Chapter 4 — What Your Father Signed

Rowan

Elliot read Pike’s name again.

His hand remained in mine, but his fingers had gone cold.

“Can he still hear the case?”

“He shouldn’t.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

I reached for my phone.

Across the table, Elliot opened his notebook and wrote the councilor’s name beneath the six case numbers we had collected.

He didn’t release my hand until I needed both of mine to attach the files.

I missed the contact immediately.

That seemed an indecent thing to notice while his future was sitting beneath a corrupt man’s signature.

“What are you sending?” he asked.

“A request for Pike’s recusal. The authorization register and the closure slips.”

“Send me a copy.”

I did.

He checked the attachments, then added a seventh.

“The clinic statement,” he said. “He closed my case without asking whether I was conscious.”

I forwarded it.

My father called before I could put the phone down.

“Come to the house.”

“Elliot needs to be part of this.”

A pause.

“This concerns council procedure.”

“It concerns whether I get handed over to Silas,” Elliot said, close enough for the microphone to catch him.

My father exhaled.

“Both of you, then.”

Elliot brought his notebook.

He also brought the broken ring, folded inside a clean handkerchief.

When we reached the house, he paused beneath the covered entrance to shake rain from his hair.

I resisted the urge to do it for him.

He caught me looking.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You have a terrible version of nothing.”

A drop slid from his hair toward his eyebrow.

He wiped it away with his sleeve.

I opened the door.

Inside, my father waited in the study with Council Secretary Helena Ward.

A leather folder lay on the desk.

Elliot chose the chair nearest the doorway.

I took the one beside him.

“Councilor Pike disputes any conflict,” Ward said. “He says the records reflect decisions made under the treaty in force at the time.”

“He approved them,” Elliot said.

“In an administrative capacity.”

“He approved a decision not to investigate my injuries.”

Ward looked at the medical statement.

“I’ve advised that another councilor preside. Pike’s response will be entered into the record, but he will not control the hearing alone.”

“Will he question me?”

“He may be permitted to respond to allegations about his conduct.”

Elliot considered that.

“Then I want the objection kept open.”

Ward nodded and wrote it down.

My father opened the folder.

“The problem,” he said, “is older than this agreement.”

Inside lay a treaty bearing the seals of Ashford territory and Black Hollow.

I recognized my father’s signature before I read a word.

The document was nine years old.

I had been fifteen when he signed it.

Old enough to remember the winter patrol shortages. The damaged bridge. Black Hollow’s supply trucks arriving after weeks of impassable roads.

Young enough to think every agreement that brought food into town must be a good one.

Elliot leaned forward.

“May I?”

My father turned the folder toward him.

There were provisions for border access, mutual defense, supply routes, and residency disputes.

Near the middle, one paragraph authorized the return of registered members under a verified voluntary undertaking.

I read it twice.

“You gave them a route to bring people back.”

“We created a process for resolving disputes between territories,” my father said.

“Without independent contact with the person being returned?”

“There were safeguards.”

“Which one helped Elliot?”

My father’s expression hardened.

Elliot touched my sleeve.

A brief pressure. Enough.

I stopped.

He looked at Ward.

“Who verifies the undertaking?”

“The receiving council.”

“Against what?”

“Registry records and any evidence submitted.”

“Then I want to see the registry entry they’re using.”

Ward opened a second folder.

Black Hollow had supplied a scanned page from an old membership book.

Elliot’s birth name appeared between two other entries. Beside it, someone had added Mercer in parentheses.

He stared at the page.

“The book predates my rescue.”

“The registry itself does,” Ward said. “It may contain later annotations.”

“Does it normally?”

My father frowned.

“What are you asking?”

Elliot pointed to the other names.

“They have dated amendments. Mine doesn’t.”

He placed the image beside the forged agreement.

“The agreement uses a surname I didn’t have. The registry adds that surname without saying when. I’d like a scan made before either document was requested.”

Ward nodded slowly.

“We can ask for the prior archived copy.”

“And the names immediately above and below mine should remain visible.”

“Why?”

“So we can establish where the entry sits. If they send a cropped image, we won’t know what we’re comparing.”

I watched my father watching him.

Something had shifted.

He had expected a frightened young man whom I was too distracted to think clearly around.

Instead, Elliot was asking questions none of us had asked.

“We can pursue the discrepancy,” my father said. “Quietly.”

Elliot looked up.

“Why quietly?”

“Black Hollow maintains our eastern supply route. We share a defense agreement. Public accusations before review could endanger both.”

“My accusations are already public,” Elliot said. “Silas made sure of that.”

“He should not have released that statement.”

“But he did.”

My father leaned back.

“I’m trying to protect this territory.”

Elliot closed his notebook.

For one awful second, I thought he was leaving.

Instead, he looked directly at my father.

“How many of the people in those other files still live here?”

Ward turned toward him.

“We haven’t established that.”

“Then someone needs to.”

My father said nothing.

Elliot’s voice stayed level.

“If you make an exception because Rowan recognized me, the treaty will still be there when someone else needs help.”

I felt my wolf lift his head.

Pride, this time.

Simple and fierce.

My father rubbed his thumb along the edge of the folder.

“You understand that widening this inquiry could make your own case more difficult.”

“Yes.”

“And you still want it?”

Elliot glanced at me.

I didn’t answer for him.

“Yes,” he said again.

We left with copies of the treaty and a written acknowledgment of Pike’s disputed involvement.

Outside, the rain had thinned.

Elliot stood beside my truck, looking at the dark trees beyond the drive.

“You nearly growled at your father.”

“I noticed.”

“So did the furniture.”

I laughed despite myself.

He shifted the folders under his arm.

“You were right to be angry.”

“I was also interrupting.”

“Yes.”

I opened the passenger door.

He put one foot on the running board, then stopped.

“Thank you for stopping.”

“You touched my sleeve.”

“I know.”

His gaze rested on my mouth for a second too long.

Then he climbed inside.

I stood in the rain until I remembered what doors were for.

Back at the dispatch apartment, Grace was cutting vegetables while Daniel set the table.

Caleb had returned to his shift downstairs.

Elliot put the treaty beside the kettle.

Daniel recognized it.

His face changed before either of us spoke.

“You knew?” I asked.

“I knew there was a residency clause. I didn’t know they were invoking it.”

“Did you know Pike received the missing-person notice?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

Elliot went to his father.

Daniel pulled him into a hug. Elliot let him, his eyes closed against the shoulder of a faded work shirt.

I looked away.

My phone vibrated.

Then Daniel’s did.

He stepped back from Elliot and read the message.

Grace set down her knife.

“What is it?”

Daniel stared at the screen.

A notice from the patrol office.

Pending council review, he was suspended from duty for unauthorized removal and concealment of a registered Black Hollow resident.

My father’s office had been copied.

So had Silas Voss.

Elliot took the phone.

He read it without speaking.

Then he put it on the table beside the treaty.

“They waited until we asked about the other names.”

Daniel reached for him.

“Ell—”

“No.”

His voice shook once.

He steadied it.

“I’m not going to apologize because you saved me.”

Grace crossed the kitchen and put her hand over his.

“No one in this family is asking you to.”

I looked down at the two documents lying side by side.

My father’s signature had created the clause.

Now someone was using it to punish the man who had refused to leave Elliot bleeding in the woods.