Callaghan Estate - Reception Room
Malcolm waited for his summoned granddaughter to saunter her way into the room, and then subtly gestured to the cell phone propped down, pride of place, in the middle of the coffee table. He watched her posture stiffen as it dawned upon her.
"Doesn't tell him where you are." Malcolm said.
She stood in front of him, and she uttered, "Eoghan didn't know that I-"
"Don't you worry about him." Malcolm stated.
Rosalie scoffed, stared back at him, incredulously, and then shook her head.
"You know, I'm really fed up of being told what to do. Where I can go. Who I can speak to. When I can take a shit!" Rosalie scorned at him, and gestured around, "I don't know where the fuck we are. I just wanted my dad to know I'm alright. He'll be losing his mind!"
"Seems your boy is too." Malcolm informed her, cutting off her rant. She stopped, eagerly pining for another nugget of information. He told her, "They're here. They came for you. Loudly. Now, please. Entertain me for one moment. Sit with me, darling."
Rosalie begrudgingly sat down on the chaise opposite her grandfather.
"I never wanted kids. I loved your grandmother, and she chose this life…but being Mack Callaghan's kids? Doesn't open the right doors. My girls were born into this shite, they grew up in it. Jenna thinks she's escaped it, but that's only at my tireless behest. A lot of my money is funneled into her thinking she's made it out."
Rosalie listened to him, though her mind was now firmly with Jackson; he was here, he was looking for her, he was looking for Grace. Loudly. Rosalie drew tremendous comfort from that fact.
"I might be your monster...still human at the end of the day. And I go back and forth. Back and forth. I'd love to have you staying here, I'd hold my breath, knock myself out, do it all over again tomorrow." Malcolm sat back in his chair and he told her, honestly, with an odd degree of vulnerability, "Sitting here...looking at you...it's like I'm shooting the shit with my baby girl once again, and that's somewhat healing for a tired old man's soul. But, that's selfish and that ain't what's best."
Mack gestured to the phone, the centerpiece of his spiel, and he said, "It's charming, you and your da rebuilding your bridges. But at the end of the day, you don't owe anyone anything. You and your own baby girl, you're staring at a blank page, and I can write just about anything you want there. Anything. You just have to ask me."
"I want Grace. And I want to go home with my family." Rosalie said, tersely.
She did not waver; she did not pause, nor miss a beat.
"You have two options." Malcolm informed her.
Rosalie laughed, darkly, and she seethed, "I. Asked."
"Listen. Grace has been placed in a Catholic orphanage. She's at the starting line of a normal life, with two normal, loving, good Catholic parents. Option one: you give her the gift of anonymity, you take the Teller and the Callaghan stain away from her, for good. You free her from a life looking over her shoulder, from turning into collateral damage. Option two: you walk away with her. You walk away from all of this, step out of the cross-hairs, and free yourself." Malcolm paused, he sat forward, and he asked his granddaughter, "So, what will it be, darling? Are you a good mother? Or a selfish one?"
Rosalie pulled the gun out of her waistband and she pointed it at her grandfather; he widened his eyes and then he chuckled in response, as if a small child had rattled out a joke from a gum wrapper.
"That's good." Malcolm scoffed.
"I'm done." Rosalie said, "I'm done listening to your sad soppy tales. I'm done sitting around, waiting on some crusty old Irishmen to throw me a bone. You tell me now, where the hell is this orphanage?"
Another huff of laughter escaped from Malcolm, and he said, pensively, "Maybe this is the Callaghan Curse, darling, maybe this is way bigger than us. We have to watch history repeat itself, over and over again."
Rosalie fired a shot into the ceiling and then she took aim at him again. He glared back at her, darkly, genuinely surprised at her sudden violent outburst.
"Oh, you're seeing him again, huh?" She scorned back at him.
"Uncanny." Malcolm seethed.
Rosalie rose from her seat, and approached the old man, informing him, "I'm not my mom. I'm not you. I don't even know you! I don't care how you dress it up, you are in my way, and you will get a hole blown through you if you don't tell me where my baby girl is."
The Nunnery - Upper Springfield Road
Sister Miriam was working away soundly in her formal office space. A car had driven into the grounds, past her window a few moments earlier, but she was so entrenched in her work that her focus did not drift from her computer screen, and she merely assumed that it was one of the staff returning from a trip into the town. Her assumption grew ever more uncertain with the sounds that followed; the front doors slammed open, rustling about, a chair skidding against the floor, words exchanged, so heated, so unheard of under this roof. Sister Miriam rose from her chair and emerged from her office to investigate, and to educate the culprits. Rosalie burst her way into the back of the building.
"Sister Miriam!" A nun squealed and chased Rosalie through to the nursery, "Forgive this intrusion! I have no idea what she thinks she's playing at-"
"Relax, Sister Florence." Sister Miriam implored, and turned to Rosalie and informed her, "Your grandfather said you'd be coming by. I didn't expect to see you quite this soon."
Rosalie snapped to face her, and she seethed, "Where is my daughter?"
"Please, come in and have a seat." Sister Miriam insisted, beckoning the woman back towards her office, "You've come a long way."
"Where is she?!" Rosalie roared back.
Sister Miriam's shoulders bunched up at the volume emanating from her small frame, and she informed her, in a much quieter tone, hoping for reciprocity, "She was given to a family two days ago."
Two days ago. Rosalie saw red. There was never a choice. There was only one option; Malcolm had already made the choice for her.
"What family?" Rosalie scorned at her, incredulously, "Where is she now?!"
"Look, I don't have that information." Sister Miriam declared.
"Then, who does?" Rosalie asked.
"An independent mediator protects everyone's anonymity..."
Rosalie shook her head, and pinched the bridge of her nose as the nun rattled off her bullshit, and then she took the gun out from her waistband and fired two shots into the beautiful arched window behind Sister Miriam. Glass shattered and scattered everywhere. Sister Miriam gasped and threw her hands up in fright. She stared wide-eyed back at the woman and staggered backwards into a console. The entire room erupted with the sound of frightened, crying babies.
"Sorry, babies." Rosalie muttered, and seethed, "That seems to be the only way to stop the bullshitting on this fucking island."
"Please-" Sister Miriam mumbled out as the gun was pointed at her.
"You will tell me where my daughter is-" Rosalie started.
"I'm sorry." Sister Miriam muttered, "I just don't know-"
"It's amazing what that maternal instinct gets you doing." Rosalie said, "Anything goes for your own flesh and blood. It's primal. It's powerful. Do you think I'm an idiot, Sister? Do you think I'm going to take your shaking word as gospel, wave a white flag, and jet the fuck home, without my baby? How much did you get for her? Huh?"
Rosalie didn't blink. She pointed the gun at the baby nestled in the closest bassinet to her, and asked the nun, "How much did you get for this one? Her mother know where the fuck she is?"
Rosalie watched the nun jerk forward and she snapped her aim back to the cowering woman; her hands shot back up in terror. She informed her, "This ends one way. There's nothing 'anonymous' about this bullshit baby factory. So...skip to the end. You tell me where my daughter is, or I swear to God, I will cut you in half."
"Get the file!" Sister Miriam spluttered to Sister Florence, and after what felt like a solid lifetime ticked by, she shakily skipped through the documents that were handed over to her. She turned to Rosalie and informed her, "Katie and Mark Petrie. We do a four-day transition period. Parents stay local to make sure it's a good fit."
"Where is she now?" Rosalie asked, and snatched the file from her hands.
"The Europa Hotel." Sister Florence informed her.
"Thanks, Flo." Rosalie said, and gestured to them both with the file, "Much obliged. Oh. And, not a word to Malcolm or the Petries, or the cops get a very detailed tip from yours truly, you understand?"
"Don't hurt them. Please." Sister Miriam pleaded, "They're good, honest, god-fearing people."
"I just want my daughter back." Rosalie uttered.
The Europa Hotel - Room 207
Jackson, Opie and Gemma had rocked up to the Nunnery only one hour after Rosalie's rampage, and witnessed the mess of her aftermath: more nuns were called in, scarpering around consoling crying babies, glass from a formerly ornate window had shattered everywhere, there were bullet holes in a computer screen at the reception desk (a response to an overly-opinionated Sister Florence who couldn't let Rosalie saunter out without one last snide remark).
The nuns were a lot more forthcoming with their latest arrivals. They had perceived no threat in the petite girl that had burst through their doors earlier, but they drew harsher assumptions about the two bikers and their matriarch, and were unwilling to risk any more damage and upset. Their tale was quite embellished, but based on truth: Mack Callaghan's granddaughter had burst her way in, shot the place up, threatened to shoot a baby in the face, and stolen private information from their files. Sister Florence implored them to get the unstable woman the help that she needed, and assured them all that she would be praying for her.
The Sons descended upon the hotel, armed with a room number, and the highest of hopes that both Rosalie and her daughter would be at the end of this trail. Jackson noted that the door was ever so slightly ajar, and his heart sank down into his chest. He glanced back at his brothers and then nodded at Bobby to head in.
Bobby shoved the hotel room door open, and they all were pulled through the same journey, in differing orders, dependent on what or who they saw first. A cold shiver would run down their spines; joy and pain would ache and thunder in their chests; shaken hands would come to their faces and heads; fear would thump into the pit of their stomachs.
They found Rosalie, on her knees, in front of the executed body of Grace's adoptive mother; she was holding on to the woman's lifeless hand tightly with both of her own, and she was shaking; the father was slain on the bed; the hotel room was completely trashed and turned upside down; blood was splattered across the wall and the floor. Rosalie didn't even flinch when the door swung open.
"Holy Shit." Bobby scorned at the sights, and immediately swept the room with his gun raised.
Everyone filed in after him, all desperately searching for any sign of the baby. Jackson took in her broken frame, and he was brought over to her without much in the way of conscious thought. He lowered himself down behind her, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly into his chest, and he rested his head in the crook of her neck. She closed her eyes, interrupting her stoic connection with the dead woman in front of her, for the first time in god knows how long, and she blinked as tears trickled down her cheeks. She released one of her ice cold hands and she held on to Jackson's arm instead. He didn't say anything. He just held on to her, and decided in that moment that he was never letting go.
"Oh, shit." Gemma scorned at the room, and tossed more items around roughly. She hissed over her shoulder, "Where is she? Rosie?! Where is she?!"
"Nothing." Bobby rasped, returning from his sweep, "We got to get out of here. Now."
"I did this." Rosalie finally uttered, so quietly only Jackson heard her.
"No. Come on. Come with me." Jackson whispered in Rosalie's ear, and he gently pried her other hand away from the woman. He placed a strong arm around her middle and he took her up with him. He whispered to her, "It's alright. I got you. You're okay."
The Europa Hotel - Exterior
Happy was talking with Chibs; the street was busy and bustling, they hadn't noticed them yet. Chibs had his fist pressed against their black van, leaning heavily against it; an exhausted and exasperated form to match. Juice was perched in the back, swinging his legs out under him, anxiously. Rosalie traced every inch of her father's tired outline, taking in every detail. She began to feel the tears building up again; her heart began to thunder inside her chest as she stepped out of Jackson's support.
"Dad?" Rosalie huffed out.
Happy saw her first. He slapped Chibs on the shoulder, and grinned. Chibs raised his head up and as soon as their eyes met his tension immediately dispersed. Without a moment's hesitation, he staggered towards his daughter and pulled her in as she huffed out something of an apology to him. He didn't hear her; he didn't care. He held her head to his chest, embracing her tightly, proving to his tired bones that she was real. Everything else fell away for a moment, everything they'd been through, said or done, nothing else mattered in that one pure moment of relief. He consoled her and told her that it was alright, he'd got her message. He'd wiped the tears away from her stained cheeks, uttered 'shitting hell', thanked God and pulled her back into his arms again. Chibs shot a grateful look towards Jackson, and he gestured subtly back, hanging back from their moment. The surrounding Sons relished the scene, and shared in their brother's joy.
"Are you okay?" He whispered to her, "Did they hurt you?"
She shook her head in his arms, and whispered, "I'm sorry."
"None of that. I love you, kid." Chibs rasped, "Let's get out of here, eh?"