Chapter 4 Patch on the Table
Rook
At seven forty-three the next morning, I cut the vice-president rocker from my vest.
The chapel was still empty. Rain tapped against the blacked-out windows, and the old freight depot groaned whenever the wind came off the river.
The building had been a union dispatch hall before Wraithmoor bought it for back taxes.
Men had once waited here to learn whether there was work for them.
Now fourteen patched members were on their way to decide whether I had any place left among them.
I sat at the long oak table with a seam ripper from the bar office and worked the point beneath black thread.
Maren had sewn the rocker on eleven years ago, the night the table elected me vice president.
She had complained that the leather was too thick for the needle I gave her, then finished the work anyway because I refused to let one of the club girls do it.
She had pricked her thumb twice. The second time, I caught her hand and put the bloodied tip in my mouth. She laughed and told me rank had made me dramatic.
The memory had no right to be tender now. I kept cutting.
When the final thread gave, the curved strip of leather came free in my hand. VICE PRESIDENT remained stamped in white across its face. The underside held eleven years of sweat, road grit, and the faint rust-colored mark from Maren's blood.
I placed it in front of the empty chair at Mace's right.
The back patch stayed on my cut. The full Wraithmoor skull and flames still covered my shoulders because the table had not voted me out. Not yet.
Boots sounded in the corridor.
Nolan entered first, carrying the club ledger and a locked evidence case. Our sergeant-at-arms glanced at the rocker on the table, then at the bare line of stitch holes over my heart.
“You were ordered to appear in full patch.”
“The club patch is intact.”
“The office patch was not yours to remove before the vote.”
“It is on the table.”
His jaw tightened. Nolan believed in order because order kept men alive. He had managed weapons checks, gate logs, and internal discipline for nine years without confusing loyalty with indulgence. If the table expelled me, he would escort me through the door himself.
He opened the evidence case and removed the printed Northline filing, my phone sealed in a bag, the warehouse access log, and a copy of Maren's traffic report.
“Your personal device has been cloned,” he said. “Club counsel has the copy. The original stays secured until the vote.”
“Understood.”
“Did you tell counsel everything?”
I looked at the bagged phone.
I had given the attorney the same answers I gave Mace. I admitted the affair, the meetings, the use of the apartment, the deleted messages, and the report. I denied giving Leah passwords or unsupervised access because I had not done either.
I had not told him that she copied files from my phone.
The omission sat between my ribs like a shard of metal. I could still remove it. I could tell Nolan before the room filled and accept whatever new charge followed.
Instead I said, “I answered every question he asked.”
Nolan held my gaze long enough to make the distinction clear.
“That is not what I asked.”
Before I could answer, the outer door opened again.
Switch entered with rain on his shoulders and fury in every line of his body.
He had changed out of the suit he wore to the hearing and back into black denim, boots, and his road captain cut.
Tomas Arlen had been Switch since he rebuilt a dead ignition with wire stripped from a motel lamp at twenty-one.
He had ridden beside me for seventeen years.
At Micah Bell's funeral, he stood so close our sleeves touched through the entire service.
He did not look at me.
Mace came in behind him.
By eight, every chair was occupied except the one at Mace's right. I remained at the far end, where members under charge sat during a formal table. Nobody spoke across the room. Nobody slapped my shoulder. The silence was not Maren's. Hers was a boundary. This was judgment waiting for language.
Mace called the meeting to order.
Nolan stood and read the charges.
“Eli Voss, known to this club as Rook, stands accused of exposing club property, business interests, territory, and family to an avoidable threat.
The alleged acts include bringing a Northline Freight consultant into a secured club apartment, using club property in the conduct of an undisclosed affair, transmitting confidential Greyhaven Works material to an adverse party, deleting communications relevant to club business, and creating a conflict now being used to challenge the community-use option on Wraithmoor's forty-acre riverfront property.”
The facts sounded worse without motive attached.
That was appropriate. Motive had become the place I hid from consequence.
Mace looked down the table. “Any member who cannot vote without fear or favor leaves now.”
No one moved.
He turned to me. “You may answer.”
I stood.
“My affair with Leah Sutter lasted six weeks. We had sex three times. Two encounters took place in the apartment above the parts warehouse. The third took place in Erie after the regional towing conference. I knew she worked for Northline. I told her my marriage was over when it was not. I deleted messages to conceal the relationship.”
Switch stared at the tabletop.
I continued.
“When she said she needed proof I could help her understand the traffic objections, I sent her the preliminary report Maren prepared for Greyhaven Works. I knew it was confidential. Maren gave it to me because the fleet data came from my office and because she trusted me. I sent it anyway.”
A patched member near the middle of the table muttered a curse.
Mace did not silence him.
“I did not give Sutter a password, a key, or direct access to club systems,” I said. “She was never alone in the warehouse apartment. I did not know Northline intended to file our messages at the hearing or use the report to attack the land option.”
Every sentence was true.
Together, they were still not the whole truth.
I felt Nolan watching me.
Mace leaned back. “Why did you send it?”
“She threatened to end contact and go to Gideon Pike with what she knew.”
“So you protected yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Not the club.”
“No.”
“Not Greyhaven Works.”
“No.”
“Not your wife.”
The word wife entered the room and changed its pressure.
“No.”
Switch's chair scraped backward. “Say her name.”
Mace's eyes cut toward him. “Sit.”
“Eleven years she kept our asses legal. Eleven years she walked into city rooms where half the people thought our patches made us animals, and she made them listen. He can say her name.”
“I said sit.”
Switch sat, but he looked at me now.
I said, “I did not protect Maren.”
His mouth twisted. “You used her work to pay another woman for silence.”
“Yes.”
“And you let Maren walk into that hearing.”
“Yes.”
“How long between the report and the filing?”
“Seventeen days.”
The number moved through the table. Men shifted. Someone exhaled sharply.
Mace had not known that part. His face went still.
“You lived with her for seventeen days knowing Northline had the report?”
“Yes.”
“You watched her prepare?”
“Yes.”
“You drove her to the hearing?”
“Yes.”
I could have said I did not know Pike possessed it. I could have said Leah promised she would keep it private. Both statements were true. Neither changed what I let Maren risk.
Mace rubbed his thumb across the edge of the table. “Did grief over Micah Bell impair your judgment?”
“No.”
The answer surprised several men. It surprised me less.
Micah's death had hollowed out a place in me. I had filled it with work, anger, and then Leah's admiration. But grief had never opened my phone, selected Maren's file, or pressed send.
“I used grief to justify wanting escape,” I said. “The choices were mine.”
An older member named Harrow spoke from the wall side of the table. “You asking to stay patched?”
“No.”
Mace's eyes narrowed. “Then what are you asking?”
“For the code to be applied without regard to my rank.”
“You already cut the rocker off.”
I picked it up and placed it closer to him.
“I surrendered the office. The table decides the rest.”
Mace did not touch the leather.
He asked Nolan to read the available sanctions. Removal from office. Suspension from club business. Loss of voting rights for a fixed period. Restitution for legal and financial harm. Probation under the sergeant-at-arms. Expulsion by a two-thirds vote.
Then the room opened.
Men spoke one at a time. Some had known me since I was a prospect. Others had joined under my supervision and learned routes from maps I drew. Their anger did not take one shape.
Harrow said expulsion would make Northline's work easier by putting the man who knew the operation best outside the club.
A younger member argued that keeping me patched would make every rule look optional for officers.
Switch said nothing until Mace asked him directly.
“My vote is to strip rank permanently,” he said. “Suspend him from business and table votes until the Northline matter is finished. Put him under Nolan. If another lie surfaces, we vote on expulsion without delay.”
He looked at me while he said the final sentence.
Not if another mistake surfaced. Another lie.
The file transfer on my phone flashed through my mind.
Mace asked, “You believe he can still serve the club?”
“I believe he can work,” Switch said. “Service is something else.”
That landed where it was meant to.
Mace turned to me. “You understand that surrendering the rocker does not control the sanction?”
“Yes.”
“You understand the loss of office is permanent? Not until your wife comes home. Not until the petition ends. Permanent.”
“Yes.”