I’m sixty-three, a biker covered in tattoos and scars, and I’ve seen my share of chaos—Vietnam, bar fights, brothers lost on the highway. But nothing hit me like the look in a six-year-old girl’s eyes that day in the cereal aisle.
“Please, mister,” she whispered, clinging to my vest. “Please pretend you’re my daddy. Don’t let him take me.”
Her name was Addison. Her arms were bruised, hair tangled, and fear radiated off her like heat. And then I saw him—her father—red-faced, sweating, scanning the store like a predator.
“Addison! Get over here right now!” he shouted.
The girl trembled. “That’s my daddy… but he’s not acting like him anymore. He hurt Mommy. There was blood everywhere.”
My blood ran cold.
I stood up. Six-foot-three, two-hundred-fifty pounds, scars from decades of fighting. Let him see the biker patches, the fists that never hesitated to protect.
“Addison,” he barked, “come with me. Now!”
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