Jax could barely contain himself. Seeing Clay order Chibs to take V. home only increased his anger. "What the fuck is going on?" he demanded. "Why is Happy here? Where did Tig really take the girl?" He pulled a hand through his hair.

Clay scowled and sat down in his customary chair. "Calm the fuck down," he said. "Far as I know, Tig took her to Tahoe." He fixed Jax with an unmistakable expression, telling him in no uncertain terms to stop asking questions.

Jax ignored the look. "Bulllshit." He lit a cigarette. "You figured out she might tie Tig to something and decided she had to go."

Clay's scowl deepened. "What the fuck do you know?"

"Got a call from Hale," Jax said. "Told me the ATF was asking Tig about some dead pimp and hooker with a missing daughter. If Aisha's the missing kid, she ties Tig to the murders." He looked at Clay hard, daring him to lie.

"And you didn't think you needed to share that intel?" Clay said, clearly growing more pissed by the second.

"Fuck no," Jax responded. "I've seen what can happen when teenage girls are in your way." Jax tried not to think much about the night he'd pulled Tig off the teenaged witness he'd been about to kill, but couldn't help but see her face behind his eyelids now.

Clay was silent for a long moment. "Every decision I make," he said, finally, "is for the good of this Club. And you better just get fuckin' right with that."

"I am never gonna be right with hurting women."

Clay sneered. "Maybe you should," he said. "Then maybe you could hold on to V."

"Goddammit," Jax yelled, his fist coming down on the heavy tabletop. "This isn't about V."

"You sure?" Clay asked, still smirking. "Seems to me you'd be a lot less interested in protectin' a woman who's not your concern if you could keep a hold on the one who is." He laughed. "Maybe I shoulda sent you out with V. instead of Chibs. Then you'd be busy bangin' her now instead of in here annoying me."

Jax's eyes blazed. Though it shouldn't have been surprising, given everything else Clay had done, he couldn't believe the bastard was practically admitting to throwing Chibs and V. together just to bother him. Neither was the insinuation that Chibs was currently having sex with V. lost on him—having seen them outside earlier, Jax knew Clay was probably right about that. And it only made him madder. "What the fuck do you think you're doin' with V?" he asked. "Treat her like she's lucky to be here, then put her on risky shit just because you know she'll do it? Or because you want to fuck with me?" He shook his head. "You keep wonderin' if she's loyal. She's too fuckin' loyal. Thinks she owes her life to this Club, so she'll do whatever you ask of her, and you repay it by what? Keeping her around?" He looked disgusted. "Guess it's too bad for Aisha you didn't figure out a way you could make her useful."

Clay stood, leaning towards Jax threateningly. "V. does owe this Club," he said. "You heard what that skinhead told them—we're gonna have more Russian problems, and that's all on her. She is goddamn lucky I keep her around, as much trouble as she's caused." He smiled cruelly. "Maybe you'd better save your indignation for the day I decide that's the wrong decision." He narrowed his eyes. "Know you couldn't do it," he said. "Think Chibs could? Or would I need to call out the real muscle on that one, too?"

Jax sat alone in the Chapel for a long time after Clay walked out, trying frantically to figure out what he could do to stop what he was almost certain was happening, or could have already happened, to Aisha. His mind reeled, his father's voice in his head, warning of how far the Club had gotten from what it was intended to be, and how much farther it could get. Would he ever have believed it would be this bad?

-0-

"Good God woman, don't you ever get tired?" Chibs was smiling as he grumbled, tired, but certainly willing to go another round if that's what V. wanted. They were still lying on the floor just inside the door, half-dressed. As soon as he had his head back from the blowjob she'd given him, he'd fucked her with his fingers until his cock was hard again, then turned her over and pounded her into the floor. Now she was lying on her stomach next to him, quiet, but her fingers trailing over his thighs.

She sat up, grinning. "No," she said. "Think you can keep up?" She was still wearing the bloody tank top, and looking down, Chibs saw the hand resting above his cock was smeared in blood as well. Her hair was tangled, her eyes shining.

Jesus, he thought. You're beautiful. He reached up and ran his fingers over the bruise he'd left the night before. "Yeah," he said, "I think I can keep up." He grabbed both her wrists and rolled her over, straddling her with her arms pinned to the floor.

-0-

Chibs awoke to screaming, then realized he was being hit. Sitting up, he saw V. was lashing at him wildly, not as she usually would, like a fighter, but as ineffectually as a child. In the streetlight glow from the window, he could see tears running down her cheeks. "No, God, please, no," she moaned.

He reached towards her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking. "V! V! Wake up." He remembered the night he'd run to her room in the Clubhouse after hearing the same screams. He hadn't really known her then, had no idea how deep her strength ran, and still it had been heartbreaking to see her so terrified. This was worse.

Once he was sure she was awake, Chibs pulled V. into him, wrapping his arms around her tight. She was sobbing uncontrollably, barely able to breathe. "Shhh, princess," he whispered, rubbing his hand up and down her back. "I got you. You're alright."

After V.'s sobs subsided, she pulled away from him. "I'm sorry," she said, clearly embarrassed.

"Don't be." He reached out and pushed the tangled hair from her face, not sure if he should ask. "What was it?"

She sighed, reaching down to the floor and fumbling for her cigarettes. Her face was eerily pale when illuminated by the lighter, then in shadow again. She drew heavily on her smoke, then handed it to him. "It's always the baby," she said, her fingers falling to trace the scar on her belly. "No matter how many times I'm there, I can't save him."

Chibs was stunned into momentary silence. It hadn't occurred to him that way. He'd always thought of V.'s attack as something horrible she'd lived through, comparing it, in his mind, to the day his own face had been scarred. He hadn't even considered the part of it where her child was killed and there was nothing she could do to save him. That part, he couldn't even imagine. His mind flashed briefly on Kerianne, only a toddler the last time he'd seen her. Jesus, he thought. How fuckin' stupid am I? He reached towards her again, his thumb tracing the track of her tears. "It wasn't your fault," he said, hating how ineffectual the words sounded.

V. smiled grimly. "You know," she said, "Jax thinks I'm all broken up with guilt about slitting Leo's throat, but that isn't it. The thing it's hard for me to live with is only being able to kill the sonofabitch once." She laughed and it was a hollow sound. "That shit today? Only part of that I find difficult is the stopping." She fixed him with a hard look. "You think you can keep that on a leash?" Her eyes were challenging, but there was something honest in her question, too.

Chibs didn't answer, just pulled her towards him again, not letting her squirm of the embrace even though she half-heartedly tried. I have no idea princess, he thought, holding her against him so tightly it hurt.