Juice knocked his fists together, the leather of his gloves smacking noisily.
"Are you finished?" Clay looked over at the young Son in the darkness of the back of their black van on the way to their destination.
The Iron Horsemen had a large warehouse they used to store drugs, weapons, and women. Tonight, they would finally put an end to their crank and pussy push into Charming, driving the Horsemen out for good. Using the copious amounts of intel given by Candy, the Sons had called in the Nomads and a couple Tacoma boys and were ready to blow the lid off of the warehouse, killing as many Horsemen and as little hookers.
In two identical black vans, the Sons rolled deep. On the point, Jax drove the vehicle with Bobby, Clay, Donut, and Quinn in the back. Behind them, Chibs manned the work van that housed Opie, Lorca, Juice, and Happy.
Leading the caravan were two men astride their respective Dyna, the two Sergeant at Arms, Tig and Kozik.
Parking a half a block away, the Sons exited the vehicles, grabbing both handguns and shotguns, feeling their weight and deciding which would be more efficient. Regrouping in between the vans, Juice felt the tension run through the air like electricity. It was almost unnervingly similar to the night when the Sons of Anarchy busted in on what was supposed to be a member's rally for L.O.A.N. and ended up being a church get-together. Except of course, this time, Jax didn't have any special intel on it or the local law enforcement.
Nodding and becoming more amped up, Juice listened to his president speak and review the plan once more. The stock of a heavy Remington 1170 rested in his armpit, making up for the lack of comfort he felt without his cut. No one wore theirs tonight, riding away from Teller-Morrow cut-less.
"Let's do this quick, clean, get back home in time for round two, ya feel me?" Clay spoke quickly, grabbing a 96A1 Beretta handgun, subtle but powerful. Pulling the slide back to chamber a round, Clay pointed the pistol down and set up two teams.
Juice was headed towards the back with the same group in the van, with the welcome addition of Tig. Having both Tig and Happy in his team made Juice feel a little bit more secure but as they crept around the warehouse, hearing muffled sounds of a party, Juice began to feel the testosterone and adrenaline as they reached their destination. Clay, Jax, and Tig were on point, with Juice and Happy flanking them, Opie and Lorca bringing up the rear. Once in formation, Clay called the other group and began a slow countdown, shutting the phone closed and placing it in his pocket while quietly saying the numbers.
01100101 00100000 01001111 01110010
Leigh had watched Juice ride off in the back of the van, standing near Tara and still making small talk.
"So, you own Caps Lock and Coffee?" She had asked her and Leigh politely nodded, watching the van pull off the Teller-Morrow lot, then looking over at the dark haired woman.
"Word is you're a doctor, yeah?" Leigh asked, knowing full well that she was the most educated of all the Old Ladies, having gone to college after high school and becoming a successful doctor in Chicago and at .
Tara nodded before sweeping her eyes across the now muted lot.
"I guess the party is over, hmm?" She pushed one side of the dark curtain of hair she had behind her ear and ducked her head, "Maybe I'll stop in some time for coffee- see you." Tara quickly extracted herself from the situation and Leigh raised an eyebrow. Huh. Leigh mentally shrugged and quietly returned to her car across the street, thinking as she drove home how interesting that whole situation was. The MC was tight, everyone with their own niche and role to play, even the whores that hung around the clubhouse. Even though it seemed like there was no logically way to have something with a Son without being a part of the club beforehand. Tara was most likely the only exception. Even Opie's girl Lyla (who she had read about but not yet met) had been involved in their legit porn business before being with Opie. That situation slightly perturbed Leigh- she vaguely wondered if- no no, nevermind Leigh thought. Okay so maybe they were extremely attracted to each other in the physical sense, she wouldn't be able to build anything off of that, assuming that he would want to build something off of whatever they had together.
01100101 00100000 01001111 01110010
The doors were busted in, Sons quickly flooding the open floor plan of the warehouse, spotting each other first on the opposite ends as friendly fire, Juice then focused on the majority of the populous.
No bikers and naked chicks, no tough guys with guns and hookers.
Instead, ATF demanded from their position in the center, "Put your weapons down! Now! Now! Down! Throw them here! Get down!" The rush of voices and the shock of surprise hit the Sons like cold water and they could do nothing but comply with their orders and flatten themselves to the ground after throwing away the weapons.
Juice suddenly felt like his body was on fire. No, not prison. Not again. He clenched his fists as ATF agents sprung across the room, using zipties to restrain the suspects. Juice was beginning to retreat into himself, hiding his deep fear of going to prison again. Before their last visit, he never had a real big problem inside, but ever since he was shanked in the yard, Juice hated and feared prison with equal amounts, hiding them deep in his psyche.
"Listen up! I am Agent Collins and you all will be charged with illegal firearms, as I am sure all of your weapons tonight are unregistered and lack serial numbers-"
Before he could continue, Clay shouted from his position on the ground.
"Little petty, ain't it?"
The man swung to look over in Clay's direction, his suit impeccable and dark, perpetually professional.
"Maybe so. But these charges will assist us in attaining a warrant for every property linked to SAMCRO. Excited yet?"
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Okay, now. It had been four days since Leigh had last spoken to Juice and he never responded to her call. Either he hated her guts for something she wasn't aware of, or he was just legit ignoring her. Either way though, Leigh was pretty livid.
She was so pissed on Thursday, she had agreed to let that little garage band from Charming high school play on Saturday, against all logic.
Finally Friday came and Leigh was glad to see the shadow darkening the counter top was Tara.
"Hey girl," Leigh spoke, straightening up from her position leaning on the counter top. An argument could be made that she was a little too friendly but it was nice to see someone who spoke to her outside of Caps Lock. "Anything I can get for you?"
Tara smiled politely but it didn't reach her eyes- "Medium coffee, please. Black, two sugars." Leigh nodded and turned, grabbing a medium paper cup off of a stack and filling it with piping hot java from a fresh pot of coffee. Adding two tablespoons of sugar, she gave it a good stir before popping a lid on it.
"Here you go," Smiling still, but curious why Tara was so tense, Leigh waved off her money. "Don't bother."
"You seem to be holding up...well." Tara finally spoke, ducking her head like she usually did while she attempted to dodge conversation. What? Thought Leigh before realizing that she meant not hearing from Juice. Of course she would know he didn't want to talk to her before Leigh herself knew.
"He told you more than he told me, then." Leigh quickly shifted her friendly demeanor to one drastically more snotty. If Juice was going to ignore her texts then that was fine and dandy but it would be the proper thing to tell Leigh why he didn't want to talk to her anymore. It had been almost a week with no word or contact from the man she got into a heavy make out session with. Okay, whatever. But now Tara, whom she had thought was a kind woman was here to rub it in and taunt her.
Tara's face dropped from it's guarded expression and Leigh saw confusion flicker across her face. "Wait. What?"
Okay cool, play the fool. Leigh knew she might have been over-reacting, but she was pretty angry to start with. Glancing over at her customers, her voice dropped to an angry whisper as she crossed her arms.
"Juice is ignoring me and-" Before Leigh could get into her rant more fully, Tara stopped her with a hand in the air and quick, quiet words.
"Leigh, they got arrested during their run."
Her arms uncrossed and her hand flew up to her mouth. "Oh my god. I didn't realize- I'm so sorry. Jax too? Oh god, what happened? Where are they?" Leigh's voice was in the confidential tone Tara had adopted.
I'm such a fucking jerk. Leigh thought, only an idiot would assume the worst and unintentionally offend her new aquantense. She wanted to hit her head against a wall repeatedly while chanting, 'Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot,'.
"Juice, Jax, all the guys who left Sunday night were picked up. Run gone wrong, I guess," Leigh knew Tara was holding back information, but she also knew that was the way of an MC, outsiders didn't know diddily-squat. Anyway, she'd just look it up later. "They're in jail, the club is trying to get together some bail money." Tara looked almost like she was going to ask Leigh to front some cash but then the question died in her eyes and Leigh was glad for it. She wasn't involved enough to feel the urgency to put up money or property on a merry band of criminals. "I didn't know that no one told you. Juice isn't ignoring you, Leigh." Tara gifted her with a small chuckle before looking serious again.
"I feel like an idiot, now but jesus christ! That's some serious shit." She crossed her arms again, this time without any bitterness towards her companion.
"It's happened before, I don't know if you were here yet but it sucks until they come home." A wracking sigh seemed to rip it's way out of the woman's throat and she took a sip of the coffee. It seemed like she needed someone to talk to but Leigh knew it would be counterproductive: Tara would be to concerned about letting something slip to a new outsider instead of actually letting the theraputic effects of verbally vomiting work.
But then again, it was always nice to offer.
"Hey Tara, if you ever need someone to talk to- unbiased opinion and all- you know where I'm at." Leigh grabbed a card off the counter, writing underneath the bold lettering of Caps Lock and Coffee before offering it to Tara, "That's my cell, give me a ring if you need anything, whether that's someone to listen, bring coffee, or booze." A friendly smile lightly stretched Leigh's lips as she took the card and tucked it into a pocket in her scrubs.
"Thanks, for this," She tapped her pocket before continuing, "and the coffee. You're too good for Juice, you know." Tara smiled back but Leigh could see straight through her. This extremely intelligent woman who was mixed up with an MC was paying Leigh a great compliment by trying to tell her she didn't belong in that scene.
After Tara left, Leigh couldn't help but think the same thing. Maybe she wasn't cut out to date someone in a crew that frequently goes to prison. Of course, she knew that before Tara told her, she was pleasantly surprised how extensive ATF padded their files with information. Oh, the glories of the digital age- and it was all up for her secretive viewing.
Which was exactly what she was doing. Her laptop came to life under her fingertips and she smiled, the cafe hitting it's morning lull when everyone went to work and were waiting patiently for lunch. Thankfully, school was also in session so the building was quiet and vacated.
"Let's see what we have here." Leigh spoke to herself, setting up her firewalls and a multitude of proxies, some even coded by her own hand. Confident in her security, she opened up Firefox, and just for kicks, started private browsing. Silently chuckling, she allowed herself to think about their situation as she wormed her way into the ATF database, taking a sarcastic wild guess that they were the ones who picked up the guys.
Leigh felt like she should be more worried, maybe even slightly faint at the idea of her- was he a boyfriend? Did outlaw bikers have girlfriends? Nevermind, that. She thought, brushing aside her slightly confused outlook on the whole 'jail' situation. At least it wasn't prison! Well, not yet.
"Ha!" She had a habit of making a noise whenever she successfully infiltrated a database. Careful not to touch anything she shouldn't, instead of using their search bar for a case file which she didn't have, she opened up a program to latch onto the window and allow her to see into the code and alter it.
"Let's see here," Leigh cracked her knuckles, a small smile on her lips, she typed some key words into a line of code to search the files for. Her fingers found the keys and 'Sons+of+Anarchy' crept onto the screen quickly. Closing the line, she made some magic happen before closing the program, going back onto her browser window which was now displaying a list of cases and POI files. Skipping past the 'Person of Interest' files and documents, she found something dated a couple days ago.
"Found you, you little ass." She spoke to the inanimate file and opened it, quickly copying the whole thing into Word. Scanning it to see it was everything she needed, Leigh closed out of the database and wiped her computer of any trace of it except the Word document.
"A little light reading? Don't mind if I do," Leigh smiled wider at her accomplishment, however miniscule to previous conquests, "Let's see here. AHEM, blah blah blah, oh... The run did go wrong." She was silenced, fully entranced in the words sprawled across the screen. The ATF were waiting there for them. Guns and camera trained on them as they entered the warehouse. Wait, cameras? Leigh recognized the link in the document was now broken, but how nice of the ATF to put a link to the security footage in the database. Maybe later, Leigh thought. She kept reading, addicted to the wealth of information the file spewed.
Her phone rang loudly, breaking her out of the trance she was in, scanning the list of arrests for Juice. She found his whole name nestled in near Clay Morrow and Alex Trager.
Way to alphabetize, Leigh sarcastically thought as she dug for her cell phone in her bag. Finally she found it and answered the call, halting the loud rock from blaring out of it's speaker.
"Flanagan," She answered with her last name, not recognizing the number at all. She was eager to get back to her research, awaiting the opportunity to learn more, absorb the absolute most.
"Leigh? It's Juice. I don't have much time to talk, but we need a favor."
A/N: I'm so sorry for this taking so long! I was at a friend's house and unable to update because her laptop crapped out. Well, I hope you guys like it because BOOM! Probably the only cliffhanger I'll ever do because I suck at them, clearly. It's pretty weak, huh?
ANYWAY, I love reviews! It livens up my day and makes me write faster! (: Oh lord, how are the guys gonna handle this- whoooo knoooowss.
Love you guys!