Page 90 of Piston
Aurora is still missing, and I have this horrible feeling Axe had something to do with it, just like how the Killers knew I was leaving the club that day Adam was killed.
They were tipped off by a phone on this property, a burner.
Like I said, I don’t trust him.
“Hey, did Steal show up yet?” Meredith asks as she takes a seat next to me.
I shake my head. “No. He told Anchor to take over church, that he had something big to do.”
She nods, then grabs her knitting, wanting to finish the baby blanket.
When she and Holly found out about the baby, they were ecstatic and started planning everything, but now it feels…empty.
Holly died peacefully in her sleep two months ago, the reports stating heart failure.
My eyes go to Canine, staring at his wedding ring, and I swallow hard.
He didn’t want to do it, but she begged. She couldn’t live the way she was anymore, bedbound. With great difficulty, Canine gave her a drink of water with several crushed tablets, one being a sleeping pill.
She fell asleep and never woke again.
Canine had left for a month, needing time, and guilt was eating away at him, but now he comes with me to the cemetery once a week.
He sits with his wife, and I sit with Adam who didn’t deserve to die, and a part of me will always feel guilty. It’s something I have to live with, and visiting his gravesite helps. I like to think he can hear me, hear about the club life, a club he adored.
This club is a family, something I never had growing up, and something I cherish. I wish Adam was still here…and Aurora and Holly.
And as for my father, well, we barely speak. Where Cooper is concerned, Eli sorts it out. It turns out Henry only wanted contact with me because his big boss wanted a family man to take over as COO of the insurance company where he works, and Henry was hoping I’d be more willing to “make up” after a crappy childhood.
He let it slip during an argument, after I demanded to know why he suddenly cared, Christy’s words still in my head. He now works in the basement of the insurance company, sorting paperwork, so at least he got his just desserts. As for Billy, she was charged with child abandonment after Eli found footage of her dumping me on Henry’s doorstep.
She now shares a cell with Christy, who is serving twelve years for what she did to Cooper, and for assaulting me.
Another contraction hits hard, shocking me. I gasp as I check my watch, and my eyes widen.
Crap, four minutes apart….
I clear my throat and call out, “Hey, Bulldozer, can you interrupt church for me?”
The old man looks at me, furrowing his brows when the pain hits again, and I double over, groaning. “Crap, that one hurt.”
The brothers start shouting, panicking, as Bulldozer shouts, “Piston!” and the church door slams open.
Eli’s eyes lock with mine, and I gasp again, gripping the table.
Meredith grabs hold of my hair, pulls it out of my face, and demands, “How long have you been in labor?” as Eli runs my way.
I take a deep breath, give my husband a tight smile, and admit to everyone, “Since Tuesday night….”
Eli’s mouth drops open as Acid curses, “Fuck’s sake, Nat! That was two nights ago!”
I nod. “I know, but they say don’t go to the hospital until your contractions are at least five minutes apart….”
Eli’s jaw ticks, and he asks, “And how far apart are they now?”
I swallow. “They were ten minutes, but suddenly they just?—”
Another one hits, knocking my breath out, Eli catching me by my shoulders before I hit the table. The front door slams open, and we all look as a woman screams, “I swear to God, Steal, I’m going to fucking kill you!”