Chapter 4
I enter the meeting hall at noon, muscles tight under my cut. The building we hold church in stands apart from the main clubhouse. Concrete block walls, a single metal door with a locking bar across it, and no windows.
No chance for prying eyes or listening ears.
The floor is stained concrete, bearing decades of spilled whiskey, blood, and promises. Overhead, fluorescent lights buzz like angry wasps, casting everyone in a sickly pallor.
At the front, a raised platform holds the long wooden table where Brick and the officers sit. Diesel nods at me. Not sure if that’s an I-got-your-back nod or what, but I guess I’m gonna find out.
Behind them hangs our flag—skull wrapped in barbed wire rising from cracked earth—and the memorial wall with photos of brothers who died wearing the patch.
Sixty chairs face them, all arranged in rows. All patched members are present, plus the so-called nomads who hang back, by the exit.
Brick's gavel cracks against the table. "Church is in session," he announces. "Lock it down."
Someone secures the door, turns the key, and drops it in the metal lockbox. Nobody comes in or out until Brick says so. Those are the rules.
"Brothers," Brick continues, looking around the room. "We've got blood on our floor and questions that need answering."
Chains spits on the ground. "Fuckin' right we do."
"Shut it," Roach snaps from beside Brick. "President's got the floor."
"First order of business," Brick says, tapping a folder in front of him. "We've got rats in the walls."
There is an intake of breath here. Before Diesel’s confession, I probably would’ve mistaken it as surprise. But they’re not surprised. They’re resigned.
They don’t all look at me—most of them have more control. But at least half a dozen do.
And again, before Diesel’s confession, I’d take that as an accusation. Hell, it probably still is, in some way.
But that’s not really why they’re lookin’ at me. They’re lookin’ at me because I’m the reason for this meeting.
It’s not about me being the rat. It’s about me being a hold out after this meeting’s over.
"Three runs gone sideways in a month,” Brick goes on. Continuing with the charade. “That’s no coincidence, brothers. That's…” He pauses, lets the moment drag on. “That’s incompetence.”
Incompetence, huh?
Not a rat, then?
Not yet, at least. But it’s set up that way.
Brick stares directly at me, his gaze cold as Montana winter. I remember when those eyes held something like pride. When he'd clap my shoulder after a successful run, call me "the future of this club."
Those days are gone. Ever since I brought Savannah here, something changed in him.
I thought it was about her family. Their influences. And maybe some of it is.
But that’s not the real reason.
Then I thought it was the drama.
And that’s definitely part of it too.
But only in a second-cousin kind of way.
Drama equals attention. Attention equals eyeballs.
Eyeballs Brick, and his little posse of Feds, don’t need right now.
There is no “National Association of Outlaw Bikers”. Not officially, anyway. But word travels, and drama this big, travels fast.
They need to balance this attention, and they need to do it quick.
And they’re gonna use me to do it.
The only one that hasn’t agreed to be a rat.
That’s what Brick is lookin’ for. He wants me to be a sellout, like everyone else.
And I get it, the brothers don’t have much of a say if their prez goes rogue and cuts a deal. Either they have his back, and the protection he’s negotiating, or they don’t, and end up dead, or in prison, or worse.
The brand on my chest throbs, the scar tissue still angry and red. Brick holds that against me too—that I let it get infected. Like I did it on purpose. Like I wanted to end up at the Ashby ranch, recovering in a bed where every passing minute made me feel like an invalid.
His eyes are different now. Harder. Emptier. The eyes of a man who's made a decision about you before you've opened your mouth.
I've seen those eyes before. In Whitefall. Right before someone got shanked in the yard.
They didn't used to be this way—at least, not when he was looking at me.
But that's not really true, is it?
My mind flashes back to that first meeting with Brick—out in Makoshika with a shotgun for huntin' turkeys.
I don't know what you think you just saw, so I'm gonna tell you what you just saw to make sure we're clear.
You saw a gun deal. You saw our hidey hole.
You saw something you should not have. So you've got two choices, kid.
One—I'm a liar and that's not what you saw at all.
Or two—they find your body out here when the snow melts in spring.
Back then, I thought it was theater. A show to scare a kid straight. I spent years after that day trying to find my way into his world, believing that threat had just been part of the performance.
I was wrong.
The gun was real. The threat was real. And the look in his eyes now is the same one I saw that day in the brush. The look of a man deciding whether you live or die.
Only this time, there's no shrubs to hide in. No home to run back to. Just a president who looks at me like I'm already a ghost, and a bunch of men who don't seem to be my brothers anymore.
Brick leans forward, folding his hands on the table. "Demon Kane," he says, using my club name like it's already been stripped away. "Three jobs. Three failures. All on your watch."
The accusation hangs there. Sharp and poisonous.
“First run—you showed up thirty minutes late to the drop point, costin’ us ten grand and a truck full of product. Said you got the time wrong.”
I didn't. The instructions came from him directly. Ten p.m. at the old quarry. I was there at 9:45, watching headlights that never came because someone tipped off the buyers not to show.
“Second run—you took the north route when the orders said east through Makoshika. You led two vans straight into a patrol checkpoint.”
That's a lie too. Brick pulled me aside before that run, grabbed my cut, and said, "North route. Through the badlands. Don't deviate."
"Third run—last night. You insisted on taking Butch instead of Hammer, even though the manifest clearly stated Hammer was assigned."
Bullshit. Pure bullshit. There was no manifest. Brick came to my room at 4 a.m., told me to take Butch and Dusty and make the exchange at the abandoned gas station off Route 12. I don’t even know Hammer. He doesn’t even live here. Couldn’t pick him out in this room if I tried.
The room feels like it's shrinking. Every man watching, waiting. Some confused. Some already decided.
"You want to explain yourself, Demon?" Brick asks, but his tone says he doesn't expect an answer. Doesn't want one.
It’s all bullshit.
And everyone in this fuckin’ room knows it.
So why bother?
I say nothing.
He wants me to argue. He wants me to blame him so he has a reason to betray me, just like he did all the others.
But I don't make scenes. Never have.
And anyway, silence makes people uncomfortable. Makes them fill in the gaps with their own fears. Makes them wonder what you know, that they don't.
Six seconds pass. Ten. Fifteen.
Diesel shifts in his seat, arms crossed as his eyes dart between me and Brick. Ledger's hand inches toward his waistband. Roach picks at his teeth with a toothpick, but his eyes never leave me.
"Nothing to say for yourself?" Brick pushes. "No excuse? No defense?"
I just watch him. Let my eyes do the talking. Let him see that I know exactly what game he's playing.
The silence stretches longer. Some of the brothers look away, uncomfortable. Others lean forward, waiting for the explosion.
Brick's face hardens. "Alright then. The evidence speaks for itself.
" He looks around the table. "Given the pattern of failure, the club finds Demon Kane guilty of run interference, protocol violation, and operational security breach.
" He pronounces this like we took a vote.
Like anyone besides him, had a say. "The penalty is a fine of twenty-five thousand dollars. "
A low whistle from someone. They all know I don't have that kind of money.
Twenty-five thousand might as well be a million. Brick isn't imposing a fine. He's signing my death warrant. When you can't pay a club debt, you pay with blood instead.
"You have twenty-four hours," Brick says, his voice cold and final. "Funds delivered to this table by noon tomorrow or consequences will be enforced. Meeting adjourned."
The gavel comes down hard, like a headstone dropping into place.
Men rise from their seats, chairs scraping against concrete. The sound grates against my skull like a knife on bone. Twenty-five thousand dollars by tomorrow. Might as well ask for the moon on a fucking silver platter.
"You heard the president," Roach says to the room, voice pitched higher than usual. Nervous. "Meeting's over. Everyone out."
The room empties like someone pulled a drain plug. Men who stood beside me yesterday can't get away fast enough today. Some won't meet my eyes. Others stare too long, like they're memorizing my face for the last time.
Outside, movement in the doorway catches my eye. Brandy leans against the porch railing, arms crossed under her tits, lips curled in a smirk that makes my blood simmer. She's watching me like I'm already dead, like she's picking which pieces of my corpse she'll keep as souvenirs.
When our eyes meet, her smirk widens. No shame at all in what’s happenin’ here.
That's when I see it. The connection I've been missing.
Brandy isn’t some rando hangaround. She’s not some jailbait whore.
She’s one of them.
A Fed.
Jesus Christ. How deep does this go if Brick’s ‘woman’ is involved?
Was she sent here to spy on Brick? Or us? Or both?
Keep him in line?
What a fuckin’ cuck. If she’s here to keep Brick in line… I’m sorry. I’m done. How could I respect a man who will not only put our club at risk for a deal, but let himself be ‘handled’ by a chick who doesn’t even look old enough to drink?