"Wayne, is that you?" Tara only got a few steps before she realized that it was not Unser who was in her house. In a split second, her mind processed all the clues she had initially missed. There was the smell of bleach that lingered in the air. The washer Tara had been bugging Jax to replace rattled along with the dryer from the back of the house. The ironing board and iron were out. She was pretty sure about the only reason her husband even knew the name of those items was because of Gemma.
It made sense. When she was stressed her mother-in-law was a compulsive cleaner. Tara had bested her. Got away with the boys. Jax, she was positive had been furious. She still wasn't sure what had changed his mind. All the guys were sure she was turning rat. Well, she was, to get her and the boys away.
The look in Gemma's eyes when she met Tara's frightened the young woman more than any of the other times they had confronted each other. Gemma was forbidding enough on any given day. However, right now the woman looked disconnected, feral and enraged. She instantly knew there would be no arguing, no reasoning. The only out was to get to the door. At least, Eli was there.
Tara quickly spun around and made a dash for the door. "Damn, but that woman moves fast, spiked heels and all," she thought as Gemma closed in. Suddenly, there was a crash from the back of the house, stopping them both where they stood. Tara was near the sink, Gemma only a couple of feet away.
Two young black men dressed in Niner's colors ran from the back door. "There she is." One shouted thrusting his gun towards Tara.
"You're gonna pay for what your old man and his friends did, bitch." They opened fire.
It was probably the stress of the last few days, or overload from dealing with Gemma. For whatever reason, Tara froze in place. She heard a voice scream her name, followed by an arm wrapping across her chest forcing her to the ground behind the breakfast bar. Tara hurt her bad hand when she landed, but she supposed it was better than the alternative.
"I think that was Padilla's old lady. She goes down, too." One of the men sneered. The sounds of the guns were getting louder, which meant the shooters were getting closer. The sound of splintering wood echoed through the house.
Tara tried to look around. She couldn't see anything with Gemma's hair falling in her face. Before she could process the fact that it was actually her mother-in-law who saved her ass, Eli Roosevelt and Juice broke through the front door.
The din gunfire reached a quick crescendo then there was a deafening silence. Tara was yanked to her feet and shoved towards Juice and Roosevelt. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the two men's bodies lying on the floor of her living room before she was shoved outside.
"Anymore in there?" asked Roosevelt.
Gemma shook her head no.
"Niner's? What the hell was that about?" Juice holstered his gun.
"Don't know. They were after Tara. Said it was for something Jax did." Gemma just kept shaking her head back and forth.
"Hey, they weren't just after me. They just didn't know you were going to be there. But you were on their list too." Tara dropped her face into her hands realizing how petulant she just sounded.
"What could've Jax done to Marks?" Juice whispered to Gemma.
Gemma leaned close to Juice, "I don't think he knew. These two were too clumsy. Marks wouldn't do something like this if he had a major point to get across to someone."
"Cane, I need a crime scene unit at the Teller house, two shot and killed." Roosevelt called the station, "Jax Teller house."
She might have been offended by the fact that Eli didn't need to give an address. However, the adrenaline was wearing off, and she was feeling a dreadful burning pain in her stomach. She pressed her hands up against the hole in ripped into her abdomen. The blood flowed through her fingers at an alarming rate.
"I'm sorry. I didn't move fast enough." Tears welled up in Tara's eyes looking at the blood on her shirt."