Page 39 of The Witness

Michael

Ishouldn’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 toget 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.

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