No seizure, no hold on the vehicle. She let out a breath she'd clearly been holding the as long as everyone else. He specifically noted that the repair documentation demonstrated original engineering methodology inconsistent with the patent claims. Precision Dine Technologies' lawyer apparently wasn't thrilled. The garage exploded.
Sal let out a whoop that echoed off the walls. Cutter pumped both fists in the air. Dutch grabbed Marcus by the shoulders, shaking him with the kind of relief that came out looking almost like anger. 30 years of friendship compressed into one fierce, wordless moment. Even Reaper allowed himself a rare genuine grin, clapping Ethan on the back hard enough to nearly knock him forward.
Marcus stood in the middle of all of it, looking at the Black Phantom, sitting silent and whole in the middle of his garage and then at Ethan Carter, who looked less like a triumphant hero and more like a 17-year-old boy who just realized how much weight he'd actually been carrying for the last several hours now that it had finally blessedly lifted off his shoulders. "You did it," Marcus said voice thick. You actually did it. We did it. Ethan corrected quietly.
I couldn't have gotten the documentation together in time without Miss Vasquez. Couldn't have found that gauge without Cutter. Couldn't have gotten anybody to believe me long enough to even start without you. Marcus shook his head slowly. Something in his chest still catching.
Still trying to process the full weight of what had just happened. Kid, I've been riding for 30 years. I've seen a lot of things I didn't think were possible. I have never seen anything like what you did in this garage today.
Denise stepped forward, phone lowered for the first time in hours, her reporter's instincts momentarily giving way to something more human. Marcus, the reward, $5.9 million. Are you going to honor it? The question hung in the air, and for a moment, Marcus looked almost surprised that anyone would need to ask. Of course, I am, he said.
I put that number on the table because I believed whoever solved this deserved it. Ethan didn't just solve it. He solved it under a courthouse deadline with a legal threat hanging over all our heads. And he did it without a single tool that cost more than a few hundred. He looked at Ethan, something profoundly sincere in his weathered face.
That reward was never really about the money to me. It was about proving that the answer was still out there. That this bike wasn't just dead weight in my garage forever. You proved that. Every dollar of that reward is yours.