One of the captives was a young woman with long brown hair.
Her arms were bruised. Her clothes were torn, and she moved as though she had been injured.
While the men argued near the warehouse entrance, the woman slipped behind the crates and found Leo.
“She asked if I knew a man called Hawk,” Leo said.
Hawk’s heart pounded.
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said, ‘Find my father. His name is Daniel Turner, but everyone calls him Hawk. Tell him I’m alive.’”
Leo looked toward the grave.
“She took off the necklace and gave it to me. She said you would know it belonged to her.”
Hawk closed his fist around the silver feather.
“Why did you wait three days?”
“I was scared.”
“Of the men?”
Leo nodded. “One of them saw me near the docks before. I thought he might follow me.”
“Then how did you find me?”
“I heard people at a shelter talking about a biker who came to the cemetery every night. They said his daughter died in a car fire.”
Leo’s eyes moved toward Emily’s name.
“I thought maybe she was your daughter.”
Hawk crouched until they were at eye level.
“What is your name?”
“Leo.”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
“Where are your parents?”
The boy looked away.
“My mother died. My father left before that.”
Hawk felt another kind of pain move through him.
Leo had no reason to help a stranger. He had risked being discovered by dangerous men, crossed miles of city streets, and waited near a cemetery because a captive woman had trusted him with a message.
“You did the right thing,” Hawk said.
“I should’ve come sooner.”
“No. You came.”
One of the Iron Saints approached from the motorcycles. Marcus Hale was sixty-one, gray-haired, and one of the few men who could question Hawk without causing an argument.