Free Tarnished Steel by Carmen Faye Page A

seriously twisted to even think of using that subject for your own petty problem with me.”
     
    “I saw you in daylight at his house!” Derrick swore.
     
    “I don’t know what you saw, and I don’t care. You’re so fucking deranged you could have seen Bugs fucking Bunny there and decided it was me,” Hank said, his body language calm, easy, and completely cool.
     
    “Take hold of the accused,” Knight’s voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs, and the crowd parted for him.
     
    Three men stepped forward and took hold of Derrick. “What the fuck? Let go of me! He’s in bed with god, damn, fucking, Ruiz!”
     
    Knight walked up to Derrick as he struggled. “I don’t care about your current derangements. I have enough, ten times over, to take your patch. You have brought police investigations to this club, to me, to other members. You have incited brother against brother, tearing at the fabric which holds us together. More than once I have heard you say — and I have it on police transcript as well — Fuck the bros . Well, Mr. Unger, I say, fuck you.”
     
    Knight turned to the crowd. “I need two officers willing to stand with me.”
     
    “I will,” said Larry, and he rose from his stool beside Cyn.
     
    “I will,” said Ben, the VP, and he came over from the staircase.
     
    “Will anyone stand for the accused?” Knight said, and he waited. Many shuffled their feet, but no one moved. “No one? No patch holder will stand? Larry, doesn’t there need to be at least one to stand with him?”
     
    Halo stepped forward. “Only to serve the purpose of the tribunal, I’ll stand with him.”
     
    Knight nodded. “Then it’s as you say, and do what you can.”
     
    “Yes sir,” Halo said, though obviously not happy about the request.
     
    “Knight, I saw him!” Derrick pleaded. “So did Daphne. Tell them, Daphne!”
     
    Cyn looked for Daphne, who was standing more or less alone behind the gathering crowd with her fists pressed to her mouth as she bawled. Cyn got up from the stool and went to her. She was in so much pain, she couldn’t ignore her, not with this going on.
     
    Daphne was shaking her head violently from side to side and pressing her fists so hard into her teeth when Cyn got there that she was afraid the woman might draw blood.
     
    Knight’s eyes met Cyn’s as she put an arm around Daphne and held her. Was that a look of warning? Of anger? She didn’t know, and at this moment, she didn’t care. Daphne did have someone to stand for her, and Cyn wasn’t leaving her side.
     
    “Derrick,” Knight said. “You fail to understand so many things. They are right in front of you and you fail to see them. All you see is your hate. You have no sense of brotherhood at all.”
     
    Then Hank lifted his voice so that everyone could clearly hear him. “I know exactly what you saw, Derrick. The middle of the day, the possible bag of coke. Orlin on the other side of the motorcycle. I will address this once. Only once, and I will hear no more of it! Not only do I know about it, I was there! So was Ben! We watched our plan to gather information. Hank did what he did because I told him to do it.”
     
    Knight sighed. “As it happened, the plan was a failure, and I have apologized to Hank several times for putting him through that with nothing to show for it except opening the wound he carries —  like all of us — for Howey and Margaret.
     
    “But for you, Derrick, that wasn’t even a possibility. No. All you saw was a chance to hurt your brother. All you saw was a way to cause more pain and more strife. So I will hear nothing about what you saw, from anybody, ever again. That is my shame, not Hank’s. And if any of you hold Howey and Margaret’s memory dear, then you will not speak of this to anyone, not even amongst ourselves, for fear or loosing another chance at reprisal.”
     
    Nods and voiced promises came from around the room.
     
    “Good. Now, Halo, I believe it is