Some things you don't outgrow. You just learn to live without them. He put it on. The weight of it settled across his shoulders like an old debt coming due. In the mirror, he saw the ghost of who he'd been.
Iron Wolf. The man who'd made other men afraid. The man who'd lived by rules written in blood and brotherhood. The man he'd walked away from to keep a promise to his dying mother. Jack Morrison looked at his reflection and made a decision.
He wasn't going to destroy the evidence. He wasn't going to choose fear over justice. He wasn't going to be his father. He was going to find the men who'd hurt his mother. He was going to get that locket back.
And he was going to finish what Uncle Franklin had started 50 years ago. Even if it meant becoming Iron Wolf one last time. Harriet Sullivan's flower shop sat on the corner of Grant and 7th Avenue. A small storefront with hand-painted lettering on the window. And flowers spilling out of buckets on the sidewalk.
Despite the heat, everything looked fresh. Loved. Tended by hands that cared. Jack parked the Harley across the street. The engine's rumble died, leaving only the desert wind and the distant sound of traffic.
He sat for a moment gathering himself. Through the shop window, he could see an older woman, 70 at least, moving between the displays with the careful efficiency of someone who'd been doing the same work for decades. When Jack walked in, a bell chimed above the door. Gentle, almost musical. Harriet looked up, saw him, 6'2, leather jacket, silver hair, eyes that had forgotten how to be soft, and didn't flinch.
Mr. Morrison? Not a question. She'd been waiting. Mrs. Sullivan? Miss, actually.
Never married. She set down the flowers she'd been arranging. I saw what happened to your mother. I'm so sorry. Jack nodded once.
Words felt inadequate. I called you because Harriet hesitated. Because I don't trust what I told the police will be enough. And because your mother is a good woman. She comes in here every week, buys flowers for her apartment.
Always says the same thing. A house without flowers is a house without hope. Something in Jack's chest tightened. "Tell me what you saw," he said. Harriet moved to the counter, pulled out a pad of paper covered in her own handwriting.
I was putting out the sidewalk display, 2:45 p.m. Your mother was walking west on Grand Street coming from the Safeway. She had two bags of groceries. Jack could picture it. The same walk she'd made a thousand times. The same street she'd lived on for 40 years.
Three young men approached from behind, Harriet continued. Her voice was steady, but her hands trembled slightly. White. Early 20s. One wearing a black hoodie, one in a denim jacket, one in a red cap.
The one in the hoodie grabbed her purse. She held on, said something I couldn't hear. "What did he do?" The one in the denim jacket pushed her, hard, with both hands. She went down backward, hit the pavement.
Harriet's voice cracked. The sound Jack held up a hand. "It's okay. I understand." They stood in silence for a moment, the weight of what had happened filling the small shop like smoke.
"The police asked if I could identify them," Harriet said. "I told them what I remembered, but I didn't tell them everything." Jack's focus sharpened. "What do you mean?" "After they grabbed the purse and ran, I heard one of them say a name.
The one in the hoodie, the one who grabbed the purse, he said, 'Webb's going to pay good for this.' Webb." The name meant nothing to Jack, but the way Harriet said it carefully, like handling something dangerous, told him it should. "You know that name?" Jack asked. "Everyone in this neighborhood does.
Marcus Webb, he's Harriet chose her words carefully. He's a businessman, owns property, restaurants, a few pawn shops. Very successful. Very connected." "Connected?"
"To people who make problems disappear." Harriet met his eyes. "Your mother's purse, I saw it when they grabbed it. She was carrying a locket. Gold.
Old. Beautiful. I remember because the chain caught the light when they pulled it." Jack's hand moved unconsciously to his jacket pocket where the locket now rested. "I think," Harriet said slowly, "they were after that specifically.
This wasn't random, Mr. Morrison. Your mother was targeted." The flower shop suddenly felt very small, very quiet. Jack pulled out his phone, showed Harriet a photo of the locket. "This one?"
Harriet's eyes widened. "Yes, exactly. How did you" "I found it at her apartment. Hidden." Jack put the phone away.
"Which means what they took was just her purse. Whatever Webb wanted, he didn't get." "Which means he'll come looking," Harriet said quietly. Jack had already reached the same conclusion, but hearing someone else say it out loud made it real. "Do you know where I can find Webb?" he asked.
Harriet wrote an address on a piece of paper. "He owns a bar called El Lobo, East Side near the Mission District. That's where" she paused "that's where people say you can find him most evenings." Jack took the paper. "Thank you, Miss Sullivan, for helping my mother for this."
"Mr. Morrison." Harriet's voice stopped him at the door. "Those three boys, they ran east after it happened, toward the Mission District, toward El Lobo." Jack turned back. "Your mother" Harriet continued "she's one of the kindest people I've ever known.
She doesn't deserve what happened to her." "No." Jack agreed. "She doesn't." "What are you going to do?" Jack looked down at his hands, the same hands that had once broken bones and made men bleed.
The same hands that had spent 32 years rebuilding engines and trying to rebuild a life. "I'm going to get justice for my mother." he said "one way or another." He walked out into the Phoenix heat. The Harley waited like a loyal animal. Jack straddled it, felt the familiar weight between his legs, the balance point he'd known since he was young enough to be stupid.
The address Harriet had given him was 12 miles east, straight into the heart of the Mission District, straight into territory Jack hadn't set foot in for three decades. He started the engine. The sound echoed off the buildings like a declaration of war. As he pulled into traffic, Jack thought about his father's letter, about Uncle Franklin murdered for trying to do the right thing, about his father who had chosen silence to protect his family, about the choice Jack himself had made 32 years ago when his mother lay in a different hospital bed, when he'd promised to walk away from violence and never look back. He'd kept that promise, but promises he'd learned had limits, and those limits ended when someone hurt the people you loved.
The Mission District rose ahead of him like a city within a city. Rougher, harder, the kind of place where questions got you answers or got you killed depending on how you asked. Jack Morrison wasn't worried about which. He'd been Iron Wolf once. He'd made men fear that name.
He'd built a reputation in blood and broken teeth. And while 32 years had passed, while his hair had gone gray, and his hands had learned gentler work, some things didn't fade. Some things just waited. The bar called El Lobo sat on a corner lot surrounded by chain-link fence and gravel parking. Half a dozen motorcycles lined up outside like soldiers at attention.
Not Harleys, Japanese bikes mostly, a few custom jobs. One old Triumph that looked like it had been through a war. Jack didn't park with them. He pulled up across the street, killed the engine, and waited. Inside the bar through windows tinted dark against the sun, shadows moved.