Phoenix (Untamed Sons MC: Birmingham Chapter #5)

Chapter 1

ONE

NIC

With great power comes a fucking headache. I rub slow circles over my temple, pushing through the fog clouding my thoughts and stare down at the desk.

I’m buried under old paperwork, dead burners, and deals scribbled on the back of beer mats, trying to make sense of it all. Half of it is so cryptic I don’t understand what it means. The other half I wish I didn’t.

I scrub a hand down my face, my eyes tired and gritty, my neck and back aching. I knew things were bad under our former president. I just didn’t know it was this bad.

The businesses I thought we were still running or collecting from were sold up and handed to our enemies months ago. There’s evidence of handshakes happening behind closed doors, contracts that damaged our chapter, yet I never heard a whisper about any of them.

If Crank was still breathing, I’d fucking kill him.

It’ll take months—maybe years—to fix this shit. In the days since I took over, I’ve barely scratched the surface. Every day—every hour—brings something new.

Something worse.

My kutte feels heavy on my shoulders tonight.

Ravage gave me the president’s patch, but already I feel like I’m failing.

I trace my fingers over the stitching as I lean back in the chair.

Chloe nearly died because of Blade. King, the only one who survived Crank’s massacre, is still in the hospital.

Too many dead and too many ghosts of a past I can’t escape.

Fucking Crank.

The low rumble of voices drifts through the closed door. Usually, it would be familiar in a comforting way. Right now, it feels like pressure. Especially when everything is burning.

But phoenixes rise from the ashes.

Maybe that’s what my mother had in mind when she named me that. She always did have a flair for drama.

I blow out a breath and stand.

When I step into the common room, my brothers are near the bar, talking. Tightness stretches around their eyes, worry they try to keep buried but can’t. I hate it. They shouldn’t have to carry this burden too.

On the other side, the old ladies sit around a table they’ve claimed as theirs. They’re laughing, but it’s brittle. Their shoulders creep up when they think no one’s looking and they keep the kids closer than they need to be.

That sits in my gut like a barb. They should feel safe here.

Mace lifts his chin as I approach. He scans me with narrowed eyes, like he’s searching for damage beneath my kutte. That’s why I made him my VP. He sees everything, even the shit I don’t want him to.

I lift my gaze to Diesel, then Dash before finally stopping on Riot. My brothers. Men I trust with my life. Men who walked through fire with me.

“Give me an update.”

“Riley’s watchin’,” Riot says. “Still no movement.”

Yesterday, when I was clearing out Crank’s shit, I found an address scrawled on a scrap of paper. I almost tossed it, but something stopped me. The prospect has been staking the place out, but nothing’s come in and nothing’s come out. That bothers me more than it should.

“Could still be somethin’,” I muse.

“Or it could be nothin’, Nic.” Mace sighs. “Crank was a fuckin’ mess. We don’t need to chase down every ghost he left behind.”

He’s right. He always is, but I just can’t shake the feeling there’s something there.

I thought peace would come once I took the gavel, but we fell into a different kind of war: repair and restoration. I don’t want to keep dragging them through landmines, and I don’t like going into things blind, but this fucking building?

It feels like a loose end, and I can’t move on until I see with my own eyes what’s there.

And why Crank was interested in it.

I turn to Diesel. “Nothin’ has come up in your searches?”

Diesel shakes his head. He’s tapping his fingers against his thigh, the way he does when he’s feeling too much or thinking too hard.

“That’s fucking suspicious, right?” Dash glances between us.

He’s recovered after Grub tried to kill him, but we’ve all noticed he moves a little slower than he did. We’re all a little bruised around the edges these days.

“About as suss as it gets.” Riot leans back against the bar, casual and easy, but I see the tension ripple through him.

We’ve stopped bleeding, but wounds like this run deep. They leave scars even after they heal.

“How the fuck is there no paper trail?”

And that’s one of the reasons I can’t let go of this. There should be something tied to the building: a name, an owner—even if it’s buried in shells or offshore accounts.

But there’s nothing.

“Okay.” I drag the word out slowly, building a plan. “I’m done watchin’. I wanna know what Crank was doin’ there.”

“Probably nothing good,” Dash mutters.

“Probably nothin’ at all,” Riot adds. “He was fuckin’ useless.”

I cast a glance at each of them before I speak. “We go in pairs. One clean sweep and then we’re out. No fuckin’ heroics if we find anythin’, yeah? Ain’t tellin’ any of your old ladies bad news today.”

Riding usually settles me, but tension is buzzing under my skin like a live wire. I can’t explain why, but I just can’t shake the feeling I missed something.

By the time we park our bikes a street over from the address, I’m desperate to get inside and see what is pricking my instincts.

I spot the club’s van the moment we round the street. It’s parked at the side of the road, barely noticeable against the backdrop of cars and trucks.

Riley spots us through the window and quickly lifts his boots off the dashboard before scrambling out. He’s young, but a good kid. I’d have given him his full patch by now, but I need to recruit and I can’t do that yet. Not while everyone is still on edge and trust is thin.

“Still no movement.” Riley updates me before I ask for it. “No cars or vans in or out. No people either.”

There’s that flicker of unease again. The surrounding streets are filled with businesses and warehouses, but only this one is abandoned?

Mace lifts a brow. He doesn’t need to say anything. I know he’s thinking the same as me.

What the hell is this place?

“Let’s move out,” I say.

As we approach the building, my fingers drift toward the gun hanging at my belt. Can’t be too careful and I’m not taking risks. Not today. Not with my brothers at my back.

Seeing this place up close does nothing to soothe my paranoia.

In fact, it makes it worse. Everything about it feels wrong.

The brickwork is crumbling in places, and the windows are boarded up, the lower sections tagged.

I step over the weeds that have swamped the ground in front of the door, growing between the mortar and tiny cracks in the structure.

It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for a long time, which only adds more fucking questions.

I keep an eye behind us as Riot cuts through the heavy chains securing the door. It creaks loudly in the silence when he pushes it open, and everyone freezes for a second.

I squint into the dark room, the only light slicing through the gaps around the window boards.

Metal shelves stand in rows, back to back, probably once filled with goods, but now they’re covered in a layer of dust. Old crates and rotted boxes are stacked randomly, forgotten or left behind when the building was cleared out.

Nothing screams danger. Nothing tells me why Crank was interested enough in an abandoned fucking building to write the address down, either.

We clear the floor quickly but carefully. There’s nothing of note here. No underground operation, no storage for illegal shit. It’s just an empty fucking building.

“What the hell is this place?” Riot mutters as we come together in the middle of the main room.

Good fucking question.

“There’s a door back here.”

How the hell did we miss that? I move fast and find Diesel standing in front of a wall. Half hidden behind a shelving unit he’s dragged out is a metal door.

Riot shoves Mace toward it, smirking. “Ladies first.”

Mace pushes him back. It’s good to see him unclench, even if it is only at his foster brother. Everyone’s been so on edge lately. “You’re SAA. This is your job, fuckface.”

My lips twitch, but before they start bickering about it, I reach for the handle and slowly turn it. It clicks, but doesn’t open. Diesel already has his lock picks out before I can say his name.

When he drops to one knee in front of it, Dash crosses his arms over his chest, a grin playing on his lips. “That how you proposed to Makenna?”

Diesel doesn’t look away from what he’s doing, efficient as always. “Didn’t need to propose,” he rumbles.

That catches everyone’s attention, including mine.

Until recently, no one knew Diesel had a wife.

He kept her secret for years out of fear she’d get dragged into club shit.

That lie was the main reason he and Riot wanted to kill each other.

Trust between them hasn’t completely rebuilt yet, but at least they can sit across the table without laying into each other now.

Dash studies him like he’s trying to work out if he’s joking. Diesel doesn’t blink, but Dash does. “You didn’t propose to your wife?”

“Didn’t need to,” Diesel deadpans, twisting the pick. “She knew she was mine.”

“So, what? You just threw her over your shoulder and said ‘wife’?”

Diesel exhales loudly, clearly irritated by this conversation. “Yes.”

“Shit, I can never tell if you’re jokin’ or not.” Riot leans back against the shelf behind him, but moves off it when it wobbles.

“I’m not.”

Riot opens his mouth, but I cut him off before he can start.

“Let him work,” I say. “You fuckers can bond over proposals later.”

There’s a satisfying click and then Diesel stands slowly, tucking the lock picks back into the leather case.

“That was too easy,” he complains.

I ignore Riot’s snort and step up to the door, carefully pushing it open. I brace, ready for an attack, but there’s just a set of stairs in front of me that disappear down into the shadows.

Riot peers into the darkness. “Well, that’s fuckin’ terrifying.”

He’s not wrong. It’s creepy as hell.