"Why are you here?"
Daniel leaned closer.
"Because someone has been asking questions about you."
"Who?"
"We don't know yet."
Elias's expression hardened.
"Find out."
Daniel nodded.
That was the old Elias.
For the first time, Daniel saw him return.
Not completely.
But enough.
The name came that night.
Victor Kane.
A former associate.
A man Elias had believed dead.
Victor had once been part of the same motorcycle brotherhood.
But unlike Elias, Victor had never learned when to stop.
He had disappeared after a violent feud decades earlier.
Now he was back.
And Cole Danner was working for him.
Elias sat alone in the diner after midnight.
He opened an old metal box.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
A medal.
A folded newspaper clipping.
And a small notebook.
On the first page, Elias had written:
Names I promised never to forget.
He turned pages.
There was Victor's name.
Under it:
Dangerous. Brilliant. Never trust his smile.
Elias closed the book.
He suddenly understood.
The attack on the diner was not random.
The broken windows.
The threats.
The questions.
Someone was testing him.
Someone wanted to know whether the old lion still had teeth.
Elias smiled bitterly.
"They should have asked."
The attack came on a rainy Tuesday.
Elias was driving home when two trucks blocked the road.