Chapter 2: The Name on the Patch
The men in black suits didn't rush.
They didn't shout.
They simply spread out across the lot in a wide, practiced arc and waited — like they'd done this a hundred times before.
Rex's smirk was completely gone now.
"Who are you?" he said, his voice dropping to something smaller than anyone in that diner had heard from him all afternoon.
Mr.
Hale didn't answer immediately.
He reached across the table, picked up a dry paper napkin, and slowly wiped the spilled coffee from the edge of the wood.
Then he folded the napkin once, set it down, and looked up.
"You're wearing a silver hawk," he said quietly.
"Third chapter.
Pacific coast."
Rex went very still.
"That chapter was dissolved," Mr.
Hale continued, his voice flat and even.
"By me.
Eleven years ago.
For reasons I don't need to repeat."
One of the bikers near the back took a slow step toward the door.
The nearest suit outside turned his head.
Just his head.
The biker stopped moving.
Rex's jaw tightened.
"You've got no authority here, old man."
Mr.
Hale tilted his head slightly, the way a man does when he hears something almost too small to bother correcting.
"Rex," he said.
"Sit down."
It wasn't a request.
It wasn't a threat.
It was something worse — the kind of voice that already knows what comes next.
Rex's hand was shaking around the wooden cane he was still holding.
He hadn't noticed until now.
Neither had anyone else.
May you like
But Mr.
Hale had been watching that hand the entire time.
