Abel sighed as he pulled on his leather jacket, and quietly walked down the hallway, doing everything in his power to blend into the wall. It probably wasn't working but it didn't matter, Jax and Tara all but forgot his existence when they were angry at each other.

Which, in all honesty was more often than not these days.

He wasn't sure what had started their bickering today, but it had escalated from a simple matter of what time Jax had come home, to Jax accusing Tara of caring more about Thomas than Abel, because only Thomas was biologically hers.

Granted, it was pretty shitty thing to say, but Tara wasn't being all that kind in her rebuttals either.

He quietly pushed open the front door, and shut it just as quietly. He winced when he realized that he could still hear their shouting even from the outside of the house. He cast an apologetic look to the neighboring houses despite the fact that they couldn't see his face.

They had been fighting non-stop for the past two months. It had been three months since Thomas had been taken, and one month since Jax and Tara had begun to lose hope – despite the fact that the pair couldn't admit it, Abel knew better, it was easy to tell why they were taking their anger out on each other.

They didn't blame each other, they simply saw Thomas in one another, and since they couldn't have Thomas, the presence of the other only served to remind them of that fact.

Abel pulled off onto a different driveway about a half an hour later into a house that he had become incredibly familiar with over the past three months.

Alena opened the door while staring down at her phone, but eventually looked up, and at the sight of him, her face fell.

"Come on now, I'm not that bad." He teased as she stepped forward to wrap her arms around his neck.

Abel sighed, she was having one of those days. He wrapped an arm tightly around her waist, lifting her up so her feet were dangling, as he closed the door with his free hand.

He placed her back on the ground and leaned up against the door, and simply held her till she finally pulled away after a long moment.

"I keep waiting for him to call," Alena sighed running a hand through her dark hair, "All I do is stare at my phone, just waiting for him to call."

"I call her," Abel said as he followed her into the kitchen, and sat down on one of the bar stools.

"What?" Alena asked as she pulled out a bottle of Vodka, and took a swig before sliding it across the counter towards him.

"Cassie," He explained, "I call her every night, just to hear her voice say the same sentence, and to tell her about my day. Stupid things, like what I had for lunch, or how badly I need to get laid."

She laughed as he took a shot, "Hi baby I had grilled cheese for lunch, and I really need to have sex, sorry that you've been taken hostage, so I can't rectify that situation. I hope you're having a good day."

"Oh yeah, and what would you tell Thomas?" He challenged as she turned on the microwave, "Hey babe, I'm sorry I ignored your existence for fourteen years, and then used you for sex, but I really miss you, despite the fact that I'm now feeding your brother Hot Pockets, which used to be our thing."

"First of all," Alena raised a hand, "I did ignore his existence for fourteen years – and I feel extremely bad about that, but I did not use him for sex. I told him I loved him, he's the one who shut me down."

"No way really?" Abel laughed as he took a bite out of a Hot Pocket and then spit it out into a napkin, "Shit, that's hot."

"Thomas has commitment issues."

"Or he just doesn't like you."

"Everybody likes me. You like me." Alena countered.

"That's true," Abel nodded, "I do like you. However, when I look at you, like most men, I don't think about getting you in my bed."

"Are you a counter kind of guy?" Alena asked.

"I need vodka," Abel replied grabbing the bottle, "You are a child, I shouldn't be talking about my sex life with a child."

"I'm a sixteen year old who has lived by herself since she was eleven. So I'm definitely not a child, however I thought the point of all this was that you don't have a sex life."

"Okay fine," Abel relented, "You aren't a child, doesn't change the fact that you're basically my sister. No one wants to discuss sex with their little sister."

"So, drinking vodka out of the same bottle, and sharing a pack of Hot Pockets makes us family?" Alena asked, "Because I do that with a lot of people."

"Ouch, that hurt."

Alena smiled gently, "But I guess having our significant others being kidnapped together does kind of make us family."

"I think you're the one with commitment issues," Abel said before he stopped himself.

Alena shrugged, "I'm the product of a rich family who has more money than they could spend in generations. You know how it is."

Abel nodded, he did know how it was. Money wasn't everything, and when one was born into a family that had an excessive amount of it, paired with workaholic parents, it usually left the child – especially an only child, with anything they could ever wish for, except for the one the one thing they wanted the most – a family.

He could remember growing up, his favorite memories were the days he had dinner at Nick's house. There was something that brought him so much happiness about sitting at a dinner table listening to Nick bicker across the table with his little sister, and tell people about his day, and know that someone was listening.

It was probably why when Abel loved somebody, he was all in. It wasn't often that he found someone who he truly trusted, and he didn't do that lightly.

"You take care of yourself." He said simply.

"You know what?" Alena stood up, "You're right. I take care of myself. You took care of yourself. We raised ourselves."

"Yeah," Abel said slowly as he eyed the nearly empty bottle of vodka, maybe he should take that away from her, "That's what you said."

"So let's find them."

"Find who?" He asked stupidly.

"Cassidy and Thomas!" She cried, "We are not incapable, Abel Teller, or Petrie, or whatever the fuck your name is. We are warriors."

"We are?"

"Yes, you idiot. We are, if we can raise ourselves, and still turn out slightly alright, then we can find Thomas and Cassidy. We don't need your dad, and we don't need his club, we don't need anybody. We are rich kids with too much time and money on our hands. Let's fucking do something."

"This is starting to sound like a bad reality show," Abel muttered grabbing the bottle, "But fuck it, let's do something. What's our first step?"

Alena shrugged, "You're the smart one in this equation."

Abel drummed his fingers against the counter as he tried to think of something. He had gone over and over this in his head, something, anything that could lead him to Cassidy, but he kept drawing up a blank.

"I have no idea," He admitted.

"Here," Alena shoved the bottle to him, "Drink. Alcohol helps everything, perks of not being pregnant."

"Wait a second," Abel stood up, "Cassidy's pregnant."

"Yeah no shit."

"No that's not how I mean it. She's what four months pregnant?"

"Seven."

"Seven," Abel choked on the vodka, "Don't these things take like nine months once up and running?"

Alena stared at him for a long moment, before giving him a slow nod, "Cassidy realized she was pregnant basically as soon as she was taken, right?"

Abel nodded.

"She was at least a month or two pregnant by that point," Alena explained, "I'm guessing a month. She's been taken for six months, so she's seven months pregnant."

"Which means she really pregnant, like she's big," Abel stood up.

"I mean I wouldn't say that to her, but yes, she would be big. What's your point?"

"She needs things," He explained, "Right? Girls need things when their pregnant. Fat clothes, and-"

"Maternity clothes," She cut him off, "Maternity clothes, pre-natal vitamins, not to mention cravings, and she would have to go see a doctor. Right? But they could be anywhere in the world, Abel, and there are so many pregnant women. Pregnancy isn't something people would really remember, even if it's an eighteen year old."

"Except that's the thing," He said his tone growing excited, "They wouldn't have let her out of wherever they're holding her. There's no possible way. And there is something weird about a grown man, or something who isn't pregnant at all going to buy maternity clothes, and pre-natal pills."

"So if we can figure out the general area, they are being held in-"

"We can try and narrow it down even further by asking pregnancy places, or whatever."

"The car," Alena said standing up, "The car that took Thomas, I know the license plate."

"And you didn't tell anybody?" Abel cried loudly.

"I did. I told the police."

Abel froze as he felt a certain cold feeling enter his body, "Who did you talk to? Think, Alena, this is really important who did you talk to?"

"I don't know some guy," Alena shook her head, "Why is this important?"

"You weren't supposed to tell the police, Alena."

"No you weren't supposed to tell the police," She corrected defensively, "I wasn't told anything, they put a gun to my head, and forced Thomas into the car. That was all. Nobody said a word to me. Do you honestly think I ran to you first thing after Thomas was taken?"

"You didn't?"

Abel was under the impression that the second Thomas had been taken Alena had rushed to tell Jax and Tara, and by default him.

Alena looked at him like he was stupid, "Abel, when someone holds a gun to your head, and takes your maybe boyfriend hostage, you go to the police, not a gangbanger."

"Tell me what he looked like," Abel demanded, "If you don't know who he was, you have to at least remember what the cop looked like."

"He was wearing a suit, I don't know, he looked like any other guy." She shook her head, "Blonde hair, green eyes."

Abel pulled out his cell phone out of his back pocket and pressed the power button and thrust the phone at Alena so she could see the screensaver, which was a picture of Cassidy.

"Did he look like her?"

Alena looked at the picture for a long moment, "Yeah, I guess, I mean he looked harsher, and his eyes feel different, if that makes sense, but yeah they look like each other."

"Fuck," Abel cried, "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Alena demanded as Abel pulled off into the street, pressing down on the gas as the car made a screeching sound as he roughly swung to the left.

"The guy you talked to was FBI."

"Well that's even better!"

"You don't understand that's Cassidy's father."

"Her father as in-"

"Yes."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Alena asked thrusting a hand out to keep herself from falling into the dashboard, "Abel, slow down, you're going to get arrested."

"We should do that!" Abel pointed a finger at her, "If I get arrested, then they'll run my prints again, and this time Mick won't be able to cover it up, and they'll know he covered it up last time, because he was the one who made the arrest. And then everyone will know Abel Teller is alive, and we can blow up the whole trafficking thing."

"You sound like a crazy person!"

Abel felt like a crazy person. Maybe it was the alcohol in his system, or maybe it was just all this energy he had pent up in him from the past six months, or maybe it was the fact that for the first time he actually felt like he was doing something, either way he was amped up.

He was ready to do something, he was ready to get his girl, and his kid, and the annoying shit that was his little brother. He was ready for this to be over.

For the first time, Abel wasn't terrified, he wasn't terrified of what was going to happen, he wasn't terrified of being a dad, of being a boyfriend to whoever Cassidy had become over the past six months, he wasn't terrified of anything, not of Jax, or Tara, or Kellan Ashby, he wasn't scared of anything.

"Come on," He got out of the car as he took fast steps into the sheriff's station and pushed open the door.

"You are so fucking drunk," Alena muttered despite the fact that she was following him.

The station was practically empty considering how late at night it was, though there was a receptionist – Abel had always wondered what the point of having a receptionist at a sheriff's station was – and a stray officer or two.

"So hotshot," Alena asked as he realized their problem, "How are you going to get into your future Daddy's office?"

Abel turned to give Alena a look, it was obvious by her tone that she already knew how to get them in, but was just asking to be annoying. Alena sighed before she walked deeper into the station as he waited for her.

"How did you get those?" Abel asked as she dangled keys in front of his face.

"My mom's uncle was David Hale," She explained, "He was supposed to be in charge of this whole deal before he got killed. People liked him, a lot, and then when you add onto the fact that my parents pretty much own everything in this town, it isn't hard to get what I want."

"You know I'm pretty sure that the receptionist broke some law."

"You've been in Charming for six months," Alena said like he was an idiot, "If you haven't figured out that we don't have much regard for the law by now, then you should probably get yourself checked out."

"We should probably be quick," Abel said obviously as he glanced around the relatively barren office.

"You know I don't get why Jax hasn't broken in here. Or you know tortured the guy or something," Alena said as she rifled through the papers on top of the desk, as Abel attempted to open a drawer that was locked.

"Give me that paper clip," Abel said, "And a bobby pin."

"You know how to pick a lock?"

"Definitely, while I wasn't busy being a rich kid with mad soccer skills, I was a delinquent in my free time."

"So Nick taught you how?"

"Nick taught me how," He confirmed as he pulled open the drawer, and smiled up at Alena in triumph.

"So Jax?" Alena backtracked as Abel flipped through the files, and frowned when he grabbed something hard.

"They've been clean for a long time, bold moves aren't their thing anymore. And I don't think even the Sons are crazy enough to torture an FBI agent," He said absentmindedly as he pulled out a picture frame.

"Doesn't explain why they haven't broken in here," She grumbled.

"Sons are more of a shoot first ask questions later type. They don't go searching for information, information comes to them."

A familiar set of green eyes greeted Abel when he turned the frame over. Abel smiled softly at the sight of a little girl.

Cassidy couldn't have been older than four in the picture, it was candid, and there was a light in her bright eyes that was still there all these years later, as she laughed revealing a perfect set of white teeth. One hand was touching the side of her head, as if to brush her hair – that was long even back then – out of her face, and the other was resting on her crossed legs.

The rest of the picture was simple, she was sitting in a never ending field of grass, besides a house in the background, leaving her to be the center of attention.

"She's beautiful," Alena said quietly as she sat down on the floor next to him, "Even back then she was beautiful."

"She's alright," Abel said softly as he stared at the picture.

"You're kid's going to be so hot."

Abel laughed, "She's going to look like her mom."

"You don't know if it's a girl."

"No, I guess I don't," He said as he turned the frame over to take the picture out, "But I wouldn't mind a girl."

Alena stood up and sat down on the computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard, as Abel finally got the picture out of the frame.

Nikki. Four years old. Presque Isle.

"Does the name Eric O' Hara mean anything to you?"

"No," Abel said absentmindedly, "Should it?"

"The car's registered to some guy named Eric O' Hara."

"Okay, where did he get the car registered?" Abel asked as he put the picture down and began looking through the files again.

"Maine."

Abel stood up as he handed her the photo.

"This is weird," Alena said slowly as she got up so Abel could sit down at the computer, "Why does he have a picture of her?"

"She's his daughter," He pointed out as he searched through Mick's computer trying to find something about Cassidy, something about Maine, but he just kept hitting road blocks. What would an abusive man with an unhealthy obsession with his daughter use for a password?

"Try fucknikki."

Abel glared at Alena, mostly because that wasn't funny at all, but slightly because it hadn't worked.

"What's her mom's name?"

"Cora," Abel said slowly as he typed in the four letters only to be declined access.

"Abel, do you know what a RICO case is?"

"Sure," He said distractedly as he tried another combination that failed, "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act."

"Should I even ask why you know that?"

"My mom's the best lawyer in the country."

"Right, so then this should probably be something to worry about, right?"

Abel took the manila folder from Alena as he silently pulled the papers out.

"This is it," He said finally after looking through them all, "This is their big move, it's so obvious, that's it perfect. Father Kellan is going to burn SAMCRO through RICO."

"But people have tried to use RICO against SAMCRO before, it's not going to work, not when they have their super-secret angel people on their side. The RICO case fell apart last time because of something to do with the Galindo Cartel."

"And to think I used to think you were a rich kid party girl." Abel looked at Alena appreciatively.

"Well I still think you're a rich kid party boy." Alena smiled though her blue eyes were looking at him with a warmth he recognized easily.

"But look at these," He stood up spreading out the papers, "How were they going to use RICO against the Sons last time?"

"I'm not sure," She said running a hand through her hair, "I know that they weren't who it started with. I'm pretty sure they were after the Russians, and so by association they got SAMCRO, so they could get the Irish Kings."

"That's the difference." Abel pointed at a sheet of paper, "Look, this is starting with SAMCRO."

"Okay, but what does that tell us?" Alena asked, "I mean it's obvious they are going after SAMCRO."

"Yes but look at these pages. Who's the one person that's missing?"

Alena studied the pictures for a long moment before she realized what he already had, "Jax."

"Right, so look," Abel grabbed post-it notes from the desk and began sticking one on each picture, and marking them, "All of these people are members of SAMCRO, which is the reason they are going to be charged."

"Okay, what about Tara?"

Abel turned it over, and pointed at the writing, "She's going to be charged with the murder of Gemma Teller-Morrow."

"How can you just say that like that?" Alena looked at him.

"My girlfriend, my little brother, and my unborn child's lives are all hanging in a void, so sorry if I'm a little insensitive about my mother when she hasn't even been charged yet. What I'm more concerned about who Gemma Teller-Morrow is, I swear I've heard the name before."

"Well she is your grandmother," Alena said flippantly as he typed in yet another password that didn't work.

"She's my what?" Abel snapped his head over to look at her.

"Gemma Teller," She said slowly, "She's your Dad's mom."

"Right," He nodded, "She got high, got into an accident with Thomas, and she and some guy ran off to Ireland together."

"Clay, he was your step-grandfather."

"It's creepy how much you know about my family."

"Welcome to Charming," She said dryly.

"Wait a second, Gemma isn't dead. Is she?" Abel asked.

"I mean according to this, she is, and Tara's the one who killed her." Alena stared at the picture, "Damn it, Abel, you need to get into that computer."

"Alena, I don't know this guy! He's psychotic, how the fuck am I supposed to know what the password is?"

"Cassidy is your girlfriend, she is the mother of your child!"

"Right Cassie is my girlfriend, not her father. I didn't even know who the guy was till he arrested me."

"Okay, so the guy's a psycho, but the only thing he cares about is Cassidy. It has to have something to do with her, or her mom." Alena insisted.

"Care is a very loose term," Abel grumbled as he tried Cassidy's birthday – which surprise, surprise didn't work.

"Fine obsession," Alena said easily, "Don't you think it's weird that after all this time Jax is the only one who has an old lady? Like one who stayed?"

"Sure, but I don't think it's relevant."

"But have you ever thought about it?" Alena leaned against the desk as he typed in yet another rejected option, "Why did they last? How did they make it work?"

"You make sacrifices, Alena." Abel said as he looked back at the papers hoping that something, anything, would give him the password for the computer, "You choose what you want above anything else."

"But that's the thing isn't it? Jax couldn't give up the club for Tara, yet she stayed for him."

"I'm not a psychologist, but my best guess is that Charming is as much home to Tara as it is to Jax, neither of them really know how to live anywhere else, and since the Sons of Anarchy is literally Charming's defining factor, Jax did the harder, and better thing, he got the club clean."

"That's romantic." Alena said almost longingly.

Abel looked away from his task for a brief moment to look at Alena, "My brother's an idiot."

"I'm the idiot," She said with a sad smile, "I ignored his existence for so long. You get what you give, right?"

"No." Abel shook his head as he frowned pulling a picture out from the rest. The guy was wearing the SAMCRO kutte, and had the SAMCRO patch, even one that said Men of Mayhem, yet Abel had never seen him before, "I don't believe in karma."

"What do you mean you don't believe in karma?"

"If I believed that you get what you give, then by that reasoning I would have to believe that good things happen to good people, but that's not true. Shitty things happen to great people. Gandhi got assassinated for being peaceful. MLK was assassinated for protesting. Shitty things happen to good people. Karma's a joke." Abel said smacking the computer as yet another attempt failed, "Do you know who Juan Carlos Ortiz is?"

"Sure," Alena said looking at the picture of the SAMCRO member he hadn't recognized, "That's Juice, he's in prison for killing Sherriff Roosevelt."

"Think he could be a rat?" Abel asked looking at the back of the picture where the word 'informant' was written in large letters.

"Sure, he was a rat for Roosevelt." Alena shrugged, "From what Thomas told me, his heart was in the right place, you know, depending on what side you're on."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Look," Alena shifted slightly uncomfortably, "My grandfather is Jacob Hale, he raised a daughter who hated the Sons as much as he did, she married a man who hated the Sons as much the Hale family did, and then they had me. I was raised to believe in the good, I was raised to believe in the system-"

"And I wasn't?" Abel asked, "I'm the son of a lawyer who worked her ass off for the system."

"That's not what I'm saying," Alena protested, "I'm saying that before Thomas, before I was with him, your family was the bad guy, and that's just the way it is. Jax is a murderer, hell Tara is a murderer. Your entire family is made up of killers, Abel. And my family, sure they are slightly corrupt in a business aspect, but they've never killed anyone. I wasn't raised to believe in all of this. And sometimes-"

"Sometimes you think they deserve to be in jail, that they deserve everything they are getting, that they deserve all of this," Abel finished for her.

"Karma," Alena nodded.

"I know," Abel said sitting down in the chair, as Alena hoisted herself up onto the desk, "Trust me, I know. I was raised to believe in the system too, sure my adoptive parents haven't made the best of choices, but they love me, and I love them. They are good people."

"And to come to Charming, to all of this," Alena waved her hand around.

"I love Jax, and I love Tara," Abel admitted for the first time aloud, "Hell I'm pretty sure I love Jax more than I love the man that raised me, but everything inside me knows that this isn't right. I know that they aren't the good guys."

"Which is what I mean by it all depends on what side you're on," Alena said quietly, "I know that they are good people, but I also know that they aren't."

Abel gave a dry laugh, "This world has a way of really challenging your ethics and morality."

"What are you going to do?" Alena asked as Abel stood up to make photocopies of the file, "I mean once all this is over, what are you guys going to do? Where are you going to raise your baby? What are you going to do with your lives?"

Abel whistled lowly, "That's a lot of heavy questions."

"You're going to be a dad in less than two months, I think you should start finding some answers." Alena said not insensitively.

"I'm going to take over my dad's company," Abel said finally, "He wants to retire as soon as I graduate, he wants to be home with my mom, and Cassie's going to stay home with the baby."

"Does she want that?"

"Yeah," Abel nodded, "Don't ask me how I know, but I do. Cassie isn't going to leave that baby for anything."

"So you're going to go back to Connecticut?"

"You mean are we staying in Charming?" Abel asked with a wry smile.

"Yes." Alena nodded, "Your family is here."

"But my life is there," Abel shrugged, "Believe it or not I have friends, and a life. Cassie and I, we have a whole world waiting for us in Connecticut, we have a life that we built for ourselves, a life that doesn't include you, or Thomas, or Jax, or Tara, or anyone from Charming."

"Except we are part of your lives now."

"Here's what I know, Lena," Abel said looking at her seriously, "I know that I love my biological family, but I also know that my kid, my daughter, or my son, I don't want him or her to grow up in a world where she would think that it's okay to kill somebody, no matter what the reason. Jesus, if my kid ever killed someone Alena, I would literally, I don't know what I would do, but fuck."

"I get it," She nodded, "The line between right and wrong is really, really blurred in Charming. It seems like the best people do the wrong thing, and the worst do the best thing."

"I don't want my kid to be confused," He said running a hand through his hair, "My kid has to know what's right and what's wrong, and I don't think that's something I can teach he or she in Charming. Not when up is down, and down is up here."

"You know for a guy who didn't really want the baby in the first place, you seem to care a whole damn lot for this baby."

"It's my kid," Abel shrugged, "I do want him. I just needed a minute to be ready for him."

Alena was quiet for a long moment, "Cassidy's a lucky girl."

"That's definitely a questionable statement."

"Yeah, no shit," She laughed, "She's like a what's that animal called that-"

"Wait a second," Abel cut her off as he stood up abruptly, "That's it! That's the password."

"What Cassidy?" Alena asked confused as Abel's fingers flew across the keyboard, and hit enter.

He waited with a bated breath, and the silently fist pumped as the files unlocked, "Fuck yeah."

Okay, so not so silently.

"Holy shit, let me see," Alena said knocking past his arm, and placing herself on his lap, and grabbing the mouse, "What was the password?"

Abel gave a small smile, "Cricket."

"Should that mean something?"

"Not to you."

"Wait a second, Abel look at this," Alena scrolled down, "These are emails, between Mick and Gemma."

Abel moved forward in the seat, wrapping an arm around Alena's waist making sure she didn't fall, "She's supposed to be dead. Tara killed her."

"These emails are from as late as two days ago." Alena said pointing a finger at the screen, "Look at these, their clearly working together. Abel, I don't Father Kellan is the ringleader of this whole thing, I think Gemma is."

"Okay but how do we really know this is Gemma? It's an email, Alena. Someone could easily be using her name."

"But that's just pointless, let's pretend like Gemma is dead for a second, and Tara killed her, that means the Sons would know Gemma is dead. There would be nothing to gain from impersonating Gemma."

"So then why would Mick have it written down that Gemma was killed by Tara?" Abel wondered.

"Don't ask me." Alena said slowly.

"Wait a second, we think Gemma and Mick are working together right?"

"Yeah," She confirmed, "That's easy to tell from the emails, but other than that these emails don't really give us any usable information. Nothing about where Cassidy and Thomas are being held, or what the RICO has to do with anything, or what Juice is telling them, why Jax isn't being taken down through RICO, nothing is cleared up."

"Right, so basically there's a hell of a lot we don't know."

"But we know a lot more than we did before."

"Here's what I don't understand," Abel said pointing at the screen, "What's Gemma's motive? Why would she want to ruin her own son's life? Why would she kidnap her own grandson?"

"Think about it, Abel," Alena turned in his lap so she could look at him, "Jax took everything from her. Her club, her husband, her family, her whole entire world, he took absolutely everything."

"But he's her son, she loved him."

"Okay let me put it this way, she is the very definition of crazy. She loves her family more than anything, that means you, Thomas, and Jax, but she will hurt whoever she has to, to get what she wants."

"But that makes no sense, what would she want to ruin Jax's life for if he's what she wants?"

Alena shrugged, "Because he was never going to let her back into his world, not after she tried to kill Tara."

"Wait what?"

"I don't know if it's true, it's all just rumors, but apparently Gemma came back a few years after Jax excommunicated her, to try and kill Tara – she thought it was Tara's idea to get rid of her without giving her a chance to come back. That's how Roosevelt got killed, he saved Tara's life, went to arrest Gemma, Juice walked in, killed the sheriff, and gave Gemma the chance to run."

"Okay so Gemma wants to ruin Jax's life because she's a selfish bitch who figures if she can't be happy, no one else can be either."

"Exactly." Alena snapped.

"Fine, okay," Abel thought out loud, "But why would Mick pair up with Gemma? He wanted Cassie, and I doubt Gemma knew that Cassie was Mick's daughter, and it sounds like they knew each other before they knew who Cassie was."

"Honestly, I think it's just a coincidence." Alena admitted, "A fucking huge coincidence, but still a coincidence. Mick was Gemma's connection in the FBI, but he was never going to be so important to her plan till she realized who Mick and Cassidy were to each other."

Abel sighed as he gently pushed Alena off his lap, and he stood up.

"What?" She asked.

"I hate that asshole," Abel muttered, "He's done terrible, unspeakable things to the woman I love, to a little girl, he's a terrible man."

"I know, Abel."

"Except at the end of the day Cassie is his daughter, and in his own sick and twisted way he loves her, and I don't think Gemma has any plans of letting her out of this alive."

"You think he's trying to protect her," Alena said slowly in realization, "You think Mick is trying to protect Cassidy."

"It's the only motive Mick would have for betraying Gemma. She takes a girl with every intention of killing her, Mick finds out said girl is his daughter, he has Gemma killed before she can kill his daughter."

"I hate this guy," Alena grumbled.

"Join the club," Abel muttered, "But that doesn't explain why Mick is still helping Gemma."

"Because he probably has no idea where Cassidy is," She said crossing her arms over her chest, "Think about it, Mick has to pretend like he's in Gemma's pocket till he can figure out Cassidy's location, not to mention the fact that Gemma currently has the support of the IRA. The safest thing to do is let Gemma trust him, till he has her killed."

"Okay so what? Does he frame Tara for Gemma's murder, or does he somehow force a situation where Tara does actually kill her?"

"Does it matter?" Alena asked, "Either way the outcome is the same, Mick intends for her to go down for the kill."

"Okay so let's play this out. Gemma kidnaps Mick's daughter, Mick wants to help his daughter – probably just so he can beat the crap out of her, though that isn't relevant – so he plans to kill her. But why would he blame Tara for killing Gemma?"

"Because that's how Gemma intended to ruin Jax's life, she would have found some other way to get Tara locked up, but think about it," Alena said pointing at the pictures, "Every single person Jax cares about would be locked away, except for him."

"But that doesn't explain how Jax would be left out of the RICO case, or why Mick would even bother with ruining Jax's life."

"Well the second one is easy," Alena shrugged, "For his career. By taking down SAMCRO in one foul swoop he can take down the Niners, the Mayans, the Real IRA, the Chinese, and the Galindo Cartel. Do you have any idea what that would do?"

"He'd be a legend," Abel nodded, "Wait, that's why Gemma has been having the Sons go back into all their old businesses. The Sons already left these people once to go clean, but now? Now the Sons would be the reason that every single group associated with them would go down. They'd be enemy number one."

"They'd get skinned alive in prison. His brothers, his wife, he'll be the reason every one he loves dies, not to mention painfully, and brutally. He'd be all alone just like Gemma."

"But that still leaves Thomas and I."

"Not really," Alena shook her head, "I doubt Gemma has any intention of letting Thomas live, and I wouldn't be surprised if any day now someone picked you up off the streets. It all makes sense now, Abel. There's just two questions left: where are Thomas and Cassidy, and how would Jax get out of the RICO?"

"I have no idea where Thomas and Cassidy are, but I think I know how Jax would get out of RICO."

"How?"

"RICO is for SAMCRO right? For the members of the club?"

"Yes," Alena nodded.

"What if Jax wasn't a member of the club anymore?"

So a shit load was just revealed in this chapter that was purposefully long in hopes to make amends for how infrequent my updates have been, I promise I'm going to get better. I know that there is a lot going on this chapter, so if anyone's confused about anything, please ask!