Ronan tried again, gentler now. “Who’s your dad?”
The girl’s throat moved as she swallowed. Then she said, “He told me if I ever found the men at the diner, I should find the raven first.”
The mug slipped from Elias’s hand and shattered on the floor.
No one even flinched at the sound.
Because only one man had ever called Ronan’s tattoo the raven.
Jonah.
Ronan stood so fast the booth screeched backward. “Who told you that?”
The little girl met his eyes without blinking.
“My dad,” she whispered. Then, with heartbreaking certainty, she added, “Jonah Creed.”
The diner fell utterly silent.
Mabel clapped a hand over her mouth.
Luis looked at Ronan and saw something he had never seen there before: fear.
It was Dean who finally found his voice. “That’s not possible.”
The child reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, softened by handling. She held it out to Ronan with both hands.
“He said to bring this if I found you.”
Ronan took it like it might explode.
Inside was a worn photograph—six younger men grinning in front of their motorcycles, leather bright, faces alive with foolish confidence. The Iron Lanterns in their prime.
On the back, in Jonah’s unmistakable slanted handwriting, were seven words:
If she’s here, I couldn’t come myself.
Ronan’s knees nearly gave out.