Chapter 9: A Different Kind of President

Brian The first vote of my presidency was going to tell me whether the men at this table wanted a different Vipers MC or just a different man wearing Luke’s patch. By the time church started that afternoon, Luke had been buried barely a day. His photograph was gone from the wall behind the president’s chair, but the clean rectangle it left was still visible. I hadn’t ordered anyone to remove it. Somebody had made that decision before I arrived, and nobody seemed eager to claim it. I took my seat and waited for the conversations to die. Rook shut the door and took his usual place, watching every man in the room. Ditch settled on my right, while Tag stood near the far end of the table with his arms folded. “We’ve got work to do,” I said. “And before we get into Luke’s accounts, we’re filling the empty VP seat.” Crow leaned back in his chair. “Bit soon to start handing out patches, isn’t it?” “Seat’s been empty since I moved up. It can’t stay that way.” “Luke’s not even cold.” I met his eyes. “We buried him yesterday. I was there.” A few men shifted. Crow had followed Luke longer than most, even after everyone could see the club was coming apart. I’d let him keep his patch because loyalty wasn’t a crime. What a man did with that loyalty could be another matter. That was part of the problem. Luke had taught them to treat every disagreement as a test of allegiance. “I nominate Tag,” I said. “He’s kept members talking to each other when they would’ve rather taken swings, and he knows the businesses and the people who keep them running. Anybody have another name?” Nobody offered one. Ditch seconded the nomination, and I called for the vote. Tag got the majority he needed. Crow kept his hand on the table, but he didn’t challenge the result. Rook counted the hands before looking to me for confirmation. “Congratulations,” I told Tag. “You get more paperwork and fewer excuses.” “Could’ve warned me before you nominated me,” he said, pulling out the chair beside mine. “You would’ve talked yourself out of it.” “Probably. I was having a pretty good week before the funeral.” That earned a few tired laughs. Tag looked down at the VP patch Ditch passed him and went quiet. I understood why. Steve Arden had died wearing that patch, and I’d only vacated the position because Luke was dead. There wasn’t much about its recent history worth celebrating. Once he’d taken his seat, I nodded to Dino. “Tell them what you showed me.” Our treasurer opened a binder thick enough to stop a bullet. Tony Lucero was built like a mechanic who’d rather work with numbers, and he’d spent the last two days looking even less amused than usual. “We’ve got invoices that don’t match deposits, withdrawals with no corresponding expense, and payments routed through companies I can’t identify,” he said. “Some of it predates Steve’s death. Some’s recent.” “Luke kept separate books,” Crow said. “Everybody knew that.” “Separate books don’t explain why the same invoice was marked paid twice,” Dino replied. “Or why we’re supposedly collecting rent on buildings where I can’t find a signed lease.” “How much?” Tag asked. “Enough that I’m not putting a number in front of you until I’ve checked every account.” I saw several men exchange looks. Nobody wanted to discover that the money paying their wages or keeping the garage open had a problem attached to it. “Normal bills keep getting paid,” I said. “Payroll, utilities, repairs. Anything outside regular operations comes through Dino and me until we know what belongs to us and what we’re exposed to. Nobody destroys records, and nobody starts fixing old entries to make them look cleaner.” Crow’s mouth tightened. “You’re talking like Luke stole from us.” “I’m talking like I don’t know where our money went. Neither do you.” Mouse pushed a folder across the table before Crow could answer. At six-foot-four, Marty Salas had outgrown his road name years ago, but he still spoke so quietly people leaned in to hear him. “Money’s only half of it,” he said. “Luke signed off on property deals I never saw completed. Two parcels are still listed in our internal records as club assets. The county records don’t match.” “Meaning?” Ditch asked. “Meaning there are deeds and transfers I want reviewed before anybody builds, sells, or borrows against those properties. I don’t know whether we’re looking at sloppy paperwork or something worse.” “Get copies of every deed and transfer,” I told Mouse. “Bring them to me before we have anyone touch those properties.” “Already requested them. Figured you’d want to know what we own before somebody tried to sell it out from under us.” “I’d also like to know what we owe on it,” Dino said. “See?” I told Mouse. “You’ve already got yourself a partner.” “Lucky me,” Mouse muttered. The room relaxed for a moment. Then Crow pushed his chair back. “So Luke’s dead, and the first thing we do is rip apart everything he built?” “You’re free to ask questions,” Tag said. “But maybe let Dino finish before deciding the answers insult your feelings.” Crow ignored him. “We all followed Luke. You included, Boss.” “Yeah,” I said. “And I made excuses for things I shouldn’t have. I’m done with that.” There it was, the part I couldn’t clean out of a ledger. Some of these men had been in the room when Luke ordered things that should’ve been stopped. Some had carried out those orders. I couldn’t rebuild the club by pretending we’d all been innocent bystanders. “I haven’t asked you to forget him,” I told Crow. “I’ve asked you to help make sure we don’t end up where he left us. If you want your patch, that means working with the president you’ve got.” Crow stared at me for a long moment. Then he sat back down. It wasn’t agreement, but he’d made his choice for today. When church ended, Tag remained beside me while Dino and Mouse gathered their records. The VP patch was folded neatly in front of him. He hadn’t put it on yet, and I understood why. A promotion should have felt like something worth celebrating. This one came with two graves behind it. My phone lit up with a notification, and I thought of Lynnie telling me she intended to look into Luke’s death. She wanted proof that I’d climbed this ladder on purpose. I glanced at the folders piling up on my desk. If she came digging, she wasn’t going to find a clean little story about a good club rescued from a bad president. She was going to find out just how much of Luke Jones we’d all helped keep alive. And unlike his death, I couldn’t say I’d done everything I could to stop it.