Their conversations were not always cheerful. Sometimes one of them remembered something Hank had said and needed to talk about it, and sometimes nobody wanted to mention the past at all. Leo learned to let them decide. He had once believed that rescuing them meant taking away every fear they carried. Now he understood that caring for someone could mean listening without trying to repair a life as if it were a machine.
Rosa offered him a chance to establish a specialist division within her business when he turned twenty-two. It would focus on vintage motorcycle restoration, custom work, and training apprentices interested in older engines. She presented the proposal as a business opportunity rather than charity, with a share of profits, responsibilities for quality control, and a clear agreement about who owned what. Leo read it carefully, took it to a lawyer for review, and asked Rosa three questions she had hoped he would ask.
"Good," she said when he returned with his notes. "You're ready to be a partner when you're willing to ask what happens if things go wrong." Leo looked at the pages spread across her desk. "I spent most of my childhood waiting for things to go wrong," he admitted. Rosa nodded. "Then you know the value of putting protections in writing before everybody needs them."
They reached an agreement and began preparing the rear portion of the shop for the new division. Leo chose a name that made Rosa smile: Gallagher Custom Works. The sign would carry his father's surname, the word that had survived every placement file and every time Hank tried to call him something else. When the sign maker asked whether he wanted a dramatic logo, Leo shook his head. He wanted simple lettering, clear enough for a customer to read from the road.
In the months before opening, Leo cleaned and organized the work area himself. He painted shelves, built a place for the manuals, and set aside a small desk where apprentices could write notes without balancing their paperwork on engine cases. He hung Patrick's photograph above the bench, not as a shrine but as a reminder of where the work had begun. Beneath it he installed a shallow display case containing the silver Zippo, which Sully had once given him in the desert. The lighter remained closed, its skull engraving polished smooth by years of handling.
Sully saw the case before opening day and stood in front of it without speaking. Leo watched him for a moment. "You want it back?" he asked. Sully shook his head.
"It stopped being mine when I gave it to you." Leo considered that. "I don't think it stopped meaning something to you." Sully touched the edge of the display case. "It means more now."