Page 5 of Dark As Coal

Once I reached the bottom stair, my boot landing on the concrete floor, I tried like hell not to let the vision before me take my mind to a place it didn’t need to go to.

To the woman that I needed to set free.

However, every time I thought about it… I realized I had no control.

Fucking none.

And it made it even worse anytime I saw the love between Pipe and Gabby.

Just like right freaking now.

Which instantly had my mind going back to that day… three years ago.

***

Around the old oak table that held our club insignia, a black dragon, with its wings spread out, its arrow-tipped tail ready to stab anyone that dared him harm, we were all deciding the best way to take out an MC that seemed to grow too big for their britches.

In other words, they acted like they had bigger balls than they actually had.

Normally, church was mandatory, however, even though it was, special circumstances made it possible for you to miss it without being fined a grand.

And the member that was missing was one of our oldest ones.

Piney was in the hospital on dialysis and was desperately needing a kidney.

If I had a heart left in my chest, that was even remotely beating, I would feel something for the old man.

But… well… I just didn’t have that organ anymore.

Or so I thought… and that thought was erased from my brain an hour later after Asher’s phone rang.

We weren’t like other clubs; we didn’t put our cells in a box outside of church.

We had tried that. Once.

And only once.

Some boy thought it would be okay to grab Stella’s bottom when she was in the fifth grade. Stella… well… Stella didn’t put up with that shit.

She had throat-punched the boy.

It wasn’t until two hours later, once church had ended, that he called the school back.

And let me tell you something, that throat punch was the least of what the parents had to worry about.

Asher held up his hand as he took the call.

He let out three words once he listened to the caller, “Well, fuck me.”

We all watched as he listened to whatever else was going on.

Then he stood up from his chair, looked at me, and said, “You’re with me. Need your gut reaction to a person if I’m going to do what Piney just asked of me.”

At my nod, he banged the gavel.

Within minutes, we got on our bikes and then headed to the hospital.

As we were walking in, Asher laid shit out for me in a low tone, “Piney just got out of surgery, and like the fool, he is, when he learned that the person who donated him the kidney had a bad reaction to the anesthesia, he got up from his bed and headed to the person’s room.”

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