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Her name was Madison Parker, and she was six years old.
Inside the diner, Jordan Blake sat alone in a cracked vinyl booth, untouched pie cooling in front of him. He hadn’t meant to stop there; it was just a place with lights on when the road got quiet. But his eyes kept drifting back to the window, to the reflection of a child pressed into fear.
Jordan was pushing forty, broad-shouldered, his arms inked with years of stories he rarely told. The leather vest hanging on the back of his chair bore the unmistakable markings of the Hells Angels, a symbol that made people assume things about him long before he opened his mouth. Most of the time, he let them. It was easier than explaining.
Not in body, but in soul. A child frozen in place by someone who confused control with love. A kid who learned early that silence could be safer than truth. Jordan had survived that world by running hard and fast into another one, finding brotherhood where rules were simple and loyalty meant something. He had buried the rest so deep he pretended it was gone.
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