A/N: Yay! Finally an update!
I need to pose a question to you readers. I started A Gentlemen's Coup with the intent of essentially telling two stories together, the first being how the Sons got into selling Oxy and the second being the coup but now I think that may just be a bit too much for one tale. I'm worried that everything going on is going to bog down the story and be confusing. So my question for you is this: Should I keep telling two stories at once? Should I only tell the present story (about the Coup)? Should I only tell the past story (about how they got the Oxy) or this - talk about the coup now and perhaps do flashbacks occasionally to show the action and just explain the information needed to understand. I'm open to any other ideas, too. I look forward to hearing your responses!
Also, I've grown unhappy with the early chapters of this story so over the next week or so I will be going back through all previous chapters and vamping them up.
Enjoy ;)
Chapter 7: Viva la Anarchy!
One Year Ago
As Frankie pours her third serving of merlot into a carefully tilted Waterford wineglass, her head languidly bobs along to her favourite Charlie Parker album. The crystal wineglass is large, able to hold almost sixteen ounces, and Frankie allows the waterfall of 1996 vintage merlot cascade from bottle to glass until it reaches the brim before bringing it up right. Her rose gold watch is on her left wrist, over the long sleeves of her dress which extend well past her knuckles, and as Frankie brings the chalice up to her lips to take a sip her hazel eyes are drawn to the beautiful time-telling piece of jewelry. The wristwatch is what is now being referred to as a 'boyfriend' watch, meaning that while being a woman's watch the face plate is the same size as a men's watch. The entire watch is rose gold – a beautiful shade that is a little more gold than copper coloured with a white backing to the face and diamonds accentuating the numbers and all along the bezel. It is a watch that her father had specially made for her as a present for graduating nursing school when she was twenty-one. There's an engraving on the back, a simple yet eloquent statement that Frankie loves. Invoke Your Name, Athena. It was her father's way of telling her to always be wise, strong and courageous. Frankie loves her birth given name. It was her mother's idea to name her Athena for the distinct intention of what her father engraved on her watch. And in many ways, Frankie tries desperately to live up to the ancient Goddess.
But all that is irrelevant; little details that Frankie barely notices or recalls because she's too concerned with the specifics of what her watch is telling her.
It's 7:35.
With a sip of wine that is more of a discrete gulp, Frankie also swallows down the irritation that has gradually been building in her stomach for the past forty-five minutes. In this life she subscribes to, a life operated outside of established laws but bound by respect, time ideals are skewed. If you're early – you're on time. If you're on time – you're late.
And if you're late?
You damn well better be dead or dying.
As much as Frankie may despise her father after refusing to be content with ignorance; as much as she may think he is the devil incarnate ever since she walked in on the immediate aftermath of him murdering four people, Frankie does have to admit that her father does at least one thing well – verywell. And that thing is business, the sort of respectful business all about the benjamins that is a key component in this life. He had a list of ten things that he used as a navigation system for running his syndicate; ten practices and ideals that her father used to practically raise The Family from the dead and turn it into a thriving, highly profitable organization. He called them the ten commandments, ten things requiring strict adhesion at all times in order for not only the family business to flourish but for each individual person to also achieve prosperity. His ten commandments were more of ten morals and considering that Frankie had listened to him recite random commandments when the times called for it since she can remember, she still adheres to all the rules.
Commandment number three is always be early for a meeting.
It rightly pisses her the fuck off that Happy's President has yet to show. His tardiness is a personal insult; insinuating that he holds little to no respect for her. Now, she's not expecting a high level of respect from him but she at least assumed that considering he knows exactly who she is that he would at least have enough respect to show up on time – especially since she spent the better part of her afternoon making her famous lasagna from scratch, using an old recipe of her great-grandmother's long since committed to memory.
Frankie takes another big gulp of wine poorly disguised as a long sip as walks back into the living room to resume her reading.
However, even when Frankie curls up into her extremely comfortable suede sofa with her wine in one hand and Cat'sCradle in the other she finds herself even more anxious and irritated, unable to read more than three sentences. With an exaggerated exhale to try and release some of her internal pressure, Frankie throws the old yellowed book down onto the sofa – dramatically so like a three-year-old only split seconds away from throwing a full-blown temper tantrum.
"Call down, Athena." She tells herself – much to her surprise. She has not referred to herself as Athena for quite some time and uttering the familiar yet entirely alien name momentarily hiccups her burning anger.
But it's just not quite long enough to count.
Frankie wonders if the President's increasing tardiness is because she is a woman. In thislife women are just not taken seriously. It's an unfortunate truth found in most male dominated fields that is exponentially worse in the criminal realm. Women just aren't viewed as threatening or powerful enough to even register as little blips on the radar of importance. She never had to deal with this aspect back in Boston. Everyone knew she was Angelo DiGanggi's daughter and that instantly gave her enough credit to be taken seriously. So far in California she has been on her own, pirating the raw materials and stamping the black market pills by herself – something that she is hoping to change with this meeting.
She has yet to face the adversity of being born without a penis in the ultimate boys club. It is most definitely something she does not want to experience any longer, this feeling of being inadequate and undeserving of respect just because she is a woman – even though this reasoning is completely an assumption based on the lack of the Sons of Anarchy in her home.
So much for the twenty-first century and equality, Frankie bitterly thinks to herself as she takes yet another gulp of wine she doesn't bother to disguise.
Unable to bear fermenting in her own irritating woes any longer, Frankie opts to primp for what has to be the fifth time tonight instead of spending another moment untruthfully wishing she were born with a Y-chromosome.
Her 1920's apartment is spacious, well-lit and elegantly decorated with an antiqued Parisian flair – from the chandelier reminiscent lamps on either side of the couch to the three foot-by- four foot mirror in an antique gold frame on the mantle of her bricked-up fireplace painted a crisp white that she uses to primp. The mirror is usually just a little too high place for Frankie to use it in a form such as this – you know, actuallyseeing all of herself, but she wears her favourite Jimmy Choo's – a pair of black patent leather Mary-Jane style heels with a wide strap held together by a thin string tied into a perfect bow with ankle-breaking six inch stilettos. The added height places her just over the six-foot mark resulting in Frankie's reflection being more than adequately visible to herself. Her choice of footwear for the evening was a highly conscious decision. She had been expecting somevagina-induced adversity from the President of an all-male 1% MC and using the statistic that the average American male is between 5'10 and 5'11 she wanted to be over six feet. It's a subliminal psychological message for a man to literally have to look up to a woman, making her appear more prominent and powerful.
Every microscopic aspect of her appearance was carefully planned for tonight in order to invoke a specific image – a modern day Athena. She wears a mossy green sweater dress with a slouchy turtle neck and long sleeves that extend past her knuckles. The curve-hugging dress falls just above her knees, giving way to her dark grey textured tights, the kind that while covering ones legs like tights are supposed to have wide openings between the thick knitted wave patterns. Her olive toned flesh peaks through the gaps in the synthetic wool blend tights. For jewelry she has kept it simple: her rose-gold watch, 1-karat diamond stud earrings in her first hole of four in each ear – the other ear piercings free of jewelry, and a tiffany's-style key necklace littered with diamonds chips down the key's spine which sparkle and one .75 karat diamond within each of the three circles on the tab of the key.
Every bit of her appearance was carefully planned for this evening – she must have put on seven different outfits before deciding on the one she now wears, which ironically was the very first one she picked out. Sometimes she listens to her gut on the first go, other times she doesn't…
Frankie craves to convey someone who is feminine but powerful – a sophisticated woman who sits behind a maple wood desk in her large corner office of a fortune-500 company, degrees from Harvard on the wall behind her and the title of CEO after her name engraved on the door.
Thankfully, that is exactly how she looks – powerful, strong, wise and very 21st-century Athena. Her mahogany brown hair is pulled back into a sleek pony-tail placed high up on the back of her head with ends brushing against the area between her shoulder blades. With her hair up it completely exposes her face, showcasing her undeniably remarkable bone structure: skyscraper cheek bones dusted with just the right amount of Nars Orgasm blush – a beautiful peachy pink shade with a golden shimmer. Her jaw is a strong inwardly angled line with a rounded chin that brushes against the top of her dress – the soft cashmere fabric slightly tickling the underside of her chin. Her nose is long with a small bump on her bridge that gradually gives to a subtle upward curvature of the tip – from her left nostril a small diamond stud sparkles as it catches the light from the five Parisian inspired lamps throughout her living room. Aside from her ears, the spare hole in her nose is the only piercing she has. She got it pierced the day she turned eighteen and it is something Frankie takes great pleasure in. She perpetually keeps a small diamond stud in the piercing, muting the mutilation of her nostril so much that the only time it is noticeable is instances such as this where it catches the ambient lighting. Not wanting to look like a cheap floosy, Frankie did not apply much make-up to her round hazel eyes – just some chocolaty brown eyeliner smudged along her upper lids with a dusting of light gold-toned eye shadow on her lids and a slightly darker shade into her creases. Frankie is extremely grateful that she is without a doubt one of those people who are blessed with good looks because she does not need much make-up – most of the time she can go without and look just as photograph ready as she does now. While she may mostly take after her father, with the same facial structure and eye colour, it is little things like her good skin and her ability to retain an optimal weight of 140 pounds for her 5'7 frame no matter what she does to her body, things that Frankie inherited from her Lebanese mother – a woman who in her youth was an international model. Her mother was a breathtakingly gorgeous woman with insanely thick hair the colour of ink and skin of caramel who always smelt of fresh flowers.
To starve off any further tear-inducing thoughts of her mother, Frankie polishes off her glass of wine before finishing her primping with a quick coat of dark red lipstick across her full lips – a luscious wine colour reminiscent of the best-tasting Bordeaux. Blotting the excess with a napkin, Frankie decides, yet again, that she is ready and looking fantastic as ever.
It is not just tonight that has made Frankie crave a high aesthetic value. She is not shallow about looks but admittedly has an insatiable need to always look her best. It's the sort of thinking meant to hide any flaws for a full twenty-four hours of the day – the sort of idea that if she looks like a million dollars on the outside, maybe she won't feel like a worthless piece of shit on the inside.
But for tonight in specific, Frankie needs to look perfect in order to psychologically disguise anything else she may be lacking. You know – like a penis. Or the ability to lie.
Bitterly, Frankie reminds herself of the age-old saying that life isn't fair. And it's true - no one ever said life is fair or even that it makes any sense.
The fact that she is a woman is only the first and most obvious deficiency Frankie has for the life. The second major deficit being that she is a horrible liar and always has been. Whenever she lies her voice gets all tense and high-pitched and her blood pressure rises, making her heart beat damn near deafening to herself – something that Frankie constantly fears other people can hear.
Now, normally having no deceptive skills to speak of would be considered an endearing trait. But not to Frankie. She fucking hates the fact that she can't even say she bought whole-milk instead of two-percent. She views her inability to create a decent verbal forgery as not only a weakness but her biggest flaw – a flaw that can prove to be fatal in a world where lying is a necessity of survival.
Although, much in the likeness that when you lose one sense your others become hyper-active, Frankie's inability to lie has forced her to become an expert at avoidance, withholding and pretending. She can side-step a question better than any politician. She can speak the truth without speaking the whole truth, allowing wrong assumptions and inferences to be made. She can project a cocky so-what? attitude better than anyone.
It's ironic that for how horrible of a liar she is, she's really fucking good at relaying subliminal fraudulences. Her appearance is a lie; her name is a lie; her life is lie.
Frankie takes another look at her watch, practically mortified that it is almost eight p.m.
At this point, she is beginning to doubt that Happy actually extended her business dinner invitation to his President.
Happy… There is something about him undeniably familiar even though Frankie denied it during their first meeting. Maybe it's just the fact the he himself reminds her so much of the men working under her father whom she knew back in Boston. Happy has the same sort of innate, inexplicable danger radiating off of everything about him - his posture, his words and most importantly, his almost-black eyes that seem ripped straight from a Steven King novel which scream evil. Happy has the same unshakeable stoic foundation she grew up around. It is the qualities obvious in her stranger that are an unwritten requirement of holding a position within the DiGanggi syndicate.
Yet as Frankie checks the temperature of the lasagna still cooling on top of the stove with a gentle finger pad, she is wholly aware of the nagging feeling in her stomach which tells her that explanation, the "he just has one of those faces" sort of explanation, does not fully cover the scope of her stranger's familiarity.
Frankie sighs, finding that the lasagna has cooled to an inedible degree. She quickly pops it back in the oven to bring it back up to a suitable level – her stomach growling loudly in protest.
But she's going to wait just a little longer. She does not want to give up on the Sons of Anarchy just yet.
Frankie retakes her seat on the suede couch on the south wall of her apartment – a wall that is nothing more than a solid row of square window panes free of trim or streak. She sits on one bent leg while the other swings slightly as she rests her head against the backing of her sofa. She allows her eyes to drift closed, forcing herself to push her irritation and anxiety into a deeper corner of her mind as she focuses on Charlie Parker.
Frankie tries to listen to the sounds of legendary Charlie Parker smoothly crackling over her record player that fills her apartment to the brim with warm jazz – creating the perfect atmosphere to allow her to relax a little. Falling in love with Bird's playing all over again, Frankie lets her mind wander as wine-induced warmth begins to grow in her cheeks.
Simply allowing her mind to venture out and follow whatever path it just so happens to, Frankie quickly finds herself contemplating just how she got to this place in her life. She never wanted to know what her father did. She never wanted to produce black market narcotics. She never wanted to be in the position that she is – sitting on her couch, waiting for a bunch of bikers to arrive so that she can convince them to help her illegal business thrive. Yet here she is, at a complete loss as to how her life deviated from every expectation she had – much like the unexplained phenomenon where you catch yourself in your drive-way at the end of the day but do not fully remember the drive home. One thing in her life just kept leading to another, leaving an incoherent splattering of stops along the map of her life that she can barely understand.
How did she go from being a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed college graduate with an prestigious RN position lined up a Mass General to being a drug dealer completely alienated from her close-knitted family through her own unforgivable actions with a very low-paying RN position at Saint Jude's?
Frankie doesn't have a coherent answer. Everything just went so wrong so fast that it left her dizzy – still trying to regain solid footing all these years and all these miles later.
She knows for certain that she blackmailed a Purdue pharmaceutical chemist into giving her the formula after she became addicted to the pills and decided she didn't want to pay sixty-dollars for a one-time high anymore; she knows for certain that she snitched on her father because she thought it was the right thing to do – and she knows for certain that she was proven horribly wrong; she knows for certain that she was in the witness protection program and that she fled after some idiotically merciful hitman let her go; she knows for certain that she fled to California, to a town named Charming so small that not even people in California know it exists; she knows for certain that she started selling her brand of OxyContin that was previously only for personal consumption in order to make enough money to live on; she knows for certain that people in California can't get enough of her little pills; she knows for certain that she saved a stranger one night at an abandoned warehouse; she knows for certain that she is anxiously awaiting the President of an outlaw MC to arrive at her house so she can hopefully convince him to help her deal with the growth of her one-woman operation.
She knows all of that – she knows each and every step she took but she just can't believe that this is where she has wound up.
She can't believe that at twenty-three years old she already feels like she has lived a lifetime that she can't remember, like she is stricken with Alzheimer's.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Being so caught up in her own mind, the loud rapping of knuckles against her door prove to be jarring enough to startle Frankie who jumps up nearly a foot off of the couch.
Placing a calming hand over the side of her face, Frankie takes in a series of deep breaths to settle her frantic nerves.
Considering that the sofa cushions are deep and overstuffed, almost swallowing Frankie whole, she has to wiggle herself forward to get up – shakily so.
Drinking and six-inch heels don't mix. Frankie says a long list of obscenities under her breath, damning herself for getting buzzed when she needs a completely clear head for this introductory meeting.
Frankie pauses with on hand on the knob, the other olive toned hand doing a quick smoothing sweep over her tightly pulled back hair to tame any unlikely frizz that has accumulated since her last grooming session.
She swings open the door, forcing a warm smile on her face, "I'm glad you could make it."
In front of her stand four men – one of them Happy, though he stands at the far back of the small group, almost invisible amidst the three males in Frankie's immediate vicinity. The tall man directly in front of her is, at least as defined by his black leather vest, President of the Sons of Anarchy. He is a menacing height far taller than Frankie even in her heels with a rock-solid build – not muscular, but as firm and unforgiving as a stone wall. He has a long and wide wrinkled face, with white stubble extending all the way from under his nose to his throat and a wide bulbous nose that juts out. He has coiffed curly grey hair and intense eyes which look down at her that are the exact colour of blue steel – wrinkled around the edges from something Frankie doesn't believe to be smiling. Even though this man in front of her and her father could not look less alike, he is just as intimidating as Frankie remembers Angelo being.
Instantly staring upon the group, Frankie realizes that this motley motorcycle gang is no joke – they are the real one-percent deal.
To the President's right is a man far younger by comparison. This man is in his early thirties at the most with short dirty blond hair and a scratchy goatee covering his sharply angled chin. At perfect eye-leval with her, Frankie is instantly drawn to his eyes that are a slightly darker shade of blue than the President's - a blue-grey colour speckled with bits of even darker blue-grey and though they still have an ominous retention to their out-look, his soul windows seem far kinder than the Presidents. This man, who is identified as the Vice President by his cut, is without a doubt favorable to the President in Frankie's split-second first-impression. He even has a bit of a sense for fashion, wearing a pair bright white Adidas micropacers. This little detail about him also tells Frankie a great deal about the Sons of Anarchy. There were only 500 pairs of those particular sneakers made and each pair sells for over $500.
The Sons of Anarchy are definitely no joke. They must have power and influence as well as a vast network of connections and trades – just the sort of group Frankie needs.
To the President's left is a muscular man whose cut identifies him as the clubs Sargent-At-Arms. He is just slightly taller than she with too many rings on his fingers with heavily bitten nails. He has curly black hair pushed away from his face in such a way that it makes his slowly receding hairline more noticeable. It is unkempt and unwashed – visible greasy tracks in the dark tresses from him running his fingers through it, at a length just long enough to cover his ears. He has a long nose, obviously crooked from being broken once and not set properly to heal straight. His eyes which are the immediately noticed following her curiosity of whether or not it is possible to re-break his nose to make it straight are a shocking, abnormally icy blue – so icy in fact that Frankie shivers.
Blue. Blue. Blue. They all have blue eyes except for Happy. Except for her stranger whose eyes still seem more pupil than iris. She finds him at the back of the group and as she locks eyes with him for the quickest of lightning fast moments, she also finds a certain sense of calm. Though they do not know each other well, the little familiarity from their two meetings along with the undeniable unknown familiarity puts Frankie at ease.
All of this is noticed in the matter of milli-seconds and as Frankie sizes up the four bikers, they use the opportunity to do the same and that much is obvious. So obvious that any bit of ease Happy's presence granted her is instantly stolen from her.
"I'm Frankie, and you are – " Frankie sticks her right hand out for the President to shake it, purposefully leaving her sentence without an ending so he can fill in the blanks.
"I'm Clay, this here is Jax," He gestures to the blond Vice President, "Tig," A waving hand directed at the black haired man who has had his baby blues roaming all over Frankie's body since she first opened the door, "And you already know Haps." There is something unsaid from Clay – something that is spoken as his cold eyes lock with hers. A grateful look that silently thanks her for saving Happy's life, an indebted look that tells Frankie she is perhaps in their good graces even though Happy seemed rather adamant that his club detests people who deal drugs in their town.
Frankie gives Happy a small smile of his own and a slight nod of recognition as her greeting. He doesn't return it and Frankie doesn't spend the time to be concerned with that notion.
Frankie takes a step to the side, swinging the door wide open and then with a sweeping arm she gestures for everyone to enter. They filter in, instantly greeted by the warm smells of delicious food and apple spice scented candles burning away.
Being polite and strictly business as Frankie closes the door behind them she says, "Make yourselves at home while I put the food out, then we can discuss everything."
She leaves the men in her living room, walking through the wide archway into the kitchen to retrieve the lasagna and fresh baked bread.
Looking all around her home, "What exactly is it you want to discuss?" Clay asks.
"Business, Clay." Frankie says simply, her back turned as she bends down to pull the heavy casserole dish containing her famously delicious lasagna from the stove. Tig rises on his tip-toes and leans to one side to see into the kitchen – to see Frankie's ass as she bends down.
He smirks, turning to Happy with a mouth open and readying to voice his sexual interest. However, Happy stands beside him with his tattooed arms crossed over his chest and the dry look on his face coupled with the singular, jerky shake of his head forces Tig's mouth to snap closed and a pout to appear.
Clay walks into the kitchen, his heavy-soled boots thud-thud-thudding across the hardwood floors of the living room. He takes to leaning against a counter-top just as Frankie darts through a second archway into the kitchen to the dining room where she carefully places the hot dish on a thermal mat to protect her black wood dining table from scorching.
Clay waits for her to come back into the kitchen before speaking – and takes a few steps closer when she does so that only she can hear what he has to say.
"What exactly is your business?" Clay asks, both of his eyebrows raised high and his voice free of both hostility and glee but full of intrigue.
Frankie places all her weight onto one hip which pops out slightly as she crosses her arms under her chest. She looks him over once again – her eyes briefly flashing out into the living room where Jax, Tig and Happy figure out how to turn off her record player. Apparently, they're not fans of jazz.
Bastards.
Frankie looks back to Clay, meeting his scrutinizing stare. She can sense that Clay is conniving and there is something unsaid about the majority opinions over drug dealing in Charming – after all, from what Happy tells her, they already know what she does, so Clay asking an essentially rhetorical question leaves Frankie with the vaguest notion of confusion, "I'm in the family business." She doesn't want to give him a full, telling answer. At least not right now. All she wants right now is to eat – something that her stomach quickly partakes in vocalizing.
Hearing Frankie's clear insinuation Clay's eyebrow dart up again but only for the quickest of moments and Frankie swears she can see a smirk buried somewhere under all those Shar-Pei reminiscent wrinkles.
The dinner Frankie spent so long cooking was eaten.
Actually, it was practically inhaled it was eaten so fast – but that gives Frankie a deep satisfaction. When people enjoy her cooking it never fails to give her a subtle joy that she rarely ever vocalizes. Tig, who has eaten four servings, has unbuttoned his black pants and as he leans back in his chair with one arm bent over the chair's backing, he pats his fully belly that spills over lap – a crooked, wholly satisfied smile on his face. Happy is in a similar situation to Tig – only instead of reveling in how absolutely stuffed he is, he finds the feeling a little uncomfortable. It was so delicious that he shoveled it into his mouth as fast as he could, leaving him with a severe case of eaters remorse.
Jax is the only one who did not eat too much. He sits comfortably in one of the black wood chairs with white and black damask cushions, sipping on the after-dinner coffee that Frankie has just finished pouring for everyone
"What you've got to understand, Athena-" Clay starts, but is quickly cut off by Frankie.
"It's Frankie."
Clay's face twitches as he tries not to show how much it bothers him to be interrupted – something that as President he is widely unaccustomed to, "What you've got to understand, Frankie, is that we don't allow drugs in our town – much less sell them."
Frankie's signature coy smirk is curving up the edge of her lips, nodding along while nonchalantly tracing the rim of her half-full wineglass, "I understand. You have a lovely small town here and you want to preserve its innocence," Frankie has to make a conscious effort not to laugh at the irony of what she just said, "But here's what I propose," She takes a pause for dramatic effect, filling the silence by finishing off her wine, "I won't sell in Charming, but for a percentage of my business you allow me to work around town and let me… safely reside in your precious little dot on the map. We can consider those payments… rent and if your club can help me secure my raw materials and ensure safe delivery there will be a very nice bonus."
She seems so cute and sly; so confident and carefree about this sit-down.
Clay's eyebrow quirks with intrigue, "How much money are we talking about?"
Frankie smiles, but it's held back – she tries not to be so cocky or express just how pleased she is with his response, "Well, the specifics can be negotiated on but I think a smart businessman such as yourself realizes how great of a business opportunity this is – people cannot get enough Oxy and considering that I manufacture myself it's almost entirely profit. I make so much money right now that if I stay on this path and retire in ten years my great-grand-children with have trust funds set up for their great-grand-children."
That is clearly a surprising statement; varying degrees of wide-eyes and raised eyebrows look back at her.
Frankie takes the cloth napkin from her lap, placing the white wad beside her plate as she stands, "If you'll excuse me for a minute, please." Frankie says politely. She walks out of the dining room, off into the back where her bedroom is, her expensive heels click-clacking against the wood floors the entire time. She goes to retrieve the payment she had prepared earlier in the night – a little cotton paper motivation to get the Sons on her side.
The men in the dining room use Frankie's brief absence to their advantage.
Clay takes a brief moment to share a look with each of the men around him individually, "Thoughts?" he asks.
While everyone has something to say it is Tig who is the first to speak, practically falling over himself to voice just how good of a thing he thinks this is – he is no fool, he knows the kind of coin people like Frankie bring in, "If all we're doing is letting her work outside of Charming without us giving her any shit, I say we do it. I mean, we did it for the Mayans and that's worked well so far."
Jax nods along silently, looking down at his plate – agreeing but not fully willing to admit that he thinks this is a good idea, too. Especially considering how wrong he thinks it is to be muleing for the cartel.
No one else has time to say anything because Frankie is immediately back from her bedroom with a sealed manila envelope griped by two hands, clearly stuffed with bank notes from the obvious lines created by the bulging quantity.
She slides back into her seat across from Clay, the small smirk on her dark red lips now officially a permanent installment of her face. She holds the envelope up, "In this envelope is roughly five-percent of what I make in a month – it's what you could expect to see if you agree to our deal… For now we can consider this my," she rolls her hands around in the thin air, trying to bring forth the correct wording for what she's offering them – which in reality is nothing more than a simple bribe, "neighborhood membership fee." She finally decides on. A cute little scrunching of her nose completes her coy outlook as she hands the envelope over to Clay. With everyone else attentively watching Clay, he flashes a look between Frankie and the heavy amount of concealed money once before pulling up on the tab simply folded in on itself versus being glued shut for easy access.
He pulls out the money – visibly surprised to find seven stacks of banded money, 100's, 50's and 20's all lumped together. He flips through it with his thumb, trying to get a judge of how much there is.
"There's about forty-thousand dollars there." Frankie says. All eyes are now upon her.
They didn't need to hear anything else.
Current Day
Frankie walks down the narrow enclosed hallway inside Brown's storage facility, the fingers of her right hand perpetually brushing against the wall. She keeps her finger tips against the wall to give herself a spatial sense of awareness – something she is rather lacking in her still intoxicated state. She sways as she walks, the sound of her high-heeled footsteps echoing through the hallway sounding mismatched and jagged, nothing like the classy click-clack of how her steps normally sound. There is a key ring with only one key hooked by the index finger of her left hand –a small brass toned key with a round tab and no visible markings etched into its surface. The key hooked by her finger is only one of two that have the correct jagged cuttings which correspond to the padlock on unit 762.
As she walks, the lighting of completely exposed fluorescent tubes flicker over her head to a hectic symphony – dancing to hectic, un-timed music. But what does she expect? This whole facility is run by a rather seedy looking Armenian man with greasy black hair and a stomach so large compared to the rest of his body that he waddles as opposed to walking. A man who always smells like burnt meat and body odor and prefers to have all payments in cash probably doesn't have adequate or even working lighting as a top priority. Frankie is fine with Mr. Petrosian's lack of care because for what this place lacks in aesthetics it far surpasses expectations in anonymity and safety – Frankie's only pragmatic priorities for the service this place provides.
Any important documents, plus one or two copies of each, are stored within her six-by-eight foot room with concrete walls and no windows. One of her father's ten commandments of how to conduct illicit business is to alwaysknow everythingabout anyone you're involved with – a commandment that by association means knowing the perfect way to black mail someone.
Commandment number 1: Everyone is your enemy – even if you think they're friendly. Always know everything about your enemy. Always have something to hold over their heads.
Frankie does not want to black-mail the Sons of Anarchy, however. Extortion would do no good in this scenario. If she threatens to black-mail them she's only more of a target…
Frankie tries not to remember the funeral. She tries not to let why that woman died come to the front of her mind. Poor, poor Old Lady got herself in over her head just because she knew too much. The club has become so morally bankrupt that knowledge can now constitute the murder of one of their own.
At least to Clay.
It is he that is the source of all evil and Frankie prays that her plan works – that with Clay shown for what he is the club will not be tolerant of such pure, unadulterated malice. She is going to play the last card she has, placing all her chips on the hope that the Sons will remove Clay from position at which point the Sons can return to their glory days.
Back to when they were still the good guys.
And if this doesn't work?
Well… that's why Frankie told Jackie where her storage locker was so that if this doesn't work and she winds up murdered like she inevitably will, maybe the police can make something stick; it's her contingency plan.
Frankie is not as close to the club as she was. No matter how bad Happy may not want to claim her life there will be no questioning Clay's orders the Sons take her as a rat – as a threat, instead of someone whose trying to correct the wrongs she helped them commit and fix their wayward moral compasses.
As Frankie continues to walk along to the hectic flashing of the overhead lights she truly starts to wonder why Happy didn't kill her two years ago in Gadeston.
Did he know that she would leave and never speak of that night again – to anyone?Was he just hired as a scare tactic instead of an executioner?
Frankie thinks it is the latter. Aside from the fact her father is a monster, he was actually a good father. He was a devoted family man who cut up bodies in his basement and ran a ruthless organized crime syndicate in Boston's North Shore.
It would be much more his style to just scare her. Frankie does have a sliver of a doubt that her intuition is wrong - that he'd kill his own daughter, but it is barely enough of a feeling to even register. Plus – her father does have connections to SAMBOS, the Boston charter of the Sons of Anarchy and he has been known to trade work for product. The sort of deal where you literally trade someone's life for drugs or guns – for the value that it would cost to have someone straight-up hired. And, from what Frankie understands, two years ago Happy would have been a Nomad.
Frankie's father reaching out to SAMBOS to have someone scare the shit out of her is what feels right to her when she thinks about the sequence of events. Frankie wasn't exactly low-key with her OxyContin operation towards the end. If you followed the drugs, you could follow her and her father would know that if he did anyhomework at all. There have been no more late-night intruders or dead vermin mailed her way.
Some kids are thankful to their fathers for getting them a new car; Frankie's grateful that her dad just had someone break into her house, hold a knife to her throat and scare the shit out of her instead of kill her.
About halfway to her destination, Frankie stops in her track, staring down at the ground as she tries to remember how she got here.
She blinks slowly, trying to divine an answer at least.
She hopes she didn't drive – but after a moment of considering all possible routes of action she couldhave taken that driving was her most likely mode of transportation.
"Oh my fuckin' god." She mumbles to herself, the hand not braced against the wall covering her face, trying to cover how humiliatingly embarrassed she feels knowing that she is this drunk and she drove – so drunk that she can't even remember a car ride that happened five minutes ago. For the past few weeks she has been drinking way too much, yet again. Knowing she could never completely give up all alcohol – not with her deep admiration for the finest vintages, Frankie moderated herself to never more than three glasses of wine in a sitting with a strict no-can-do policy for hard liquor.
It kept her from doing stupid things like this – putting lives not her own at risk.
Remembering another very familiar situation has brought her to Brown's, Frankie takes in a deep breath – silently making a promise to whatever God there may that she is not going to go back to how she was; she vows to change yet again. Last time it took Frankie inadvertently killing seventy-three people to realize she was doing something wrong – that drinking and snorting anything she wanted along with an illicit business only ends in deaths. She won't be that person she was again.
And that is exactly the sort of motivation that sparks the fire in her belly.
Or it could be all the wine.
She is shit-faced, after all.
Frankie pushes on, still having to rely on the wall to figure out which one of the three she sees is the right one.
The spins are a bitch – another reason why Frankie stopped drinking. There is nothing worse in the world than the feeling that you're that little ball on the roulette wheel. That poor, poor little ball. Frankie feels for it, she truly does.
As Frankie approaches her door and fumbles to get the key correctly into the padlock, though, she can't help but be wholly aware of just how lethal knowledge of the Sons keeps proving to be. For fuck's sake - they kill their own for revealing knowledge on this matter. Frankie questions her sanity as she yanks up on the heavy door, the jarring sound of clanging metal bouncing around the close quarters so loud that it rings about in her head like church bells. If the Sons kill their own for even threatening to bring the information Frankie has into daylight – for digging up the one skeleton Clay wants buried, they – Happy, will surely have no problem putting a bullet in her skull like he was one tiny curling motion of his index finger away from the day before yesterday.
And the twisting feeling in her stomach telling her to turn around only hardens her resolve to dissolve. Their moral depravity has reached new lows that even Frankie had not seen within her family's syndicate – something Frankie is regrettably partially responsible for, which is why simply blackmailing the Sons of Anarchy into forgetting about her OxyContin recipe will not suffice. No, just simply making them back off from this one matter is far too little far too late. What the club needs is a shift in mentality.
It needs a coup.
And Frankie knows just how to start a revolution…
Sucking in one corner of her mouth, Frankie gazes upon the room, her large hazel eyes struggling to adjust amidst the chaotically flickering lights bolted to the ceiling, Frankie realizes that this just might take longer than originally thought.
There are forty-three boxes crammed in the tiny room with no windows that smells like dust. Some of the boxes have nothing but copies of paperwork from other boxes in them, and nothing is organized. They're just stacked wherever she put them down. Each box looking just as brown and just as square as the last.
Labeling all the boxes is just something Frankie never got around to. Getting the boxes organized and labeled has been on her to-do list for a year, though. It's the thought that counts.
Damning her own procrastinating ways and swearing to do something about this mess eventually, Frankie braces one palm against the door-jam for balance as she bends up each leg to remove her heels before she dives into the disorderly mountain of files.
The bright sun has risen high in a sky compromised of many clouds looking like pulled apart cotton – wispy with just the bare hints of a pale blue sky sticking through translucent streaks in the white by the time a sober Frankie emerges from Brown's Storage, a thick dark green folder under her arm and a fierce look of determination on her face as she walks with a classy click-clack across the asphalt to her Charger.
She places the folder on her passenger's seat then lights up a cigarette for no other reason than a calming pat on her own back for successfully sifting through the thousands of pages that she did. Because her Charger is strictly a non-smoking automobile (she spent way too much money fixing the interior just to have some careless cigarette cherry ruin it), Frankie leans against the trunk of her car as she casually smokes on a Marlboro No.27.
Having just spent the past six-hours either kneeling or sitting with her legs crossed as her eyes roamed over each and every inch of ink-and-paper, Frankie looks more than disheveled. Her dress is wrinkled, her ankles have started to swell from being constrained by such towering stiletto heels for too long, her hair is frizzy, falling out of her pony-tail and her make-up is smudged – a rather prominent streak of black running from her left eye at a downward curve towards her chin that she has yet to notice. She must look like a hooker because while she stands there smoking, minding her own business and praying for a coffee to magically appear in her hand, Mr. Petrosian comes out from the office – or rather, he waddles out from the tiny cubicle-esque office. A gust of wind picks up, catching his horrendous comb-over normally held to his head with two whole cans of hairspray in the breeze so that the long, stiff portion sticks straight up on his head like a shark's fin.
Frankie watches him from the corner of his eye, curious as to why he's walking over to her – standing by the only other car in the parking lot aside from a 1978 Cadillac four spaces away from Frankie's black Charger that is presumably his.
As soon as Mr. Petrosian nears Frankie, he waves a chubby arm at her and smiles – showing crooked yellowed teeth.
Frankie tries not to grimace and reveal just how nauseating he actually smells, especially with one arm raised. It's like she's in a locker room for the entire NBA and someone just burnt a steak to a blackened chip.
"Hey there baby girl," He wheezes, out of breath from walking a mere fifty feet – the slimy smile never leaving his face, "How much for your time?" He asks.
"I'm not a hooker." Frankie says dryly, favoring to be laconic in times like this, as she takes a drag.
"No, no. Of course not – you are escort, very nice." He winks.
One of Frankie's high-arched eyebrow cock high, dangerous as the cocking of a gun as she stares at him solely from the corner of her hazel eyes – refusing to look him straight-on.
With her jaw clenched tight, desperately trying not to snap at this man because her patience is in short supply after being in a room smaller than her closer for half the night, "I'm not an escort."
Yet Mr. Petrosian, the fat waddling penguin with a God awful combover doesn't seem to get it, "Whatever you say, baby – How much for one hour?" He asks, reaching out a fat hand with chubby little finger being strangled by too many gold rings – so much so that his fingers are damn near plum in colour.
Quickly, before he can lay one god damn finger on her, Frankie jerks her right knee up, connecting the hard joint directly with his gonads with as much force as she can muster. He lets out a loud 'oomph' as the air is forced from his lungs when he doubles over. He is able to remain standing, clutching to his aching loins, for only a few moments before he collapses onto the pavement. He tries to say something, cussing at her in broken Armenian as he curls on his side against the scalding hot black top, both hands cupped over his aching genitals.
Cigarette bobbing between two clamped lips caked with the remainders of last night's dark berry lipstick, Frankie looks down to the man with a faint shaking of her head – much in the way normally accompanied by an eye roll as a condescending mother asks her child Are you really that stupid?
"You're wicked fucking creepy." Frankie mumbles down at him, mostly talking to herself because he couldn't possibly hear her over the harsh words he stutters to say. She takes one last drag from her No.27 then throws it down at the pavement – not bothering to stub out the smoldering ember with nothing to catch flame aside from perhaps Mr. Petrosian's highly flammable comb-over. She slides into the driver's seat, eyes immediately drawn to the file the second she opens the door - Mr. Petrosian's nasty-sounding words he manages to shout through the pain becoming part of the background noise just like the far away call of birds while she takes another moment to consider what she's about to do.
How one of the founding members of the Sons died was never really any of her business but she's making it her business because she knows doing so is the one thing that will reveal Clay for the scumbag he is. Frankie knows this is the only way for the Sons to see him high on a malevolent pedestal just like she does; she knows the only way to get the collective minds of the Sons away from the paydays Oxy brings about is to do this – she knows this is the only way to resume the Sons of Anarchy to their previous glory, the same glory that they all speak so highly of with a twinkle in their eyes as they reminisce on times not long past but in a different life entirely.
Back when they were still the good guys.
Deciding that the first cigarette just didn't calm her nerves enough, Frankie lights up another one before peeling out of the parking lot and heading towards the outskirts of Charming - heading towards the one person who will listen to her and try to save the club that he once called his, the club he loved but had to part with after they killed his wife when she was about to do exactly what Frankie is about to do.
Jax.
Frankie didn't even think about it until now but Jax does not even know yet that Tara had found out that Clay had John Teller killed. He still thinks her death was a horrible accident… Just like his father.
Frankie second-guesses herself the entire hour-long drive to his house. Not only is she about to tell a man that his father was murdered. Not only is she going to tell him Clay, his step-father, was the one who hired someone to run over JT with a semi.
On top of that already hard-to-handle information, she's also going to be telling a man that his wife, that the mother of his children, didn't die in a drunk-driving accident like he was told.
It is not something she wants to do – not even by the furthest stretch of meaning. She feels nothing but dread and trepidation as she walks up the wide stone pathway to his dark red front door.
Out of all the Sons with anarchy in their spirits and on their tongues, Jax is a close favourite next to rowdy Chibs and her stranger. He's always been so nice to her. Jax is the only one who ever called her by her name – mostly because Doc was always a name meant for his wife. He was always nice to her, showed her nothing but appreciation for all the times she helped them in times of need.
Frankie doesn't want to do this. She would rather have sex with Mr. Petrosian than do this.
However, she knows that she hasto do this. No matter how much she questions the outcome of this particular series of events about to launch, the fact that she has to do this does not escape her. She's not praying for a coup to start just so the Sons don't pester her for Oxy, that action committed by the Sons of Anarchy only proves the one thing that Frankie cannot be witness too. She morally can't sit back and be content with being ignorant - just letting things happen as they fall like she used to… Like she used to with her father. She can't let any more innocent lives be taken; she can't let a tyrant named Clay reign supreme.
This is her chance to do what she never did back in Boston. This is her chance to stand up for what she believes in and change something for the better, save some lives in the process instead of always destroying them.
So, with a heavy heart, Frankie rings the doorbell. Soon after the door opens and Jax appears – none too thrilled that Frankie is standing on his porch before he even had time to have his first cup of coffee.
"What are you doin' here?" Jax asks.
Frankie hands over the file, "I really need to talk to you."
Confusion wrinkling Jax's normally smooth brow, he looks down at the dark green file in his hands stuffed with papers, the semi-organized mess of over fifty pages.
Dark bags under his blue eyes from a long-lasting lack of sleep, Jax looks up at her after inspecting the outside of the file simply marked with 'Sons of Anarchy', "What's this about?" Voice tense, he asks.
Frankie swallows, finding much to her dismay that her throat is extremely dry, "It's about your dad…. and Tara."
Jax looks up from the folder spread out on the table in front of him, licking his dry lips as he tries to remember how to form a cohesive sentence from the incoherent jumble of thoughts floating around in his mind. There are so many reports, so many records with highlighted sections. Frankie spent her time compiling the file to the point of overkill. There is simply too much information in front of him for Jax to process all at once. Each passage highlighted in neon pink began to look exactly the same as the last until Jax wading through the information only halfway through.
His internal struggle for words is palpable, at least to Frankie who sits across the table from him – uncomfortable and anxious as she can't quite find the words to say either. All the information doesn't form a much more cohesive picture for her, even after reading it over at least a dozen times – twice alone before she worked up the nerve to knock on Jax's door this morning.
"What does all this mean?" Jax asks quietly, pulling a cigarette from the open pack between them. He lights it up silently inside cupped hands, leaning back into the chair and slouching low as he stares at the open page in front of him – a photograph taken in 1993 of a bloody tractor-trailer and a mess of blood on the asphalt.
Frankie shifts anxiously in her seat, still not settled into the wooden chair – still trying to not feel like the shittiest person in the world because of the horrible news she's breaking to the man that was once Jax Teller.
He didn't handle loosing Tara well. He just sort of… closed himself off from everyone after the funeral.
Frankie wonders how he's been doing – temporarily distracted from the question at hand by how tired Jax looks. But it's more than Jax just looking tired… he almost looks… sickly, especially under the unnatural lighting in his kitchen. He's thinner and far more gaunt – probably living off a steady diet of ramen noodles.
It takes Jax snapping a finger in front of Frankie's face to bring her crashing back to reality.
"Right.. umm.." she takes in a deep breath, hazel eyes downcast as she figures out the best way to say that Clay killed Jax's father and wife. But she can find no way to sugar coat the truth – there is no pretense grand enough in the entire English language to make this sound any better. She releases the deep breath through pursed lips and looks up, deciding the only course of action to take is brutal honesty. Happy would be so proud.
Frankie runs a finger over the hem of her dress, her fingers reaching for the closest thing to fiddle with now that her nerves are officially starting to get the best of her, "I don't know how to say this, Jax and I wish I didn't have to," the sincerity with which she speaks is only further reinforced by the saddened look on her face and the gentle wavering of her voice, "but Clay needs to go. You know as well as I do how dangerous that man is and he's got your club wrapped around his little finger – they're all doe-eyed little deer just going around blindly following him, doing whatever he wants and that will never bring any good and-"
"Frankie." Jax cuts her off, almost growling as his glare stops her dead in her tracks, just like a deer caught in the headlights.
Wide-eyed and mouth agape, "What?" Frankie asks.
Rubbing his throbbing temple, "Get to the point." Jax urges.
Still looking like a startled doe, Frankie nods, "Well… Clay is responsible for everything. Your father, John Teller, wanted to get out of business with the Irish and stop running guns – Clay couldn't have that, so he hired Alan Percy to drive that truck on the same day that your father was riding up North to make the final arrangements for his trip to Ireland-" Frankie stops, noticing how tightly Jax's jaw is clenched and how white his knuckles have become as he makes a fist with his hand not holding his cigarette, digging the shit out of his palms with his fingernails.
"And Tara, too? Did Clay have Tara killed?" Jax asks. There is no mistaking it, this time his words are low and hostile – the perfect growl.
"All the evidence is there, you just have to look through everything with a microscope and do a little critical thinking. There are cash deposits that showed up in Alan Percy's bank accounts, each of them one to two days after he would receive a call on his home phone from the payphone by the shop. And just before Percy deposited the money, there was always a large sum of money that… disappeared from Clay's finances. He must have not been too concerned with-" Frankie catches the glare from Jax and jumps to her next point, "There's no direct proof that he had Tara killed, it's all circumstantial but there's no denying that there's a connection… I had gone to the clubhouse one day to pick up my bag that I had left there and when I went into the clubhouse it was empty, but I heard Clay talking on the phone in the chapel. He was arguing with someone about a note, saying that he didn't write it and then he said that he couldn't risk this coming out and to make sure that the rat bitch got killed, but to make it look like an accident… and then the next day… " Her words slowly shift into a whisper with each new sign of distress on Jax's face until Frankie is merely mouthing the words she died.
Jax blinks, looking down to the cigarette that has burned down to the filter – short enough to now nip at his fingers. He lets it burn, staring at the smoldering ash intensely, "I'm gonna fucking kill him."
"I want to help."
Jax looks up at Frankie who is visibly shocked by her own admission. She had been thinking it something fierce but had not intended to say anything aloud.
Jax finally snuffs the cigarette – a glistening spot of burnt flesh between his index and middle finger catching the light as he does so. He then leans back into the chair again, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he stares off at the wall behind Frankie for a brief moment as he gets caught up in the rip-tide of his thoughts.
Jax looks at Frankie with purpose, leaning over the table as if to keep their conversation hidden from open ears, "Do you still have any connects? If I need outside help, I can't be going through the club's people."
Frankie sighs an exhale of cloudy tobacco smoke, completely understanding of Jax's position but not wanting to admit there is still one detail of her life she has managed to keep secret, "I have one. But he's a long-shot."
"Who?" Jax asks.
Frankie looks him straight in the eye, nibbling on the very corner of her lip for a very pregnant pause, "My brother." She finally says.
Jax is obviously surprised – not as much as he was when she first showed up at his door, but surprised none-the-less, "Which one?" Jax asks, knowing that she has seven brothers that he knows of – the seven that work for her family business. In truth, Frankie has eight siblings. She's the fifth child and only girl that her father and mother have, though.
"Junior – you might know him as Arkham… It's funny, he got that nickname because everyone thinks he's bat-shit crazy… but he's not. He's actually the smartest person I know." Frankie says fondly – missing her brother a great deal in this current situation. He always knows the exact thing to do and if he were here now, no doubt he would know the exact intricate steps needed to be danced along to in order for everything to work out favorably. God, she misses him. She misses him so much.
She misses everyone.
Going to take a drag from the cigarette clamped loosely between two ringed fingers, Frankie sadly finds that the cigarette has burned itself out – forcing her to relight the piece of FSC annoyance that is a modern cigarette. She gets it lit on her second try, quickly taking a relaxing inhale of full bodied smoke. Her hazel eyes briefly pass over the papers spread out between her and Jax, quickly reminding her of the severity of her current reality. She forces her attention back upon the blond man who has slouched so low in his chair across from her that his nose is almost under the table.
"So," She starts, flicking the ashes from her cigarette over a yellowed glass ashtray, "are we gonna end Clay or what?"
"Clay is gonna die, Frankie – but you don't want anything to do with it."
"Yes I do." She says quickly – a little too quick to be the entire truth. While Frankie may be apprehensive about assassinating Clay her gut is practically screaming at her to do this. It's enough to make her believe her own words over her nagging conscience and more than enough to convince Jax that Frankie is the only friend he's got right now.
It's not like he's a Son anymore. He took his exit bow to look after his boys who desperately needed him when their mother was taken from them, even though Jax didn't know how to handle the sudden death either.
The two share a look from across the round table in Jax's kitchen, silently making a binding contract stronger than any blood oath right then and there to bury Clay come hell or high water.
So far, phase one of Frankie's scheme has been completed. She still has to make a conscious effort to be the devil on his shoulder, nudging Jax back towards the club. It is not enough for Clay to mysteriously wind up in some grave out in the middle of the Mohave – that alone does not mend the club's cracks.
It certainly helps, though.
The Sons of Anarchy need Jax back and it is the second part of Frankie's plan to convince Jax that the club he supposedly walked away from free-and-clear needs him back. Even though Jax fails his fair share of the time, his heart is always in the right place.
Unlike Clay. Whether or not that man even has a heart remains to be a mystery.
Jax can pull back the curtain, reveal the truth to the entire club and then he can retake his rightful place. Something that Frankie is going to make damn sure of.
Apologies for any typos or grammatical errors - with 12,000 words in this chapter I did my best to skim through everything but to be honest I'm just not the best editor unless a red squiggly appears ;)
Please review :)
