Tommy still grabs my vest when he sees me. But now it’s greeting, not desperation. He checks that all the patches are still there, that Mike’s memorial patch is still in place, that the eagle still watches over everything.
“Eagle keeps promises,” he says every single time.
“Always, little brother,” I tell him. “Always.”
Somewhere, Thunder Mike is riding with us still. In the laugh of his seven-year-old son who found his voice. In the mother who found a family she didn’t know existed. In the brotherhood that discovered a purpose none of us expected.
Daddy’s home.
He’s home in every rumble of our engines, every mile we ride, every promise we keep.
That’s the code. That’s what it means to be a brother.
Eagle keeps promises.
Always.