"What's with the jacket, old man?" Jax sneered, leaning back in the booth and crossing his thick arms over his leather vest. "You trying to impress somebody?"
His three companions chuckled, a low, ugly sound that made Clara look up from her papers with a sudden, tense expression.
"Look at him," Jax continued, his voice rising as he looked around the empty diner to ensure he had an audience. "He looks like he just walked out of a museum."
My father stood perfectly still, the coffee pot held at a perfect angle, his face hardening into a mask of pure, disciplined dignity.
"This jacket represents thirty years of service to this country, young man," my father said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, quiet register.
"Oh, is that right?" Jax mocked, sliding out of the booth and standing up to his full height, which put him eye-to-eye with my father.
He stepped close, invading my father's personal space, the smell of cheap beer and wet leather rolling off him in waves.
"You think you're tough just because you're wearing that?" Jax asked, vunging his thick finger forward to poke hard against my father's chest, right over the medals.
My father didn't back down an inch; he looked directly into Jax's eyes, his own eyes burning with a fire that decades of peace hadn't extinguished.
"Look at the medals before you run your mouth," my father said, each word a heavy hammer blow. "I earned every one of these. And so did my son."
Jax's eyes drifted down to the silver cross of the Silver Star, its surface catching the dim, yellowed light of the diner's hanging fixtures.
"Wait, these are real?" Jax muttered, a nasty, opportunistic smile spreading across his face as he reached out and pinched the silver medal between his dirty fingers.
"Do not touch that," my father warned, his voice cracking slightly with a mixture of rage and physical vulnerability.
With a sudden, violent jerk, Jax yanked his hand back, the sound of tearing wool ripping through the quiet diner like a gunshot.
The Silver Star was gone from my father's chest, leaving behind a jagged, ruined tear in the green fabric and a small thread of red silk hanging loose.
Clara gasped loudly, her hand flyng to her mouth, her eyes wide with absolute horror at the sheer, unprovoked sacrilege of the act.
Jax held the medal up, letting it dangle from its red, white, and blue ribbon, his laughter echoing off the tin ceiling of the diner.
"Where's all that confidence now, old man?" Jax laughed, looking at my father's stunned, pale face with absolute, mocking triumph.
I didn't think; my body simply reacted, the years of military training overriding any sense of caution as I pushed through the kitchen doors.
I am six-foot-four, two hundred and forty pounds of dense muscle, and as I stepped into the light of the diner, my shadow fell over Jax like a shroud.
I wore a black hoodie, the sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms corded with veins, and my face was entirely devoid of emotion—the cold, dead calm of a soldier about to engage.
I stepped up right beside my father, my presence alone causing the laughter of the three seated bikers to instantly die in their throats.