"The intelligence officer?"

The young Chinese woman crossed her legs, her boot-clad feet landing with a thud on the table as she looked at her older brother questioningly. She'd assumed he'd called for one of their little brother-sister, 'we really need to catch up' lunches that she was sure he only planned to assuage his conscience at the fact that they had nothing truly in common. Instead, he'd invited her to his home - his beautiful, perfectly maintained bungalow in Burlingame, California, nestled into the ritzy peninsula area of the San Francisco Bay Area - and immediately launched into an outlandish tirade that revolved around business, bikers, and their uncle: Henry Lin.

"You want me to get information out of their intelligence officer?"

"Your feet, meimei," the slightly older man chided, and she rolled her eyes at the fact that he insisted upon using the Chinese term of endearment for a baby sister. She had a name, after all. Denise. Her older brother, Charles, however, practically seemed to have forgotten this fact. Grousing, she removed her feet with a slight stomp and placed them on the ground, resting her elbows on her knees without any regard for the grimace that crossed her brother's face at her lack of feminine graces. "I don't know exactly what's happening, but you and I both know that Father's money is running out. He left us with hardly anything, and pretty soon, you won't get to go to your nice university, live in your nice little condo -"

"Then what?" she hissed.

"Uncle Henry's been keeping his finger on the pulse as far as those SAMCRO thugs - he knows they're up to something, but I'm not sure what," Charles said, crossing his thin arms over his chest. "I thought they were working together -"

"Not everyone who works together is one the same side," Charles snapped. "But there's been talk about trouble among them, and that intelligence officer is the weak link. He's ditched their little town, and his bike's been impounded in Stockton."

Denise sneered slightly as she realized that there had been no intention of asking her to be involved in whatever he was planning. Charles Kwan had already planned his sister's involvement in his schemes to the very last detail. She attended a private university - University of the Pacific - in the city, and had a small, barely lived-in condo unit in the area. Granted, at twenty-four, she felt a little old to still be in college, but she had admittedly given herself permission to explore other interests. She'd worked as a nursing assistant for a good few years to make just enough to fund her hobbies - martial arts and guns, mostly - until her father and grandfather had both died in a car crash. She had adjusted, sure, but Charles seemed to have grown twisted and bitter in the three years since, and now here they were.

"Gege," she said, using the Chinese term of endearment for her older brother, which she only used because she knew it appeased him. "You know I don't want -"

"This is the only way to get into Uncle Henry's good graces," he insisted, reaching over to the bottle of scotch on the table and pouring two glasses, handing one to his sister. "This is for us, meimei. Dad left us with hardly anything, and we can't live on ambition. If we pull this off, I will never drag you into these things ever again."

Denise rolled her eyes in disbelief - she'd heard that one plenty of times before. She flinched slightly, however, when Charles reached out and grabbed both of her hands. He had never been one to be physically affectionate. She looked up at him, and he smiled slightly when he saw that he'd broken her stubbornness - at least, perhaps chipped it a little. "This is for us," he repeated, squeezing her hands again.

For a while, Denise seemed to mull over the idea, studying the expression on her brother's face as he awaited a response from her. She looked down at herself - her baggy jeans, boots, t-shirt, and knuckles wrapped because she had rushed from a quick session with a punching bag - then back at her brother with a disbelieving expression. "Ge, look at me," she insisted, wondering how, with such a lack of feminine wiles, she could ever do what he was asking. She had never been the ideal daughter or granddaughter, and she was hardly in a position to start. Charles, however, seemed to be of a different opinion.

"You can always change you," he said simply, raising his eyebrows in an expression that seemed to suggest Denise had overlooked something so very obvious. "We'll practically deliver him right to you. Right into your lap. You just play innocent. You look the innocent flower -"

"But be the serpent under it," she finished, more than familiar with the quote from Hamlet that Charles always used on her when he got her involved in his mad ideas. "Understood."

Charles grinned, raising his glass and nodding for Denise to follow suit, clinking his glass against hers. The pair of siblings took a drink, and Charles immediately then stood to pluck a stack of papers off of the shelf, holding them out to his sister.

Denise thumbed through and frowned slightly - these were the records of one Juan Carlos Ortiz, or Juice as he was called, and all of his dealings with the law and local hospitals in recent years.

"Learn them and burn them, meimei," Charles instructed. Denise sighed heavily. There was no refusing this now. She forced a tight-lipped smile and tucked the thick stack of papers under her arm, leaving her brother's house.

Charles, however, felt a slight pang of guilt - because this wasn't for the two of them. If Denise knew the truth, that she didn't need to do any of this for her security or her future, that she simply needed to wait until the time was right, she would have never helped him. He needed to keep her dependent upon him and loyal to him, because this was the only way he would ever be able to survive. He sneered slightly at his own thoughts and took one last deep swig from his Scotch.

If he could just win favor from Uncle Henry, even if he had to use his sister to do it, his future would be set.

A/N's

Hello and welcome to my new story! This one is definitely a relatively young one in my mind, and diverges from the storyline of the seventh and final season of Sons of Anarchy. But, since I first started watching, Juice was admittedly one of my favorite characters.

And, for those who picked up on it, yes. Denise and Charles are related to Henry Lin of the Lin Triad, hence their Bay Area roots - I'm a Bay Area native myself, so being able to work some of that in is a big plus for me in this story. For any Game of Thrones fans, I imagine them as having a slightly less creepy version of the early Dany/Viserys dynamic.

In any case, I'm glad you've stumbled across this. It's a new genre for me, definitely, but I hope you'll stick with me! Most of my updates will be relatively raw and un-beta'd because I work full time. But I do try my best to catch my mistakes!

Anyway, until next update, which I hope will be soon - cheers!