Riker stared at him.
"You heard that name?"
"Three times."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
Leo reached into his jeans pocket.
His fingers shook as he pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper.
"I wrote it down."
Riker took the paper.
The handwriting was small but remarkably careful.
Names.
Times.
Fragments of conversation.
Leo had written everything he could remember.
Riker folded the paper.
He slipped it into the inside pocket of his cut.
Then he stood.
The twelve riders around him had stopped being casual motorists.
They were soldiers again.
Not officially.
But in the way they looked at one another.
Riker turned toward Roar, a broad-shouldered rider who had once served alongside him.
"Get the drone up."
Roar nodded.
"Route 7 junction?"
"Rail bridge."
Roar reached into his saddlebag.
Leo watched with confusion as a small black drone rose into the air.
Riker looked at the boy.
"You did good."
Leo blinked.
Those three words seemed to affect him more than Riker expected.
"I was scared," Leo admitted.
"I know."
"I almost turned around."
"But you didn't."
Leo shook his head.
Riker placed a hand on his shoulder.
"That's what matters."
The drone feed appeared on Riker's phone.
He looked down.
The mountain road appeared from above.
Three black SUVs.
Road barriers.
Fourteen armed men.
Two elevated positions.
A carefully constructed kill zone.
Riker studied it.
This wasn't a group of angry criminals improvising an attack.
Someone had planned it.
Someone had studied their route.
Someone knew exactly where the convoy would slow down.
Riker looked at the terrain behind the bridge.
A narrow rail service trail climbed the northern ridge.
His eyes narrowed.
He had passed that trail a hundred times.
Today he saw it differently.
"We're not going through the road."
Roar looked at him.
"Then how?"
Riker pointed toward the ridge.
"We're going over."
Leo looked up.
"Are you going to fight them?"
Riker glanced down at him.
"No."
He paused.
"We're going to find out who sent them."
Then he looked toward his brothers.
"Get the boy somewhere safe."
The convoy moved again.
But this time, the motorcycles did not head toward the ambush.
They disappeared onto the mountain trail.
And somewhere beneath the old rail bridge, fourteen men waited patiently for twelve motorcycles that would never arrive.
They had no idea the trap had already been turned around.
The Boy Nobody Believed
Leo Montgomery had learned early that adults did not always listen.
His mother worked at Ridgeline County Hospital.
She worked too much.
Double shifts.
Overtime.
Weekend rotations.
Sometimes Leo went to sleep before she came home.
Sometimes he woke before she returned.
She loved him.
He knew that.
But love and time were not the same thing.
Leo had become good at taking care of himself.
He knew how to make cereal.
He knew which floorboard in the kitchen creaked.
He knew how to lock the back door.
He knew which neighbors would answer if something went wrong.
And he knew that adults often said things like, "You're too young to understand."
Leo hated those words.
Because sometimes he understood more than they thought.
That afternoon, he had gone to Harwick Industrial Building because he liked beetles.
The abandoned factory had cracked concrete walls and broken windows. Weeds grew through the loading dock. Birds nested in the rafters.
Nobody went there.
Which meant nobody bothered Leo.
He had been lying on his stomach on the third floor when he heard voices.
At first, he thought the men were workers.
Then he realized the voices were too quiet.
Men who wanted to be heard spoke loudly.
Men who wanted to remain unheard whispered.
Leo stopped moving.
He listened.
There were several men below.
He heard the word motorcycles.
Then Steel Saw.
Then ambush.
Leo crawled closer.
He could see part of the loading bay through a gap between concrete supports.
Three SUVs.
Weapons.
Men in dark clothing.
One man stood in the center.
Leo would later learn his name was Silas Vance.