Phillip’s goons practically blew the guy’s office the shreds. As Nash hid behind his desk, he wondered if any of them even considered that their boss was inside, slumped over on his chair, completely vulnerable to all that gunfire. Hell, he wondered if they even cared. Hands over his head, the lone Phoenix waited, unable to fight fire with fire in this instance, and he suddenly realized that perhaps Phillip hadn’t given the men in the room guns on the off chance that Nash might overpower them.
Well…
No. Phillip wasn’t that great at foresight. He was a shrewd man, and if he tried this takeover in a town with a less established motorcycle club, maybe he would have been even more successful. As it were, his biggest mistake was trying to steal Blackwoods from the Steel Phoenixes. He could hire as many guys as he wanted, but this was a Phoenix town, from the tip-top north end luxury homes to the southern-most rundown industrial warehouses, the Steel Phoenixes ran this town.
And they proved that. He was only left to cower for two minutes or so, the walls and furniture and windows shredded by gunfire, until his reinforcements arrived—and they definitely weren’t the cops.
No, the cops had put a wire on him. Somehow they’d known something big was about to go down that night, and they’d followed Nash with the intention of getting in on the action. Not wanting to spend the night in jail, Nash floated the idea of him wearing a wire, and they could listen and gather evidence, enough to strike Phillip Crest down where he stood, preferably while he was cutting some bullshit ribbon in the name of the university that employed him.
However, as soon as Nash left police custody, all his drugs intact, he contacted his crew back at the bar via text, and minutes later one of their few tech geniuses hacked the feed so that they could hear every word he said, not the police. Nash then fled the scene before the cops realized something was wrong, knowing he’d have to deal with them some other day but preferring that it wasn’t today. Not when so many important things hung in the balance—namely ensuring Eliza’s safety and making the Phoenix killer pay.
So as he drove, he fed the Phoenixes directions to the warehouse, acting like the fucking Pied Piper to all the city’s rats. His boys followed him, lowliest delivery runner to the highest rider. All but Micky, he hoped, who’d be back at the bar making sure nothing happened to Eliza.
And making sure Eliza didn’t do anything stupid like try to follow the herd.
Nash waited patiently as new gunfire joined the fight, a chorus of men’s voices screaming at one another rising over the din. Slowly but surely, the roar settled to just a din, then to nothing, as the firefight no doubt moved from the hall in front of Phillip’s office to the rest of the facilities. For all the fuck-ups Phillip had made, choosing this location wasn’t one of them. The abandoned warehouse sat on sprawling grounds. It was a fenced in area, easy for him to control, and there were plenty of places to have an epic fight, guns blazing, before sunrise tomorrow morning.
As he padded toward the door, stepping over chunks of wood and wall insulation, Nash hoped the fight wouldn’t last until sunrise. The Phoenixes were efficient killers, but he had no idea how many creeps Phillip had skulking around the property.
He held his breath as he waited by what was left of the office door, peering through the holes as best he could. Smoke spiraled up from fallen bodies, or maybe it was the dust whirling down from the ceiling. Whatever it was, the hall outside looked like a total fucking warzone. He clenched his teeth at the sight of a fallen Phoenix, but for the most part, the bodies covering the ground were unfamiliar to him.
It would have been easy just to burst out and join the fight, but Nash knew better. He had to be cautious, to be patient. He waited almost too long, until his body hummed with adrenaline and his legs trembled with anticipation. Finally, Nash pushed the door open, careful to get around the creaks and groans, and slipped into the hall.
Blood marred the floor, a sea of red staining the off-white linoleum. Once, when he first started in this business, the sight of so much blood would have made his stomach turn. Sure, he’d always been a big guy—tough exterior and all that—but graphic violence like that, in person, was enough to make anyone queasy. Now it was something he could ignore, something he could breeze by and pretend it wasn’t there. The smell was something he’d never be able to get past, the metallic scent thick and lingering, the kind that clung in his nose for days after something like this.
Not that he had been to many bloodbaths by any means. This was a special occasion.
He moved cautiously through the scattered bodies, careful not to step on anyone who might just be stunned or knocked unconscious. When he saw the opportunity, he grabbed a gun out of one of the dead men’s hands, checked for ammo, then stuffed another handgun into the back of his pants, just in case. The echoes of gunfire rang on somewhere else in the building, which told Nash that this fight was far from over.
Were these all Phillip’s men? Despite the blood and bullet holes, their faces were unrecognizable. Probably not local boys, as he’d suspected earlier, and it seemed a shame they had to come to Blackwoods just to die.
Shaking his head, Nash hurried off to join the fight, not wanting to leave his brothers to deal with Phillip Crest’s hired help alone. He found the firefight shortly after, with the Phoenixes trying to retake the higher ground as strangers climbed up metal stairwells and shot down at them from walkways above. Gun loaded and safety off, Nash found his place and picked off all the men that he could, knowing in that moment it was an “us or them” sort of situation.
Of course, there would be trouble for them in the future. The Steel Phoenixes planned to clean up the mess they left at the warehouse, but all the evidence against Phillip was going to the police. They couldn’t, however, leave any traces that they were the ones who killed the hired help. It was going to be a big cleanup tomorrow, but it’d be worth it. Once they had Phillip in their custody, it would all be worth it.
No one could ever predict a shootout. Men scattered. Sometimes Nash was shooting with fellow Phoenixes, and other times he was flying solo, darting out of danger just in the nick of time. Bullets whizzed by his ears, the hum of metal flying by a sound he could never shake.
But eventually the fighting died down. The gunfire grew more intermittent, and everywhere Nash went, he was finding more familiar faces than not, his Phoenixes in better spirits each time he ran into them. Eventually, all that was left was to clear the building, then it was time to get out for a while, to collect their wounded and dead so that the people who actually cleaned crime scenes like these could get to work.
He was crossing the open lot outside when he finally saw some faces he knew better than most. Hammond. Toby. Most of the old boys who had been around the longest, the ones who had threatened to kick his ass to the curb if he didn’t find out who was making Phoenixes drop like flies. They’d come out to help him in his time of need. They’d come to exact revenge. They’d come for retribution for their fallen brothers. He couldn’t help but smile.
Blood splattered his white t-shirt, some of it his own, some of it from other men. His body ached. He desperately needed a shower, and he couldn’t wait until he was stripped down and clean, climbing into bed beside Eliza and curling up beside her warm supple body. The sky was finally clear, dark and full of twinkling stars. A gentle breeze brushed his face. In the distance, his boys waved at him, and he waved back, a wave of exhaustion passing over his body.
And then he heard it—but it was too late to do anything. A shot. A single, solitary shot fired from a rifle probably. The whiz of the bullet, its hiss almost too loud. It pierced his shoulder before he had a chance to run, to turn, to do anything. Pain radiated from one side to the other, blooming across his chest and surging down his arms. And the pain wasn’t the only thing to travel down.
He’d never been shot before, but as he crumpled to the ground, he had an image at the back of his mind of him rising victoriously, like a phoenix from the fucking ashes, and making the most epic headshot known to man. That’s what happened in the movies, but not in real life, apparently. Because when he went down, he stayed down, and suddenly the once quiet night was alive again with chaotic gunfire and shouting.
Only Nash drifted farther and farther away from it with each passing second, until suddenly his world was as black as the night sky.
Black, but starless.