Brick’s Anchor (Iron Phoenix MC #4)

Chapter 1 - Brick

The warehouse smells like rust, rot and three different kinds of wrong. I know that smell. I know it the same way I know the weight of my gun or the feel of adrenaline sliding hot through my blood.

It's the smell of a place where bad things happen on purpose.

Where someone decided that human suffering was acceptable, profitable, necessary.

It's the smell of every dark corner I've ever walked into, every hell I've dragged myself through, every reason I became the kind of man who thrives in violence.

I stand in the shadows outside the east entrance, Phoenix on my left, Ranger on my right.

Saint and Diesel are positioned at the south side, waiting for my signal.

The plan is simple because simple plans work and complicated ones get people killed.

I learned that in the military after watching a commanding officer turn a straightforward extraction into a clusterfuck that cost two good men their lives.

Since then, I keep it clean. We breach simultaneously. Neutralize the guards. Extract anyone being held. Burn whatever intelligence we find. Get out before reinforcements arrive.

Echo confirmed four guards inside, rotating shifts.

Two awake, two sleeping. The Vipers think they're safe this far out, think we're still playing defense.

They're wrong. We stopped playing defense the moment they shot up Canvas's shop and put a bullet through my brother's shoulder.

Canvas still can't lift his left arm without wincing, and Eden stays awake watching him breathe like she's terrified he'll stop.

That kind of fear, the kind that comes from watching someone you love bleed, that stays with you.

Tonight, we send a permanent message.

My earpiece crackles. Saint's voice comes through low. "South side ready."

"Copy," I respond, my voice quieter than it has any right to be for a man my size. "Thirty seconds."

Phoenix is right beside me. I don't need to look at him to know he's steady.

Phoenix is always steady. That's why I followed him three years ago when Judge told me there was a club president worth dying for.

I'd never believed in anything enough to die for it before.

The military broke me of that particular delusion when they ordered me to stand down while my friends were trapped and screaming for help.

But Phoenix made me reconsider. Made me think maybe there was still something in this world worth bleeding for.

Ranger adjusts his grip on his weapon. Former military, same as me, different branch.

We don't talk about our service much. Don't need to.

The way a man moves tells you everything about where he's been and what he's seen.

Ranger's seen plenty. I can tell by the way he checks corners, the way his breathing stays even, the way he never flinches at gunfire.

Some things don't need explaining between men like us.

"Twenty," I say into the comm.

My heart rate doesn't spike. It never does. This is what I'm built for. What I've always been built for, even when I was twelve years old fighting my older brothers in our backyard while Mom screamed at us through the kitchen window. She'd yell until her voice went hoarse, but we never stopped.

My oldest brother Jake broke my nose twice before I turned thirteen. My middle brother Ryan gave me the scar across my ribs that I still carry. They're both in prison now, separate facilities, different charges but the same outcome. Violence runs in our blood like a genetic defect.

But I learned to control mine. Learned to channel it, make it useful instead of destructive. Mostly.

"Ten."

I count down in my head. At zero, I move.

The door gives on the second kick. Reinforced but not reinforced enough.

I'm through before the sound finishes echoing, weapon up, scanning.

Phoenix and Ranger flow in behind me like water, covering angles, reading the space.

We move like we've done this a thousand times because we have.

Different buildings, different enemies, same dance.

Two guards in the front area, exactly where Echo said they'd be. One has his back to us, watching something on his phone. Probably porn or a game, something to kill the boredom of guarding human cargo. The other sees us and reaches for his gun.

He's too slow.

I cross the distance in three strides and my fist connects with his jaw before his fingers touch metal.

The impact travels up my arm, familiar and satisfying.

He drops like a stone. The sound of his body hitting concrete brings the other guard around, phone clattering to the floor.

Phoenix has him disarmed and on the ground before he can make a sound worth hearing.

"Clear," I say into the comm.

"South side clear," Saint responds. "Two guards sleeping. Not anymore."

I allow myself a brief grim smile at that. Saint doesn't fuck around when it comes to Vipers. Not since his brother Demon turned the club into everything we’re not.

"Copy. Converging on interior."

The warehouse opens into a larger space.

Metal shelving units stacked with crates I don't want to look inside.

Supplies that probably include weapons, drugs, worse.

Dim overhead lighting that barely cuts the shadows, creating pockets of darkness where anything could hide.

And doors. Three of them along the back wall, each one identical, each one locked from the outside.

My jaw tightens. I know what locked doors mean in a place like this.

Ranger moves to the first door. Phoenix takes the second. I head for the third.

The lock is basic. I could pick it, but I don't have the patience tonight.

Not when there are people locked behind these doors, not when every second we waste is a second closer to reinforcements arriving.

I kick it in instead. The wood splinters around the lock, the door swinging open hard enough to bang against the interior wall.

The room beyond is small. Maybe ten by ten.

A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting harsh shadows.

A thin mattress on the floor that looks like it's been there for years.

A bucket in the corner that makes my stomach turn even though I've seen worse.

It doesn't make this any easier to stomach.

And a girl.

She's sitting on the mattress, back against the wall, knees pulled to her chest. Long brunette hair with bangs that almost hide her eyes. Those eyes lock on me the second I'm through the doorway: wide, terrified and furious in equal measure

She's scared but she's not broken. Not yet.

She moves fast. Faster than I expected. Her hand closes around something beside the mattress, a tin cup, and she throws it at my head with surprising accuracy. If I'd been a half-second slower, it would've clipped my temple.

I catch it.

We stare at each other.

She's chubby. Curvy. Wearing clothes that used to fit better before she was locked in here, before they started starving her.

Her cheeks are round and flushed, her breathing quick and shallow.

There's a bruise on her jaw that's turned yellow-green with age.

Someone hit her hard enough to leave that mark, hard enough to knock her out if the shape of it is any indication.

The violence in my chest redirects, focuses on whoever put it there. I want to find them. I want to make them understand exactly what they've done.

"I'm not a Viper," I say. My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "I'm here to get you out."

Her eyes narrow. "I don't care who you are. I don't need your help."

I look at her state. The bruise. The too-loose clothes. The goddamn bucket in the corner. Then I look back at her face.

"Yeah," I say. "You do."

"No," she says, and her voice is sharp enough to cut. "I really don't. I don't need help from any man. Not you, not them, not anyone. So, you can turn around and walk back out that door."

She's been locked in here for who knows how long, and she's still got enough fight in her to throw things and tell me to fuck off. That takes a kind of strength most people don't have.

"Not happening," I tell her.

She opens her mouth to argue. Behind me, Phoenix's voice carries through the warehouse. "Brick. We've got five more. All women. All in bad shape."

Five more.

My hands curl into fists. The girl on the mattress sees it and flinches, just barely. That tiny movement, that evidence of what they've done to her in here, makes the darkness in me rise up so fast I have to breathe through it.

"Are they okay?" She asks, and her voice changes. Gets smaller. More desperate.

"My brothers are getting them out now," I say. "You're coming with me."

"I told you—"

"I heard you the first time." I take a step forward.

She scrambles back against the wall. I stop.

Force myself to soften my stance, make myself smaller even though there's no making someone my size non-threatening.

"Listen to me. This building is full of Vipers who traffic women.

You're locked in a room with a bucket for a bathroom and a bruise on your face.

I don't give a fuck if you trust me. I don't give a fuck if you like me.

But you're leaving with me right now because in about five minutes, this place is going to be swarming with reinforcements and I'm not leaving you here for them. "

She's thinking. I can see it happening behind her eyes—the calculation, the weighing of terrible options, the choice between bad and worse.

"The other girls," she says finally, "I need to see them. I need to… I've been hearing them for a week. I need to know they're alive."

A week. She's been locked in here for a week.

The violence in me sharpens to a point.

"Fine," I say. "You can see them. But after that, you're coming with me and you're not arguing."

She stares at me for a brief moment. Then, slowly, she unfolds from the mattress and stands. She's shorter than I expected. Comes up to about my chest. The top of her head would fit right under my chin if she stood close enough.

She doesn't stand close. She keeps her distance, watching me like I might attack at any second.

I reach out my hand.

She looks at it.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I say, and it's the closest thing to gentle I've got.

"You're a man," she says. "You're all the same."

"Yeah," I agree. "We probably are. But right now, I'm the man getting you out of here. So, you can hate me later. Take my hand."

She hesitates. I watch the war happen on her face. Then, finally, she reaches out.

Her hand is small in mine. Cold. Shaking just slightly. Her fingers curl around my palm and something in my chest does an unfamiliar movement that I don't understand and don't want.

I pull her toward the door.

"Stay close," I tell her. "Don't let go."

"I can walk by myself."

"I know you can. Don't let go anyway."

We move through the warehouse. Phoenix and Ranger have the other five women clustered near the south entrance. Saint and Diesel are standing guard. All five women look like they've been through hell. Thin. Bruised. Wearing clothes that don't fit right.

The girl beside me makes a sound: half sob, half gasp. Her hand tightens on mine.

“I told you. We're getting all of you out." I say.