Page 23 of The Witness

Chapter 11

Michael

“Shit. 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 atBikers-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 theyoung 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 happenwhen 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.

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