"I don't," Reaper said. "Not yet. That's why I'm not asking anybody to hunt down strangers or start a street war. I'm asking whether we're willing to help a family whose troubles began the same night our lives were spared."
Tommy put a thin folder on the table. It contained the public facts he had been able to establish: an employment dismissal, a late-rent notice, and an incident report from the apartment search. He had obtained them through conversations with Kesha and a neighborhood housing advocate, not through secret surveillance of her daughter. The papers did not prove a conspiracy, but they showed how rapidly a family with no financial cushion could be pushed toward losing everything.
Preacher had not been speaking much. His given name was Daniel Price, and before he joined the club he had spent years representing people who could not afford to lose a legal fight. Some of the men called him Preacher because he could turn any argument into a lecture. He disliked the nickname but had stopped trying to change it.
"There's another reason I believe someone wanted us dead," he said.
He looked at Reaper, who nodded for him to continue. Preacher described Jamal Brooks and a police shooting three months earlier that had been reported as a justified use of force. A young patrol officer, shaken by what he witnessed and convinced that the official narrative was untrue, had contacted an attorney Preacher knew from his previous career. Through that attorney, Preacher had been given access to a copy of the footage and asked to help locate independent counsel for the Brooks family.
"The video doesn't match the story," Preacher said. "It shows a boy trying to get away with his hands visible. It shows an officer altering the scene afterward. I don't know every fact yet, and I'm not going to announce charges from this table. But I know the material needs an independent investigation."
"Does Castellano know you have it?" Tommy asked.
"He may suspect. Word got back to his task force that the family was talking to someone outside the department. Two days later, one of the officers who contacted us was moved off patrol. Last week, I received a message telling me to stop asking questions."
Diesel looked toward the framed photographs on the wall. "So they tried to kill all of us because you had a file?"
"We don't know that for certain," Preacher answered. "We know there was a coordinated attack. We know the attackers may have had police credentials. We know a child recorded them. Those facts are enough to justify protecting her while investigators determine the rest."
Reaper stood. "I won't ask for vengeance. I won't put a ten-year-old in the middle of a feud she didn't start. But I'm asking for a vote to help Zara Williams and her mother. Money for immediate needs, lawyers, safe transportation if they want it, and people they can call when they're afraid. Nothing without Kesha's permission."
Diesel shook his head. "We're a motorcycle club, not a family-services office. We have our own bills."