As always, I want to thank everyone who follows this story, who take the time to review, and who just takes the time to even read the story! I appreciate each and every one of you!
After writing this chapter, I finally feel like I can see that finish line in the distance. We still have a ways to go, but we're definitely in the back half of the story now. And I have to admit that part of the reason I had difficulty concentrating on this chapter was because I've been thinking about the sequel to Undisclosed Desires a lot. So I hope you guys are still enjoying the story and willing to see where it goes – Jax and Dana still have a very long road ahead of them!
P.S. I just want to give a humongous shoutout to BeeLyn, who always is patient with me and is always there to brainstorm with me on this story and listen to my endless questions. Thank you so much! You're awesome!
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Sons of Anarchy.
The First Fatality
Dana lay flat on her back in bed and stared up at the ceiling, her fingers drumming restlessly against her sternum. It was nearly two in the morning, but she couldn't sleep. Wasn't even tired, to be honest.
Despite her every attempt to distract herself, she had not been able to stop thinking about Jax since the moment she left his house earlier that evening. She had spent part of the night trying to work on the case, but when that proved to be nearly impossible, she'd instead attempted to zone out by watching some trashy reality show on television. When that hadn't worked either, she eventually had given up all hope and slunk off to her bed, thinking that maybe if she could get some sleep then maybe she'd finally stop thinking about him. But she'd been laying here for hours now, and Jax was still the only thing on her mind.
That awkward moment in his kitchen was bothering her…a lot. Though it had seemed like a good idea at the time, she was beginning to regret having asked him about the club. She was worried that she had pushed him too hard and too fast. Yes, they were pretty comfortable with each other now, and yes, they were – as much as she hated to admit it – a thing. But when Dana took a step back and really took a look at things, this was all still very new. They hadn't even known each other for two months yet, and half of the time that they had known each other had been spent bickering at one another like bratty kids. They'd only just gotten to the point they were at now a few weeks ago.
Now, after having thought about this for several hours, she supposed she should have expected the reaction she had gotten. It was perfectly understandable, Jax's hesitance to tell her about the club's business when their relationship was still so newly established. Considering what they did for a living, she really couldn't fault him for playing things close to the chest.
But Dana would be lying if she said she wasn't a little worried about what sort of impact her prying would ultimately have, both on the case and on what was going on between them. Would he be cautious around her now that she was sticking her nose into his business? Would he distance himself so that she couldn't ask him anything else? For a while there, Jax had seemed like he was truly beginning to trust her – was all that going to change now because of her forwardness?
She knew that if he did distance himself that it could make solving this case a little bit more difficult, which would most certainly be bad. At the same time, him distancing himself from her would probably make everything else a hell of a lot easier in the end. Even if there was a selfish part of her that really didn't like the thought of things going sour with Jax, it was something that was going to happen at some point or another. Because at some point or another, the truth was going to come out. And when it did, that was going to be the end of her and Jax. In hindsight, she supposed it was better it happened now, before they had the chance to get any more involved than they already were.
Dana sighed and lifted her hands to rub her face, before letting them drop heavily back to the bed. All this thinking was really starting to give her a migraine.
She finally determined that she would probably not be getting to sleep anytime soon and kicked off the covers, before getting out of bed. She decided to go outside and have a late night smoke, thinking maybe that would help calm her mind down. Dana grabbed her phone from her nightstand and left the bedroom, then headed for the kitchen, where she had left her purse when she'd returned home. After retrieving her cigarettes and her lighter, she went to the door, slipped on a pair of flip flops she had left in the front foyer a few days ago, then stepped outside.
It was eerily quiet outside, which was no surprise given the late hour. Dana sat down on the porch steps and lit up a cigarette, inhaling deeply and instantly reveling in the calming effect the nicotine had on her system. She gazed around at the dark, deserted street for a few second, then unlocked her phone and began to pass the time by checking her email and browsing various news websites.
Dana was halfway through her cigarette when she heard a sound that was unmistakable. A door nearby had just opened and closed, signaling that one of her neighbors was awake and had just walked outside. She froze, her heart suddenly pounding, and looked toward Jax's house. Sure enough, there he was. He was wearing only a pair of pajama pants and was standing just outside his front door, none the wiser of the fact that she too was awake and outside. But just as he moved to light a cigarette of his own, he glanced over at her house and his gaze almost instantly found hers, as if magnetized. He froze with his lighter halfway to his cigarette, then seemed to rethink his smoke, killing the flame and removing the unlit cigarette from his lips, his eyes never leaving hers.
For one brief second, Dana seriously contemplated making a run for it and going inside. It was late, the night had not ended on a good note, and she was not mentally prepared to handle any possible arguments with him. Yet as Jax stepped away from his door and started in her direction, she decided that running away from him like some scared bunny rabbit would only make her look like an immature idiot. So, instead, she put out her cigarette, sucked in a deep breath, then stood and went to meet him halfway.
They both stopped when they were a few feet away from each other, and for a beat or two they just stood there in awkward silence, neither seeming to know what to say. She was a little relieved to see that he no longer looked angry. He actually seemed fairly calm, albeit a little bit guarded as well. Still, Dana thought it wise to proceed with caution, wanting to avoid saying or doing something that would set him off again.
"Hey," she finally said to break the silence.
"Hey," Jax echoed, his tone even and neutral.
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.
Jax shook his head. "Nah."
"Me neither," Dana admitted. "Too much on my mind."
"I know what you mean," Jax agreed, shifting on his feet a bit. "Look," he said after a brief pause. "About what happened earlier – " he started say.
Dana held up a hand to silence him. "What happened earlier was my fault," she interrupted, hoping that maybe if she apologized, it would be enough to salvage something. "I overstepped my boundaries when I asked about the club. I shouldn't have pried."
"You didn't overstep anything," Jax said with a shake of his head, catching her by surprise. "I've been thinking about this all night, and…I understand why you wanna know," he told her. "A guy like me comes with a lot of baggage, and considering what happened with your family because of the stuff your old man did, I get why you'd want to know what's goin' on. It's just…"
Jax trailed off for a second, then sighed and raked a hand through his blonde hair. "The truth is that you freaked the hell outta me when you said you wanted full disclosure," he admitted. "When Tara and I got back together, she said almost the exact same thing," he revealed, his lips pulling down into a frown. "She didn't want secrets, either. She thought she could handle the truth. But she couldn't handle it. And she left because of it."
Now Dana understood very well why he had reacted the way he had. He had loved Tara and had been heartbroken when she left. Of course he would be wary to tell anyone he got involved with what he really did for SAMCRO. It had already cost him one relationship – who was to say it wouldn't end up costing him another?
But Dana's desire to know the club's business wasn't just for the sake of her relationship with Jax. She had ulterior motives. Maybe if he opened up to her, he would tell her things that could help prove SAMCRO's innocence in the case of the missing agents, or just help her with the case period. If she was reading him and this situation correctly, then it seemed like maybe he was rethinking his previous resolve to not tell her anything. She decided that she had to try to convince him that he could talk to her about these things, that he could trust her. But she knew she had to be careful in her approach, too. His reaction earlier had made that more than obvious.
"I didn't know that about you and Tara," she admitted. "Now that I do, I totally get why you would be…cautious…about all this. But, Jax," Dana continued in a gentle tone, "I'm not Tara."
Jax pursed his lips and nodded. "Yeah, I know. But you're the first woman I've actually cared about since she left, Dana," he confessed, having evidently decided to just out all his cards on the table. "I think we've got somethin' good here. And I don't want what happened with me and Tara to happen between me and you."
Dana's heart skipped a beat at his admission and a number of emotions shot through her. She pushed them all away, though, forcing herself to focus on the conversation at hand. "Keeping me in the dark isn't the answer, though," Dana countered. "If we don't trust each other, this is gonna be over before it really even begins."
"I do trust you," Jax said at once.
Upon hearing that, Dana stepped closer to Jax, so that there was hardly any space between them. "Then trust me when I say that I can handle hearing the truth," she insisted. When he said nothing to that, just stared intently into her eyes, Dana closed the distance between them completely and placed her hands on either side of his neck. "I care a lot about you, Jax," she told him, and it was the honest to God truth. "I know that as long as I'm with you, the club will always be in the picture. And like I said earlier, I'm willing to put everything else behind me and do my best to deal with that. But you have to open up to me, Jax. That's the only way this works."
Jax stared at her for a long few moments, his eyes full of confliction as he considered what she'd told him. Finally, he sighed.
"Okay," he agreed, making her heart skip a beat. "We'll give this full disclosure thing a shot. But I'm not just gonna unload everything on you right away, otherwise you probably will take off running," he added quickly. "We'll just…take it slow."
Dana hampered down her feelings of triumph and nodded, unable to help smirking at his choice of words. "The same way we took everything else slow?" she asked jokingly, just to lighten the mood between them.
Jax smirked, his eyes lighting with amusement now as some of the tension left his shoulders. "You know what I mean."
Dana just smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I do."
Silence fell between them after that, and Jax looked at her for a long moment before placing his hands on her waist and leaning down to give her a lingering kiss. In that moment, Dana wasn't thinking about the cameras set up outside their houses or the agents on her team that were likely watching what was happening right then – all she cared about as she happily accepted his kiss was how good it felt to have his lips on her again.
As he pulled back and smiled at her, Dana was strongly tempted to begin asking him questions. She refrained, however, reminding herself that it was the middle of the night and they had only just talked things out. Maybe now wasn't the best time to start peppering him with questions about all his deepest, dirtiest secrets.
"Sorry for snappin' at you earlier," Jax apologized, brushing a red curl away from her face.
"You're forgiven," Dana said with a smile. She then sighed, the fingers of her right hand toying with a lock of his long, blonde hair. "It's late. We should get some sleep."
Jax nodded his agreement, then motioned toward his house with a jerking of his head. "You wanna stay with me?"
Dana only had to think about it for a second, then nodded. "Sure."
Jax smiled, clearly pleased that she wanted to stay with him, then grabbed her by the hand and lead her to his house. Once they were inside, he paused briefly to lock the door, before they both headed for the bedroom. Jax stopped by Abel's room and popped his head in to make sure the boy was still asleep, but Dana continued on into the bedroom, placing her phone on the nightstand next to the bed and kicking off her flip-flops.
Once Jax joined her in the bedroom, they both got in bed and quickly moved closer to one another. Jax wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she snuggled into his side, making her feel warm and protected as she rested her head on his chest. Dana immediately felt herself relax and felt the sleep that had eluded her begin to take over, as if being here with Jax was all she had needed all along.
"We'll talk more about everything in the morning, alright?" Jax said quietly, his hand sliding up and down the length of her back.
Dana lifted her head so she could see him, then nodded. "Okay," she agreed.
Jax smiled a bit, then wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. "Night, cupcake," he said.
"Night, Fabio," she said in return.
They shared one more kiss, then Dana lay her head back on his shoulder. It wasn't long at all before they both fell asleep.
Dana was alone in bed when she woke up the next morning. She blinked sleepily, able to hear the sounds of morning birds tweeting away outside the bedroom window, and rolled onto her back. Yawning widely, she reached up to rub her eyes before stretching her arms above her head, sighing as she slowly started to come back to life.
Once she was feeling a bit more awake, Dana reached over to touch the side of the bed that Jax had slept on. It was still a little warm, which meant he hadn't been out of bed for long. The sound of a male voice suddenly registered with her senses, and it didn't take long at all to realize that it was Jax's voice floating through the baby monitor on the other nightstand.
"We're gonna get some breakfast, but you gotta be quiet, little man," he was saying, clearly talking to Abel. "We're gonna let Dana sleep, sound good?"
Dana smiled to herself, then slowly sat up in bed as Jax's voice faded off. Once she was able to hear the faint sounds of him moving around in the kitchen, she got out of bed and began to tiptoe around the room, surveying her surroundings with interest.
This was not the first time she had been in Jax's bedroom, but it was the first time she'd been in his room unattended. With one more glance toward the door, she gave in to temptation and started snooping around, not really knowing what she was looking for, but curious to see if she might find anything of interest. His armoire was full of nothing but clothes, and though she found a few boxes when she opened up the closet, a quick peak into the ones she could reach only revealed old photographs, worn out motorcycle magazines, and other various memorabilia Jax had hung on to over the years.
Dana closed the closet again and went to the nightstand on his side of the bed, unsurprised when she found a gun and a small box of ammunition inside the top drawer. Briefly, she wondered how many other guns he had hidden away in his house.
She started to close the drawer again, but paused when she noticed a picture peeking out from underneath the box of ammunition. Curious, she gently nudged the box aside and grabbed hold of the picture, pulling it out of the drawer and raising it up to take a good look at it. It was a picture of Jax and a woman with dark hair. They were sitting arm in arm on what looked like the table in the back of the SAMCRO club house and were smiling widely at each other, love shining so brightly out of their eyes that it was damn near blinding. There was no doubt in Dana's mind who this woman was.
Tara.
A strange sensation filled her heart as she gazed at the woman that had broken Jax's heart. She was pretty, there was no doubt that about that, and it was obvious that she had still been very much in love with Jax when this photo had been taken. It made Dana wonder how drastically things could change in such a short period of time. It also made her wonder if Tara, whenever she was, still loved Jax. Judging by what little she knew of the woman and her history with Jax, Dana thought it pretty safe to assume that she did.
A vibrating sound on the nightstand finally pulled Dana from her thoughts and made her focus on the present again. She glanced over and saw that her phone, which was still on the other nightstand, was vibrating with an incoming call. She put the picture of Jax and Tara back exactly as she had found it, shut the drawer, then hurried across the bed to retrieve her phone. Joel was calling her.
"Hey," she greeted as she answered the call, looking to the door to make sure Jax hadn't decided to come and check up on her. She could hear him talking in the kitchen, as well as hear the sound of pots and pans being moved around. He was too preoccupied to know that she was awake.
"Hey," he responded flatly. "So I'd ask what you've been doin' over there all night, but seeing as the kiss I saw last night says pretty much all I need to know, I'm not gonna waste my breath," he told her, which made her heave to herself and turn her eyes up to the ceiling.
"Good. Because I'm not really in the mood to hear whatever you have to say about it," Dana countered testily, having grown sick and tired of Joel griping at her every two seconds.
Joel went quite for a moment. "I'm gonna do us both a favor and ignore the attitude," he stated bluntly.
His words only made her annoyance spike, but she closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath to refrain from saying anything argumentative. "Do you have a reason for calling?"
"Yes, actually, I do." Joel paused, then sighed heavily. "Look," he said, his tone sounding a bit more normal now. "I don't wanna freak you or anything, but something's happened, and I felt you should know about it."
Dana forgot her previous irritation and frowned. "What's going on?"
"Someone in Charming doesn't trust you, Bradshaw," Joel stated bluntly.
Of all the things he might have said, that was the last thing Dana had expected to hear. What did he mean, someone didn't trust her? Who? And how did he know? "Care to elaborate on that a little more?" Dana prompted.
"Someone's been running a background check on you," Joel told her.
Dana blinked in surprise. "What?" she asked, alarm immediately shooting through her veins. "How do you know?"
"Before you went undercover, we put together a very extensive alias for you, just in case anyone got suspicious and started snooping around. We also set it up so that we'd get alerted if anyone tried to look into you, just so we could stay one step ahead. Well," he continued, "we started getting alerts yesterday. Someone's trying to dig up anything they can find on Dana Prejean. And not just anyone, either. Wayne Unser's the one doing it."
Dana began pacing the room, her heart thumping hard in her chest. "Unser? You're sure?" she asked, raking a hand through her hair.
"Positive," he answered without hesitation.
"Fuck," Dana cursed, raising her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose.
This wasn't good. The police chief of Charming was running background checks on her? Why? She'd barely even said more than a few sentences to Wayne Unser. She had given him absolutely no reason to suspect that she was being untruthful, or that she had anything to hide. What had prompted him to start snooping around?
Suddenly, she found herself thinking of all the things that Jax had said about his mother's view of their relationships. She's never been someone who trusts easily. She's protective of me and Abel. And in that moment, the answer hit her like a swift punch to the gut. Gemma. She obviously did not like how close Dana had gotten to Jax, and she had taken it upon herself to try to find dirt on her. And who had she gone to for help? Her longtime friend, Wayne Unser. He had all the resources he needed at his disposal, and he would be able to snoop around without Jax, or anyone else in the club, knowing about it. There was no doubt in her mind that Gemma was at the root of all this. It was the only explanation that made sense.
"Dana? Are you listening to me?" Joel asked, bringing her back to the present.
Dana blinked, then shook her head. "Sorry, what?"
Joel heaved, then spoke. "I said there's no need to panic, alright? Unser won't find anything he isn't supposed to find. Like I said, the info we planted is extensive, and it's very convincing," he said reassuringly. "In the meantime, just make sure you don't do anything to rouse suspicion with anyone else, alright?"
Dana sighed. "Yeah, okay," she agreed.
She had a feeling the damage was already done, though. She also had a feeling that this was not something that would blow over as easily as Joel seemed to believe.
"We should probably keep this short. The last thing we need is for Teller to catch you on the phone with me," he said to change the subject. "But before we hang up, is there anything to report on your end?"
Dana hesitated for a moment, unsure how to answer. She knew that Joel and Peters wanted to know if she was making more progress, knew that she was on a deadline and that said deadline was fast approaching. But she couldn't tell them about Hobart and the Mayans yet, not until she had more information.
"Everything's good," she answered vaguely.
Joel was quiet for a second, then he heaved. "Dana, you know I need more from you than just 'everything's good'," he told her with a tinge of impatience. "Peters has been all over my ass wanting to know what kind of progress we're making and I haven't had anything to offer him. We can't keep dicking around, Dana. We need answers, and we need them now."
"I know, Joel," Dana said as patiently as she could. "And I'm working on it. I've got a new lead I'm following, one that I think will give us all the answers we need," she revealed. "But I need a few more days to see it through, okay?"
"A new lead?" Joel asked skeptically. "Care to clue me in?"
Dana pursed her lips. "Not yet. Not until I have more to tell you."
Again, Joel hesitated. "Dana, I don't like the sound of this," he admitted, his tone hard to decipher. She couldn't tell if he sounded worried, or if he sounded angry. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to pull a Bradshaw and go rogue?"
Dana winced in response. Joel was one of her closest friends, but damnit, sometimes it was just downright inconvenient that he knew her so well. "I'm not pulling anything," she said in an attempt to assure him. "You trust me, don't you?"
There was a pause on his end, a pause that felt just a little bit too long. "Yeah," he finally answered.
Dana wasn't sure if she was completely convinced that he did still trust her, but figured she had to just accept it and move on. "Good."
It was in that moment that a figure appeared in the bedroom doorway. Dana felt her heart jump at the sight of Jax, who was watching her with a questioning expression, clearly curious to know who she was talking to. Dana had to cover her tracks, and quickly.
"Don't worry, Ross," she said, having decided to pretend like she was talking to her coworker from the bar. "I've got it covered. You're in the clear," she added, smiling at Jax as he walked into the bedroom and stepped toward her.
"Teller must be there," Joel said observantly in her ear.
"Yep," Dana answered.
"We'll talk later then. Let me know whenever you've got more info on this lead," Joel quickly instructed.
"You got it," Dana said. "Talk to you later."
She ended the call just as Jax reached her, making sure to lock her screen again so he wouldn't catch a glimpse of Joel's name. "Hey, you," she said, keeping her tone and behavior perfectly normal.
"Hey yourself," he said back, planting his hands on her waist and pulling her closer. "Problem with work?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
"Just Ross calling to remind me that I agreed to cover his shift tonight," she lied smoothly. "Guess he made plans for tonight and wanted to make sure I wasn't gonna try to bail on him."
"Got it," Jax said, nodding in understanding.
He lifted one of the hands that he had on her waist and placed it on her neck instead, then leaned down to give her a long, deep kiss. Dana couldn't help the desire that began to simmer through her body as she pressed closer to him, her lips eagerly responding to his. With Jax, it just didn't seem to take much to set her on fire. One look, one touch, one kiss, and he made her feel a sort of desire that no other person had ever made her feel.
He finally pulled away from her, and as his lips pulled into a satisfied smirk, she had no doubt that it was because it pleased him to see the effect he had on her. "C'mon, cupcake. We've got some breakfast to eat," he said, before giving her one more peck on the lips and turning to leave.
Dana sucked in a breath, then shook her head and followed him into the kitchen. Though she was still feeling quite a bit heated, the moment she caught sight of the plate of bacon and eggs he had made for her, she was able to forget about her lust for Jax for the moment and concentrate on her now grumbling stomach. Dana quickly sat down at the table, smiling at Abel when he cooed at her from his high chair, which was set up right next to the table.
"Coffee?" Jax offered, coming over with a coffee pot in one hand, and a mug in the other.
"Yes, please," Dana readily agreed.
Jax poured her a cup, then handed it over. He then went to get his own mug, filled it to the brim with coffee, and placed the pot back in its holder. After that, he retrieved his own plate of food and claimed the chair across the table from her.
"I called the guy working on your car," he said conversationally. "It'll be ready around noon."
"That's good," Dana said, nodding. "Thank you for taking care of that for me. I really appreciate it," she then told him with a smile.
"You're welcome," Jax told her, before taking a long drink of coffee.
"What's your plan for today?" Dana asked him. "Are you going into the shop?"
"Maybe for a bit," Jax said, pausing with his own meal so he could spoonfeed Abel for a moment. "I think I'm gonna try to hang out here as much as I can, though. Hang out with Abel for a bit, maybe work on the bike," he said, referring to the motorcycle he'd been restoring since before she'd moved to Charming.
Dana nodded her understanding. "Sounds like a good day to me."
Their conversation lulled after that, and for a few moments they ate in silence. Dana happily slurped down her coffee, watching as Jax alternated between eating his own food and helping Abel eat his. Finally, Jax shifted his attention back to her and raised his brows.
"I'm surprised you haven't started grilling me with questions yet," he commented. "I was expecting to get bombarded the second you woke up."
Dana quirked a brow at him. "I thought it was something that could at least wait until after we'd had breakfast, but I can start now if you want," she said.
Jax just shrugged. "Might as well get it over with," he said, though he seemed to be a little on his guard now.
Dana almost didn't know what to say at first. Truth be told, she was still stunned that she had managed to convince him to talk to her, and even more shocked by the fact that she might have very well unlocked the door to all of SAMCRO's dirty little secrets. She sat straighter in her seat, suddenly feeling a small zing of excitement as she considered the many different questions she had circling through her head. Finally, she decided to just start with the first thing that came to mind.
"Let's start easy," she told him. "The woman in the store last night," she then said, referring to April Hobart. "Who was she?"
Jax sighed and fiddled with his fork for a second. "Her name's April Hobart. She's the ex-wife of a guy who used to be in our club."
Dana quirked a brow. "Used to be?" she echoed. Jax just nodded. "What happened to him? Did he leave?"
Jax's expression suddenly turned dark and he shook his head in what looked like disgust. "He was kicked out," he told her. "A long time ago, that bastard was supposed to be Opie's wingman for a job. But when the cops showed up, the fucker panicked and ran for it. He just left Opie behind to take the fall for everything."
"Donna told me he spent five years in Chino," she said, recalling her conversation with Opie's wife the night before. "Was that what he was serving time for?"
"Yep," Jax confirmed. "Opie got arrested and went to jail. So as punishment, Kyle, the guy who left him behind, got excommunicated from the club and kicked out of Charming."
Dana nodded in understanding. "So if she's not with Kyle anymore, why was she acting so weird around you?"
Jax didn't answer at first, looking a little hesitant to tell her the truth. When she just gave him a look, he finally started talking. "About a year ago, Hobart turned up at that fundraiser my mom always throws for the school. No one in the club had seen him since we'd kicked him out of SAMCRO. Things were still pretty bitter between us and him, but he was there with his kids, so we let him be," he began to explain. "At some point in the day, he was playing one of the games with his kids, some egg throwin' game or somethin'. Well, the back of his shirt came up and Opie and I saw that he still had his SAMCRO tattoo on his back."
"The same one you have?" Dana asked, thinking of the massive SAMCRO tattoo that took up all of Jax's back. Jax nodded in confirmation. "Was he not supposed to have the tattoo?" she asked next with confusion.
"No," Jax told her firmly. "When you leave the club, you're supposed to get any SAMCRO tattoos either blacked out or removed. If you're not in the club, then you damn sure better not try to represent it on your skin," he explained. "But Kyle didn't do that. Said he couldn't. So that left only one more option."
Dana frowned, suddenly having a feeling she knew where this conversation might be headed. "And what option is that?"
"We removed it for him," Jax answered simply.
As she remembered the pictures Gonzalez had sent her of Hobart's burned back, she couldn't help the sudden turning of her stomach. "How?" she still asked, even though she already knew.
"He had a choice. Either we could cut it off or burn it off," Jax said. "He chose fire."
Dana pressed her lips together and slowly nodded her head, very much aware of how closely Jax was watching her for her reactions. "He must have been pretty messed up afterward," she commented.
"To say the least," Jax said in return, taking another drink of coffee.
Dana thought about what he'd told her as she drank some of her own coffee, then raised her brows. "So I take it April knows you guys did it to him?" she commented.
"I don't think it was that hard for her to figure out," Jax said with a shrug.
"Did he survive?" she asked, even though she knew he had.
"Yeah. Honestly, I thought the guy had died," he admitted. "But Opie told me not that long ago that he saw him back around the holidays. Said he came stumbling up to the clubhouse drunk and high off his ass, saying how we had destroyed his life." Jax scoffed and shook his head. "We didn't destroy shit. The asshole did it to himself."
Dana nodded slowly, her mind racing as she processed everything Jax had told her. Now she knew exactly what had happened to Kyle that day, and with this newfound information, she now had a concrete motive as to why Kyle would want to target SAMCRO in the first place. It was certainly the right step toward pinning this whole situation on Kyle Hobart, that was for sure.
"What are you thinkin'?" Jax asked, making her focus in on him again.
He was watching her with very scrutinizing eyes, as if he was trying with all his might to read her mind. Dana took a moment to consider her answer, then finally shrugged a shoulder. "He betrayed SAMCRO. Opie lost five years with his family because of one guy's selfish decision. The way I see it, the guy deserved it," she told Jax unflinchingly.
If Jax was surprised by her answer, he hid it very well. After a moment he nodded and sipped his coffee, then shoved a large piece of bacon into his mouth. Dana followed his suit and took a few bites of food, internally debating what she should ask him about next.
"Alright, next question," she continued. "What does the club do for business? As in, what does it really do?" she asked. When Jax quirked a brow, she gave him a knowing look. "I've heard a lot of people talking about some secret 'business' around the clubhouse. And I saw your mom's house. No way they live in a place like that off a mechanic's paycheck," she said matter-of-factly. "I know how things like this go. Every club has something they do behind the scenes."
Jax gave her a curious look in response to that. "What's the Vultures' deal?" he asked with interest.
Dana frowned as she thought about the dealings of the Vultures. She had not looked into the club at all in recent years – in fact, she'd avoided anything having to do with the Vultures like the plague since Brannon was patched in – but she did know that they had once been pretty deep into the drug scene.
"I was always led to believe that they dealt a lot of drugs," she told him. "I dunno if they still do that, though," she added with a shrug. Dana took another bite of food, then eyed him curiously. "Is that what SAMCRO does?" she asked, even though she already knew they didn't.
"No," Jax said at once. "We don't mess around with that shit, and we don't want anyone else tryin' to bring it through Charming either. That's why we have so many issues with the Mayans," he explained. "They're always tryin' to traffic their drugs through here. Them and the Nords," he added as an afterthought. "Though the Nords have been pretty quiet lately."
"Nords?" Dana questioned, despite knowing who they were already. She'd done a bit of research on them following the meeting between SAMCRO and the Nords at the bar not long after she'd started working there.
"White supremacist dickheads led by a guy named Ernest Darby," he told her. "They used to be a huge thorn in our side, but Darby offered to help us keep this Mayan problem contained, so things have been amicable recently," he said with a shrug.
Dana nodded in understanding, but internally her mind was working overtime. She had thought that maybe the Mayans had agreed to help Hobart mess with SAMCRO just out of spite or to settle old scores. Now, however, it seemed they were doing it to try to run SAMCRO out of town and free Charming up for their drug trafficking business. She supposed she understood the motivation, but if they were the people who had attacked that mayor, and if they were the people who had kidnapped – and possibly murdered – agents Markum and Huff, then it seemed a pretty stupid way to go about trying to get rid of SAMCRO. There was way too much risk, and way too much room for error. They must have been really desecrate to get rid of the Sons of Anarchy if they were so willing to put themselves in such a volatile, unpredictable situation.
Dana pushed thoughts of the Mayans aside for now and took a moment to watch Jax, who was wiping away a huge glob of baby food that Abel had gotten on his cheek. It didn't escape her notice that Jax had managed to steer the conversation elsewhere and, thus, avoid having to answer her question about the club's business dealings. She thought about dropping it for now and trying again later, but then decided to push it and see if he would tell her.
"So if it's not drugs, then what is it?" she asked bluntly.
Jax looked back to her, his expression hinting that he'd been hoping she would drop the subject. Finally, he sighed in what seemed like resignation. "Guns," he said simply.
"Guns," Dana echoed, nodding slowly.
"That bug you?" Jax asked.
Dana pursed her lips, then shrugged. "Guns themselves don't bug me. I've handled enough guns by now to be pretty comfortable with them," she told him.
Jax's brows rose on surprise. "That so?" he asked with interest.
"Yes," she said. "But gun running?" she continued, not about to let this conversation get sidetracked. "That's some risky shit, Jax. It could land you behind bars…or worse," she added pointedly.
"Yeah, I'm aware of that," he said with a frown. "Look, I don't necessarily enjoy it all that much either," he then admitted. "But it's what we've done for a long time now. It's what we know. It what we do best."
Dana frowned and set her fork down so she could cross her arms over her chest and lean back in her seat. "How have you managed not to catch the attention of feds all these years?" she asked.
"Who said we hadn't caught their attention?" he countered swiftly. "ATF was all over us last year. It was only pure, dumb luck that we managed to avoid serious trouble with them," he said.
Dana knew exactly what he was talking about – if one of the Charming officers hadn't reported the questionable tactics of the agent in charge of the investigation, it was very likely that all of SAMCRO would be behind bars by now.
"If they come once, they'll come again," she said warningly.
"Trust me, I know. We actually got a heads up from Unser not that long ago that some feds may be comin' back around pretty soon," he said with a frown, which made her sit a little straighter.
"Because of the guns?" she asked, hoping that maybe she could get him talking about the very situation that had brought her to Charming in the first place.
"No, this is about something else," he said with a shake of his head. "Somethin' that happened before you came to Charming."
"You mean that ordeal with that mayor?" she asked. When Jax seemed a bit surprised that she knew about it, she quickly came up with an excuse. "It was all over the news. That's how I know." Jax made a sound of understanding then, and nodded his head. "Wait," Dana said, acting as if she'd just had an epiphany. "They don't think SAMCRO did that, do they?" she asked incredulously.
"We certainly got questioned about it," Jax revealed. "Couple feds came through here and started sniffing around, asking lots of questions, trying to dig up dirt," he proceeded to say. "They didn't find anything, though, because there was nothing to find. We didn't have anything to do with that shit."
Dana's heart jumped at the mention of the two missing agents, but she forced herself to remain completely composed on the outside. It was the first time that Jax – or anyone in Charming, for that matter – had acknowledged the fact that Markum and Huff had even been to Charming in the first place. To hear Jax talk about them so casually made her heart pound against her ribs, but she told herself to keep it together. She felt like she was making good progress here – she couldn't do anything to screw that up.
Dana cleared her throat, then reached for her coffee. "So why are they coming back?" she asked, before taking a long drink.
"Hell if I know," Jax answered with a shrug. Dana just frowned and nodded, which made Jax lean forward and grab one of her hands. "Don't worry," he said, mistaking her behavior as concern. "We know what we're doing," he assured her with a firm nod. "We'll be fine."
Dana smiled and squeezed his hand. "I hope so." Then, feeling the need to lighten the mood that had fallen over them, she smirked and raised her brows. "There's a lot I can handle, but I don't know if conjugal visits is one of them," she joked.
Jax actually snorted at that, looking amused. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, then," he joked back.
"Let's," she readily agreed.
She released his hand so she could pick up her fork again and resume eating her breakfast. They ate in silence for a few moments, both of them glancing at the other every so often. Finally, Jax opened his mouth like he was going to say something. But just as he did, a familiar rumbling sound reached their ears, making them both pause and glanced toward the window.
It sounded like a motorcycle was coming down the street. The rumbling sound grew louder and louder, until it seemed to come to a halt right in Jax's driveway. When the sound cut off in the next second, Jax got up from his chair and went to the window so he could flick up a blind and peer outside to see who had arrived. When his shoulders relaxed, she knew it was someone friendly coming to visit.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"It's Happy," he said. "I'll be right back," he then told her, before heading toward the front door to greet his friend.
Dana sat quietly and finished the last few bites of her breakfast, smiling over at Abel when she realized the boy was watching her. Behind her, she heard Jax open the front door and call out a greeting to the man named Happy, the nomadic Son that had come to town to help the club for a bit. When she finally heard Happy come inside, she looked over her shoulder and watched as he and Jax shared a manly hand shake, taking a moment to study the man in question. He looked older than both her and Jax, had his hair buzzed so short that he looked bald, and wore a very serious expression. He was also wearing a Sons of Anarchy kutte, but instead of the California patch that the SAMCRO members sported on their own kuttes, his read 'Nomad'.
"Come on in, Hap," Jax said, motioning to the kitchen as he shut the front door. "You want some coffee? I just made some," he then offered.
"Alright. But I can't stay long. I just wanted to drop by on my way to the clubhouse," the man named Happy said, speaking in a deep, gravelly voice.
"Okay," Jax said with a nod of understanding.
The two men stepped into the kitchen, where Dana still sat, silently eyeing the nomadic biker. Jax walked over to the coffee pot to pour another mug, but Happy didn't follow him. Instead, the gruff looking man lingered a few feet away from the table Dana sat at, his expression stoic and impenetrable as his gaze found Dana's. He didn't seem surprised by the presence of a woman in Jax's house, nor did she think he would have shown it even if he had been.
As he continued to look at her, his unmoving stare began to feel a little unnerving. She decided right then and there that Jax had not been exaggerating when he'd told her that Happy was a 'scary motherfucker'. He certainly looked the part.
"Hi," Dana finally said to break the silence of the room, taking it upon herself to carry out the introduction. "I'm Dana," she said, extending her hand toward him.
Happy looked at her hand for a long moment, then stepped forward and shook her hand, his grip perhaps a little too tight. "Happy," he told her.
"Happy, huh?" she said, resisting the urge to rub her slightly pained hand when he released her. "They call you that because you smile so much?" she then joked.
Happy, who looked as though he probably hadn't smiled in his whole life, did not react to her joke. As he blinked at her with a blank look in his eyes, Dana pressed her lips together and shot a glance at Jax, who looked like he was trying not to laugh. Dana finally looked at Abel and raised her eyebrows.
"Tough crowd, huh, Abe?" she asked the boy, not even realizing that she'd just bestowed a new nickname on him.
Abel just giggled at her, then scooped up some baby food with his fingers and shoved it into his mouth, smearing half of the food on his face in the process.
Jax finally came over to give Happy his coffee. "Here you go," he said, passing it over. After Happy grabbed the mug and took a long drink, Jax crossed his arms over his chest and nodded his head upward, his expression all business now. "So what's been goin' on? Anything we should be concerned about?" he asked.
Happy started to answer, but then hesitated and glanced at Dana, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he should say anything in front of her. When Jax looked over at her, too, Dana took that as maybe it was her cue to leave and started to get up and go elsewhere. She froze when Jax held up a hand though, signaling for her to stay where she was.
"It's fine," he said, looking to Happy again. "She can hear whatever you have to say."
Happy looked at Jax again, then nodded. "Nothing much to report," he said. "Alvarez looks like he's keepin' his head down for now. Things are quiet in Oakland. Real quiet."
Dana perked at the mention of Alvarez, then looked at Jax for his reaction. His expression had gone dark with hatred. "If those assholes know what's good for them, they'll stay quiet. If they think we've forgotten that shit they pulled, they're wrong," he said. Dana knew at once that he was referring to the drive by the Mayans had carried out while the club had been celebrating John Tellers birthday.
"Quiet ain't always a good thing," Happy countered, his serious expression never budging.
"True," Jax conceded with a nod.
"I did notice somethin' while I was out there, though," Happy continued. "A lot of Alvarez's men keep comin' and goin'. I'd see a group of Mayans leave the clubhouse, then, a few hours later, a different group of Mayans would come back. Then, the next day, they would trade off again. It seemed to keep goin' on like that the whole time I was out there," he explained. "It's almost like they're goin' in shifts or somethin'."
Jax frowned with confusion. "Shifts? Shifts for what?"
Happy just shrugged. "Don't know."
"You know where they were goin'?" Jax asked next.
Happy nodded. "I followed them a couple times. Every time a group left, they went to Lodi."
Jax made a thoughtful sound at that. "You think they're organizing something with the Calaveras then?"
"Can't think of any other reason they'd be goin' there," Happy said with a shrug.
Jax nodded, then pressed his lips together and glanced elsewhere. Dana just glanced back and forth between the two, wracking her brain as she tried to remember if she'd ever heard of the Calaveras before. The name didn't sound familiar. She almost started to make a mental note to tell Gonzalez to look into them, but then she thought about everything she and Jax had been discussing that morning and decided to try asking Jax first. With how open he'd been with her, she had a feeling he would tell her what she wanted to know.
"I gotta go," Happy said after a moment or two. He chugged down his coffee, then gave the mug back to Jax. "I'm supposed to meet Clay at the clubhouse soon."
"Yeah, alright," Jax said, nodding. "Thank for dropping by," he said next extending a hand toward Happy. Happy slapped his hand into Jax's for another manly handshake. "Tell Clay I'll be up at the clubhouse soon. We should all probably sit down and discuss this Lodi thing."
"You got it," Happy agreed.
With that, Happy turned to Dana to briefly incline his head to her, then headed for the door. Once he was gone and the door was shut behind, Dana turned her eyes over to Jax, who was clearly still mulling over everything Happy had just told him.
"Who are the Calaveras?" she asked.
Jax blinked as he surfaced from his own thoughts and turned his attention to her. "They're an MC in Lodi. Sort of an extension from the Mayans charter." He paused to look at the clock, then glanced back at her. He looked like he didn't really want to leave, but it seemed the call of business was too difficult for him to ignore. "I should probably go to the clubhouse and check in with the guys," he said regretfully, moving to place Happy's mug in the sink. "I'm sure once Clay hears what Happy has to say, he'll want to have a meeting."
Dana nodded in understanding. "Yeah, okay," she said.
Jax walked over to stand next to her and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'll come pick you up at noon and we can go get your car. After that, you wanna do lunch before you go to work? Just me, you, and Abel?" he invited.
Dana smiled and nodded again. "Sounds good. Just give me a heads up when you're on your way and I'll make sure I'm ready."
"Deal," Jax said, looking happy that she'd agreed. He leaned down to kiss her for a moment, then nodded in the direction of his bedroom. "I'm gonna get dressed and call Neita to come watch Abel for a couple hours. Think you can keep an eye on him for a few minutes?" he asked, motioning to Abel.
"Sure," Dana agreed.
"Thanks."
Jax gave her one more kiss, then left the kitchen and headed off toward the bedroom. Once she was alone, Dana sighed and glanced over at Abel, who was gazing at the doorway that his father had just disappeared through. Dana smiled slightly to herself when she saw how much food the kid had managed to get on himself, then stood up to grab a towel so she could clean his face. Once he looked at least semi-decent again, she claimed Jax's vacated chair, grabbed the spoon he had been using to feed Abel, and, despite having never done anything like this before, took over on feeding duties.
But even as she sat there feeding Abel, only distantly aware of the sound of Jax talking on the phone in the bedroom, her mind was a million miles away.
So the Mayans were going back and forth between Oakland and Lodi, and there was a possibility that they were cooking something up with their affiliate gang, the Calaveras. She didn't know much about this new MC she'd just learned of, but with everything she'd learned, and after everything she and Jax had talked about, there were a few things she did know with complete certainty now.
For one, SAMCRO was not involved in the attack on Mayor Wilson, and they were not involved in disappearance of agents Markum and Huff. If she had had any lingering doubts in that regard, they had been completely obliterated by that conversation with Jax. She also knew now, without a shadow of doubt, that Kyle Hobart was paying the Mayans to get back at SAMCRO out of pure revenge. He hated them for the pain they had inflicted, hated them because he seemed to believe that they had destroyed his life. A broken man with nothing to lose? He would go to any lengths to see SAMCRO fall, even if it meant resorting to drastic measures.
Now she had to ask herself this – if the Mayans were going back and forth between Oakland and Lodi, did that meant that the missing agents in Lodi? And if so, was it possible that they were still alive?
Dana had already been planning to go to Lodi to talk with Hobart's ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Nichols. But now she had an entirely new reason for wanting to go. She needed to find out what the Mayans were doing in Lodi. And she needed to do it quickly, before the Sons of Anarchy had a chance to do so themselves.
That afternoon, Kyle Hobart snorted and jerked awake when he felt someone deliver a swift kick to his side. He opened his eyes to see what bastard had decided to wake him up so rudely, but then quickly shut them again when the bright sunlight burned his retinas. Clamping a hand over his eyes, Kyle took a moment to collect himself before peeking through his fingers. He finally was able to focus on the disapproving face of Ernest Darby.
"Oh, hey, Ern," he greeted dully, closing his eyes again and rolling get onto his back.
"Don't 'oh hey Ern' me," Darby snapped irritably, kicking him again and making Kyle release a sound of protest and open his eyes to peer at his partner with confusion. What the hell was Darby so pissed about anyway? "Do you have any idea how many fucking times I've called you today?" Darby asked, his brows shooting upward. "It's almost four in the fucking afternoon. You were supposed to meet with me over three hours ago!" he then said with annoyance.
Kyle continued to look at him with confusion for a second, unable to recall this meeting that Darby was referring to, then cursed under his breath when it all came rushing back to him.
He had planned to go to Darby's around noon to pick up the next payment for the Mayans, then head over to Oakland to hand over the cash and check in with Alvarez. He hadn't done that, though, because he'd indulged in some of Darby's newest batch of meth the night before and had proceeded to get high off his ass. The drugs had kept him up all night and made him forget any plans he'd agreed to. But now that he'd crashed and had a chance to sleep everything off, he was thinking clearly again. And knowing that he had fucked up – again – left a sour taste in his mouth.
Kyle finally sat up, realizing as he looked around that he had been passed out on the floor in the middle of the living room of the trailer he'd been staying in for the past several months. "Look, Ern…I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to no show. It's just…you know," he finished lamely, raising his shoulders in a helpless shrug.
Darby looked down at him, then heaved and shook his head. "Get up, Kyle," he said, extending a hand to help him get to his feet. Kyle grabbed his hand and let the man pull him upward. As soon as Darby got a whiff of him, he pulled a face and made a sound of disgust. "Jesus. Go to take a shower. You smell like somethin' that died."
Kyle nodded, then turned and headed for the small bathroom at the back of the trailer, able to hear Darby grumbling under his breath as he went.
Once in the bathroom, he turned on the water and started to pull off his beyond dirty clothes. But when he caught a look of his own relfection in the mirror, he paused and leaned closer to inspect himself better. His skin was allow. His cheeks were gaunt. There were dark bags underneath his eyes. And he was skinny, way skinnier than he'd ever been in his whole life. Jesus…he looked like shit.
Kyle heaved, shook his head, then resumed getting undressed before hopping into the shower. He bathed quickly, then, when he was finished, he popped into the messy bedroom and dressed in the cleanest clothes he could find. When he finally went back to the living room, he found that Darby had grabbed himself a beer from the fridge and was sitting on the couch, seemingly uncaring of all the trash and rubble around him. Darby looked over at him, seemed to approve of the fact that Kyle seemed a bit more put together, then took a drink of his beer.
"You good now?" Darby asked.
"Yeah. I'm good," Kyle assured him. He paused by the fridge to get a beer of his own, then went to sit in the chair adjacent to the couch. "Sorry about today," he told Darby as he popped the top off his beer. "I should'a been there."
"Yeah, you should've," Darby agreed pointedly.
Kyle said nothing to that, just looked away guiltily and took a long swig of beer. Darby was his only friend right now, the only person who understood what he was going through, the only one who seemed to actually care what happened to him. He was pissed off at himself for letting Darby down, for letting his own demons interfere with their plans.
"Look, Kyle," Darby said after a beat or two of silence, sighing heavily. Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, his eyes intent as they stared at him. "No one knows better than me that you've been goin' through some shit. But this thing we've got goin' on? It only succeeds if we keep our heads on straight," he said.
"I know," Kyle said quickly, nodding his head.
"Do you?" Darby questioned doubtfully. "Because you don't seem to realize how easily this shit could fall apart. One wrong move, one stupid mistake, and it's our assess on the chopping block. Is that what you want? For us to take the fall for everything while SAMCRO goes free?" Darby questioned.
"Fuck no," Kyle said at once. "I want those assholes to suffer. I want them to pay."
Darby smirked a bit and nodded his head. "So do I," he said. "That's why we've both gotta keep our shit together for just a little bit longer," he told him firmly. "I can see the end in sight. I can feel it comin'. And as long as we play our cards right, we'll come out on top in the end."
Kyle nodded, and took another drink from his beer.
He sure hoped Darby was right. When they'd first started coming up with this plan to get rid of SAMCRO, everything had seemed pretty straight forward. Frame the Sons for a crime that would land them in serious trouble with the federal government, pay someone to do all the dirty work for them so that their hands would be clean, then watch as all the his former club brothers crashed and burned. But he'd quickly learned that this plan wasn't easy. There had been mistakes. Things had gone wrong. They'd had to make adjustments, make changes to their original plan. Things had gotten more complicated as time had gone on, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't have doubts about this whole thing. Because Darby was one hundred percent right – one wrong move, one stupid mistake, and all of this would come crashing down on their heads.
Kyle shook his head and tried to force those thoughts away. As of right now, everything was still going alright. The Mayans were doing their part and keeping those agents on lock down while they waited from the right moment to put them out of the misery, and the Sons were none the wiser that Darby, their supposed 'ally', was actually the man behind this scheme to bring them down. They just needed to see a few more plans through and keep their shit together for a little bit longer. Once it was all said and done, SAMCRO's reign in Charming would be over, and the town would belong to him and Darby. Then Kyle could start putting his life together, and he could live out the rest of his days in contentment knowing that Jax, Opie, and the rest of those dickheads would never know freedom again.
"Alright," Darby said to break the momentary silence that had passed between them, chugging down the rest of his beer before tossing the bottle away carelessly. It didn't really matter where it landed – the trailer was a complete wreck anyway. "I ain't stayin' long. Just wanted to bring you the money and make sure you were still alive."
Darby stood from the couch, then grabbed for an envelope that he'd tucked into the waistband of his pants. He tossed it to Kyle who scrambled to catch it. "Call Alvarez. Tell him you were takin' care of business earlier and that you're on your way to meet him now. Once you're there, get an update on what's goin' on in Lodi. Call me when you're done, got it?"
"Yeah, I got it," Kyle said with a nod.
"Good." With that Darby started toward the door. He hesitated next to Kyle, though, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It won't be much longer, Hobart. Soon enough, Charming will be ours."
"Yes it will," Kyle said with a smirk.
Darby gave him a nod, patted his shoulder, then left without saying another word.
Kyle's smirk fell once Darby was gone. He sighed to himself and drank some more beer, raising one hand to rub his eyes wearily. He felt like shit now that he had come down from the high of the meth. A voice in the back of his head said to go take another hit, told him that it would be make him feel so much better. Kyle glanced toward the box on the coffee table in front of him, which contained his stash, and for a moment he seriously contemplated getting high again. But then he shook his head and took a long drink of his beer instead. As tempted as he was, he couldn't do it. He needed to meet with Alvarez first. Once business was handled for the day, then, and only then, would he indulge himself.
He was just finishing the rest of his beer when his phone began to ring. Kyle tossed the empty bottle aside, then stood from the couch and began searching for his phone. It took a few moments of rifling through all the junk littering up the trailer, but he finally found it in the kitchen hiding underneath a dirty magazine. He instantly recognized the number calling him.
"Hey, Alvarez," he greeted. "I was just about to call you. Look, about earlier – "
"We got a problem, gringo," Alvarez interrupted, making Kyle instantly frown.
"Problem? What kinda problem?" Kyle asked, an uneasy feeling entering his stomach.
"One that shouldn't be discussed over the phone," Alvarez countered. "We need to meet. Now."
Kyle knew then that something had definitely gone wrong. He cursed under his breath and raked a hand through his hair, already feeling anxious. "Alright," he said. "I'm on my way to Oakland now."
"We ain't in Oakland," Alvarez told him. "Come to Lodi. We're at the warehouse."
Fuck, Kyle cursed in his head. If he was needed in Lodi, that meant only one thing – either the feds they'd kidnapped or the place they were holding them in was compromised. This wasn't good.
"I'll be there soon as I can," Kyle assured him.
There was a click in his ear after that, signaling that the conversation was over. Kyle clicked his own burner phone shut, shoved it into his pocket, then went to hastily put on some shoes. Once he had grabbed his keys and the envelope of money Darby had just given him, he was out the door and on his way to Lodi.
It seemed to take a lifetime to get to the warehouse in Lodi. The whole time Kyle was driving, he couldn't seem to sit still – he shifted in his seat, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, constantly fiddled with the dials on the radio. He was sweating, too, so much so that he could feel it beginning to soak through his shirt. He could tell himself that it was because of the heat outside, but it would be a lie. It was because the closer he drew to the warehouse in Lodi, the more anxious he felt.
Once he reached Lodi, he turned off the main road and drove along a few back roads that led away from town. A little while later, a warehouse located well away from the prying eyes of the public came into view. There were a number of motorcycles parked outside as he pulled up, as well as a few big, tough looking Mayans standing on guard. They were armed, and they tensed when he came driving up. Once they recognized him, however, they quickly relaxed.
Kyle cut the engine of his car, then hopped out and hurried up to the two Mayans. "Alvarez?" he asked.
"Inside," one of the guys said, jerking his head toward the door.
The other Mayan opened the door for him, and after giving him a quick nod, Kyle stepped inside. He took off his sunglasses as the door shut behind him again and glanced around. He had only been here once before, but it more or less looked the same. Lots of boxes stacked high in various places around the room. Shelves along the walls stocked with various items that the Mayans smuggled. A couple of tables stationed in the center of the room, covered in food wrappers and empty beer bottles. A few makeshift beds on the far side of the room where the men on guard took turns sleeping whenever they had to stay overnight.
There were three small rooms along the back wall – two offices, and a bathroom. It was there that he finally spotted Alvarez, who was sitting at a table with his Vice President and the Sergeant-at-Arms. They stood up as Kyle approached, their expressions betraying nothing.
"What's goin' on?" Kyle asked, frowning deeply as he reached the three.
"Look for yourself," Alvarez answered, motioned toward the office directly behind him.
Kyle stared at Alvarez for a moment, then slowly walked around the table and went up to the door. After a brief moment of hesitation, he grabbed the knob and pushed it open. As soon as he did, he was hit with a smell so foul, he felt like it punched him in the face. Gagging, Kyle covered his nose with his arm and turned away for a second. When he felt like he'd collected himself, he turned back to the office and pushed the door open wider to look inside, though judging by the smell making his eyes water, he already knew what he was going to find. Sure enough, his eyes soon landed on one of the agents they'd been holding captive there. His skin was filthy, he was covered in bruises and half-healed wounds, and there was blood oozing out of an injury to his head.
There was no doubt about it. He was dead.
Kyle stared at the dead body for another moment, then whirled around the face Alvarez, his lips pulling into an angry scowl. They'd had a specific plan laid out when they'd kidnapped the agents. They had planned to hold them captive for a while. They had planned to beat the shit out of them and make them look like complete hell, so that it would look as though SAMCRO had kept them alive purely for the fun of torturing them. They had planned to keep the two agents alive until they knew with certainty that there were federal agents in Charming. Then, when the time was right, they would kill the agents, dump the bodies, and make damn sure they were found by federal agents.
But this? This was not the plan.
"What the fuck, Alvarez?" he snarled. "Why is he dead?"
Alvarez straightened up, his expression one of challenge. "Hey, you're the one who said to rough them up. You're the one who wanted it to look like they were bein' tortured," he swiftly reminded him. "We were just doin' our job, yeah?"
"I didn't say to kill anyone, though," Kyle argued back.
Alvarez glanced at his VP, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a stoic expression on his face. "So maybe our guys got carried away," Alvarez admitted, turning back to Kyle. "But does it really matter? They're gonna die anyway," he pointed out unremorsefully.
"They were supposed to die at the right time and under the right circumstances," Kyle reminded him sharply. He then heaved and pinched the bridge of his nose. After counting backward from ten, he lowered his hand and glanced at the other office. "Is the other one alive at least?"
"Yeah, he's alive," Alvarez confirmed.
"You did that right, at least," Kyle grumbled.
Alvarez immediately looked enraged. "Look here, Hobart," he said, taking a confrontational step forward. "We're the ones putting ourselves on the line so you can get revenge on your little friends. We're the ones doing all your dirty work. So one of them died. Who cares?" he said with a snort. "We're doing the job you gave us, so maybe you should show a little more gratitude, huh?"
"It ain't like you're doing it for free," Kyle reminded him through clenched teeth. "You're makin' a pretty penny off this whole thing, remember?"
Alvarez glared at Kyle for a second, then huffed and shot a look at the Sergeant-at-arms. "You know what? All this disrespect is startin' to make me think that maybe this ain't worth it. Maybe we should just put a bullet in that other gringo and be done with all this."
"No," Kyle suddenly exclaimed0, feeling a flash of panic.
As Alvarez looked at him with a cocked eyebrow, Kyle took a deep breath to steady himself. He and Darby needed the Mayans. If they lost their cooperation in this plan just because he'd fucked up and let his attitude get the better of him, Darby was going to kill him. He had to make this right, and quickly.
"Look," Kyle said in a much calmer tone. "I didn't meant to fly off the handle like that," he told then, holding his hands up in surrender. "The fed dying is…unfortunate. But you're right – it was gonna happen at some point anyway. It's a minor setback, but we can still work with this," he insisted with an encouraging nod of his head.
Alvarez just huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, still looking annoyed.
Kyle hesitated, not really eager to say his next words but feeling like they needed to be said regardless. "I'm sorry, alright?" he finally just said. "I don't want there to be beef between us. You guys are crucial to this job. Without you, we've got nothing." Remembering the money that Darby had given him, he reached for the envelope he'd shoved into his pocket and tossed it to him. Alvarez quickly caught it. "Consider that a show of good faith," he said as Alvarez opened the envelope and eyed the cash inside. "That'll keep comin' too, so long as you guys keep doin' what you're doin'."
Alvarez finally looked up at him, one eyebrow still quirked higher than the other. Kyle pursed his lips with uncertainty, then raised his brows. "We good?" Kyle asked.
Alvarez glanced at his two club brothers, then finally sighed and nodded. "Yeah, we're good."
Kyle let out a huge sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear that."
Alvarez stuffed the envelope of money into the pocket of his kutte, then crossed his arms again. "So where do we go from here?" he asked. "You want us to dump the body in Charming somewhere?"
"No," Kyle said with a shake of his head. "Not yet. SAMCRO has too many cops on their payroll. If they find him, Unser will just cover it up and then we'll be back to square one," he explained. "I have it on good authority that the FBI should be comin' through soon," he said, thinking about a conversation he'd had with Darby recently, where Darby had said that Jax had informed him that federal agents would soon be coming to Charming. "We've still got a few things to do to make sure that it looks like SAMCRO did this," he added with a gesture toward the two offices contained the agents. "Hang on to the body for now while we tie up a few last loose ends. Once everything is ready, once the feds are here, then we'll off the other guy and dump the bodies."
Alvarez didn't look very thrilled about babysitting a corpse, but nodded in agreement. "Alright, then."
Kyle nodded, glanced back at the office, then decided it was time to go. Better not to be on the company of Mayans – or their captives – for too long, just to be on the safe side. "I'm gonna head out now," he said. "I'll call you as soon as there's new developments. Until then, just…sit tight," he said.
Alvarez just nodded in response. The two shook hands for a quick moment, then Kyle brushed past him and his two club brothers and headed for the door.
Once he was outside, he headed straight for the car and eased into the driver's seat, his eyes trained on the warehouse from a long few seconds. He knew he should call Darby and tell him what had happened, but with how pissed Darby had been earlier, he was afraid of how the man would react to the news of the agent's premature death. Kyle thought about it for a minute longer, then finally decided it was a conversation that could wait. The agent was dead, yes, but he thought he'd handled the situation alright. The plan was still intact. They were still in the clear.
Kyle finally started the engine of his car, then reversed out of the patch of grass he'd parked in and heading off down the road, leaving the warehouse, the Mayans, and the captive agents – well, just the one agent now – behind. He decided he was going to get himself a nice, strong drink. Then he'd call Darby and tell him what had happened.
Thoughts?