The boy looked up at him, confused.
“No,” he said, voice trembling. “He’s outside.”
No one breathed.
The big biker stared at the child like the words had hit harder than a bullet.
Outside, the two motorcycle headlights switched on.
The boy flinched and grabbed the biker’s vest.
“They’re coming.”
The biker’s hand moved under the table.
Every man in the bar knew what was hidden there.
But before he pulled it out, he crouched in front of the boy.
“What is your name?”
“Eli.”
The biker’s eyes flickered.
That name hurt him.
Marcus had once said if he ever had a son, he’d name him Eli, after the brother he buried before the club went to war.
The biker’s voice dropped.
“Where is Marcus?”
The boy swallowed.
“They kept him in a trailer past the dry river. He told me to run if the chains came loose.”
The bar changed.
Not loudly.
The way a storm changes before it breaks.
One by one, bikers stood.
Chairs scraped.
Boots shifted.
Leather creaked.
The boy pulled something else from his hoodie.
A folded photo.
In it, Marcus Vale stood twenty years younger beside the big biker, both of them bloody, smiling, alive.
On the back was written:
If my boy finds you, Ghost, don’t let them take him back.
The big biker closed his eyes.
Ghost.
No one had called him that in years.
The boy whispered, “Are you Ghost?”
The biker opened his eyes.
There was water in them now, but his face had gone hard as iron.
“I was.”
The door creaked.
Two men stepped into the sunlight outside.
Their shadows stretched across the bar floor.
One of them called out, “Send the kid out.”
The boy’s whole body shook.
The big biker stood in front of him.
Behind him, every biker in the room formed a wall.
The man outside laughed.
“You don’t know what he is.”
Ghost reached under the table and pulled out the old shotgun.
His voice came out low enough to make the room colder.
“I know exactly what he is.”
He looked down at Eli.
Then at the dog tag on the table.
“He’s Marcus Vale’s son.”
The shotgun clicked.
“And that makes him ours.”