, and I started to reach for the overloaded tray to carry it into the hall when the phone on the desk rang.

“Hello,” I answered.

“You on board?” Gunter asked without preamble.

The thoughts of my past and Smith’s role in changing my life evaporated in an instant at Gunter’s question. Worry for Sabrina surged back to the forefront of my thoughts. I looked at her; she cocked her head, questioning who I was on the phone with.

I put a hand over the receiver. “It’s Gunter.”

She concentrated on me, leaning forward like she was straining to hear both sides of the phone call.

Time slowed down. My pause to consider Gunter’s question seemed to last for a week. I had misgivings about the plan. They coalesced into a hard lump in my chest. My answer to Gunter would commit me to a course of action that might cost Sabrina everything, including her life. If only I could scoop her up, take her to bed, and live out my every fantasy instead of risking her safety. That would be incredible, but life wasn’t about wishes; it was all cold harsh reality.

I tamped down my lust-filled thoughts and my concerns for her. The only logical course was to do what had served me best in the last decade, believe in John Smith. Hopefully, in ten more years, I would be able to live with this decision.

“I’m in,” I said.

The lump of worry hardened into a weighty responsibility that wouldn’t lighten until we were back in Miami and Sabrina was safe from Sandoval. I rubbed the knot in my trap muscle again; it had grown to twice the size since I answered the phone. Fuck me.

“Good. I knew she’d convince you. I’ll be in your room in five. We need to talk strategy.” Gunter hung up.

I slowly put the phone back on the receiver. “Gunter’s on his way.”

She nodded. I reacted without thought, closing the distance to stand in front of her, tipping up her chin and cradling her jaw. I bent and kissed her.

The kiss was delicate and tasted of wine and offered her all the promises about her safety I wasn’t sure I could keep. That night after meeting with Gunter and another round of spectacular sex, we fell asleep tangled together basking in the afterglow of a new passion.