Finding Kyle by Sawyer Bennett
PROLOGUE
Kyle
My ass hits the couch cushion, but no sooner do I twist the cap off my bottle of beer, then there’s a knock at the door. With a sigh, I push back up, set my beer on the black lacquered tabletop, and move my way through the sparsely furnished apartment. It’s done in whites, grays and blacks with plenty of leather, chrome, and glass. It’s way too contemporary for my taste, but what do I know? I’ve pretty much lived the past three years in a shit hole.
After a quick look through the peephole, I’m unlocking the door to pull it open. Joseph Kizner stands there with a worried look on his face.
He’s always fucking worried around me, and it’s grating on my nerves.
“I’m fine,” I say before he can ask, stepping aside to let him in.
“You look like shit,” he returns casually as he shrugs off his heavy wool overcoat. Winter in Chicago is no fucking joke, but I wouldn’t know as I’m not allowed outside this apartment. The walls are closing in on me, and all I can do is ride it out.
I don’t address his comment on how I look. Instead, I walk to the fridge to pull out a beer for him. He follows me into the modernized kitchen, which is done all in stainless steel and granite, and accepts the bottle from me. He twists the cap off, setting it on the counter.
I wait patiently as Kizner takes a sip. After he swallows, he gets right to the point. “The wiretaps have been approved and are going into place as we speak.”
I nod in understanding. That means shit’s getting real.
“We’re going to go ahead and move you,” he says, and then watches me carefully for my reaction.
I’ve known Joe Kizner a long time. Over the years, he’s lost a little more hair on top and gotten a few more wrinkles around his eyes, but, otherwise, he’s not changed much. We worked together at the ATF on a very dangerous and high-profile case that started ages ago, but that doesn’t mean we’ve spent a lot of time together. That’s because I went deep undercover, immersing myself into a sinister motorcycle club named Mayhem’s Mission. The club was long suspected of running drugs, guns, and sex slaves. Joe was my handler on the outside.
The case started just over five years ago after several informant tips started adding up to a plausible decision to go in. I volunteered and moved to Jackson, Wyoming, settling into a new life as nothing more than a motorcycle mechanic at a local shop. Over the next several months, I got to know some of the club members who would bring their bikes in for work. Eventually, I was invited out to some parties at the club. I went on some “charity” runs, which were nothing more than fronts to make the club look legit. I fucked club whores and snorted coke with my new buds. I devolved from my basic human nature, and I became just like them.
As time went on, I saw things.
I saw illegal shit go down at the clubhouse, and I kept my mouth shut. I did this all under the watchful eye of their leader, Zeke, until, after almost two years, he approached me to patch in with the club.
I’d been tested, of course, before the offer came to me.
A test that will probably continue to haunt me as it involved conveying a very direct message to one of Zeke’s enemies, and while said enemy was a lowlife piece of criminal shit who had just gotten out of prison for raping a sixteen-year-old girl, I still see rivers of blood on my hands because I became his judge, jury, and executioner in one fell swoop just so I could pass Zeke’s test.
That’s when I became a real criminal as well.
For three years after that, I rode with the club. I facilitated drug deals, helped to transport women sold into slavery, and I hurt countless people who the club felt deserved to be hurt. I participated in gang bangs with my new brothers, and I lived without a single fucking regard for the law that I’d sworn to protect.
But I did all of this with the sanction of the U.S. government. As a deep undercover agent, I was given absolute autonomy in my actions to help solidify my position within the organization so that I’d be given a position of trust. It was sort of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” type of policy, and Joe will never know the true extent of the heinous things I did to play my part.