Hundreds of bikers were staring at him.

Not at the burning motorcycle.

Not at the injured rider.

At him.

Marcus frowned.

Then he saw Daniel Mercer.

The older biker was standing twenty feet away.

Daniel looked almost stunned.

Marcus wiped grease from his hands.

“What?”

Daniel didn't answer.

Marcus pointed toward the ambulance.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Daniel nodded slowly.

“He'll live.”

“Good.”

Marcus started walking toward the repair shop.

Daniel followed.

“Marcus.”

Marcus stopped.

“How do you know my name?”

Daniel didn't answer.

Instead, he pointed toward the pavement.

The envelope.

Marcus's envelope.

It had been picked up by an elderly woman.

His grandmother.

Evelyn Reed.

She stood beside the repair shop entrance, holding it tightly.

Marcus walked toward her.

“Grandma.”

Evelyn looked at the envelope.

Then at Daniel.

Her face had gone pale.

Marcus frowned.

“What?”

Daniel stepped closer.

“Your grandmother knows why I'm here.”

Marcus looked at Evelyn.

“Why?”

Evelyn's fingers trembled.

Daniel said quietly:

“Because that envelope belongs to you.”

Marcus took it.

His name was written across the front.

MARCUS REED

Beneath it was another name.

ISAIAH REED

Marcus stopped breathing.

He knew that name.

He had spent fourteen years trying not to think about it.

His father.

The man who had disappeared when Marcus was four.

Marcus looked at Daniel.

“Why is my father's name on this?”

Daniel's eyes became heavy.

“Because your father left it for you.”

Marcus stared.

“My father is dead.”

Daniel shook his head.

“That's not the story you were told.”

Evelyn closed her eyes.

Marcus looked between them.

“Somebody better start talking.”

Daniel took a slow breath.

“Come inside.”

Marcus didn't move.

Daniel looked at the burning motorcycle.

Then at the two thousand bikers filling Pine Hollow.

“Before today ends, you're going to learn why every one of them came here.”

Marcus looked around.

Two thousand men and women in leather vests.

Two thousand strangers.

All waiting.

He looked down at the envelope.

Then followed Daniel inside.

The Boy on the Bicycle

Marcus Reed had spent fourteen years believing his father had abandoned him.

The belief had never been spoken directly.

Nobody had ever sat him down and said, Your father left you.

It had happened differently.

There had simply been no father.

No birthday calls.

No Christmas presents.

No photographs on the walls.

No stories about school.

No man waiting outside the house when Marcus came home.

There was only one sentence his grandmother had repeated over and over.

“Your father loved you.”

Marcus had hated that sentence.

Because love wasn't supposed to disappear.

He remembered the last day he saw Isaiah.

Marcus had been four.

He remembered sitting on the porch.

He remembered his father tying the laces of his little sneakers.

He remembered the smell of motor oil.

He remembered the black motorcycle parked beside the house.

And he remembered asking:

“Daddy, where are you going?”

Isaiah had looked at him.

“Just taking care of something.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Soon.”

“Promise?”

Isaiah had smiled.

“I promise.”

He never came back.

Now Marcus sat inside Harris Auto & Farm Repair with the same man who apparently knew more about his father than anyone had ever told him.

Daniel Mercer sat across from him.

Evelyn sat beside Marcus.

Walter Harris stood near the window.

Outside, the Road Saints waited.

Marcus placed the envelope on the desk.

“Open it.”

Daniel nodded.

Marcus tore the paper.

Inside was an old photograph.

Three men stood beside a black motorcycle.

One was Daniel.

The second was a man Marcus had never seen before.

The third—

Marcus stopped.

He stared.

The room seemed to disappear.

The man in the photograph had dark hair.

Broad shoulders.

A narrow scar near his chin.

A slightly crooked left eyebrow.

Marcus touched his own eyebrow.

His voice barely came out.

“That's my father.”

Daniel nodded.

“Yes.”

Marcus looked at him.

“You knew him.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Daniel leaned back.

“Because Isaiah Reed was one of the most important men I ever knew.”

Marcus laughed bitterly.

“That's funny.”

Daniel frowned.

“What?”

“I spent my entire life thinking he was nobody.”

Evelyn whispered:

“He was never nobody.”

Marcus turned toward her.

“You knew?”

“I knew he wasn't what people said.”

“Who said he abandoned us?”

“No one.”

“You let me believe it.”

Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.

“I was trying to protect you.”

Marcus stood.

“From what?”

Daniel answered.

“From the people who were looking for your father.”

Marcus looked at him.

“What people?”

Daniel was silent.

Marcus slammed his palm onto the desk.

“Enough!”

Evelyn flinched.

Marcus immediately regretted it.

But he was angry.

Years of questions had suddenly become a wall collapsing around him.

“My whole life,” he said quietly, “I've had one story.”

He pointed at the photograph.

“Now you're telling me that story was a lie.”

Daniel nodded.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because the truth could have gotten you killed.”

Marcus stared at him.

Daniel continued.

“Two weeks ago, three other Road Saints and I were traveling through Mississippi.”

Marcus remembered hearing something on the radio.

Four bikers had been found chained to trees.

Beaten.

Robbed.

Left beside a rural road.

Daniel looked down at his hands.

“We were ambushed.”

Marcus listened.

“There were six men.”

“They wanted money?”

“No.”

“What did they want?”

Daniel looked directly at him.

“Information about Isaiah Reed.”

Marcus's blood ran cold.

“Why?”

“Because they believed Isaiah had hidden something.”

“What?”

“Records.”

“What records?”

Daniel shook his head.

“We don't know.”

Marcus stared.

“So they attacked you because of my father?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

Daniel smiled faintly.

“That's where you come in.”

Marcus remembered the afternoon.

Two weeks earlier.