He stopped.
Three men stepped out.
Then five.
Cole was among them.
"Get out."
Elias remained behind the wheel.
Cole approached.
"You should've listened."
Elias opened the door.
He stepped into the rain.
"Where is Victor?"
Cole's expression changed.
"What?"
"Victor Kane."
Cole said nothing.
Elias nodded.
"That's what I thought."
One man charged.
Elias moved.
The fight lasted less than a minute.
He did not fight like a seventy-one-year-old man.
He fought like someone trained by years of necessity.
But he stopped before anyone was seriously injured.
That mattered.
He had changed.
He no longer wanted revenge.
He wanted an end.
When the men finally fled, Cole remained.
Elias looked at him.
"You don't understand what you've become involved in."
Cole swallowed.
"Who are you?"
Elias looked toward the dark highway.
"Someone who spent forty years trying to forget."
By sunrise, motorcycles filled the parking lot of the Rusty Spur.
One.
Then five.
Then twenty.
Engines echoed through Red Creek.
Residents watched from windows.
Elias walked outside.
Marcus stood at the front.
Daniel beside him.
Behind them were men Elias had not seen in decades.
Old faces.
Gray hair.