She was sitting in the car silently for over ten minutes, trying to get her head on straight so she wouldn't be a wreck while driving home. She took a few breaths when she saw a car fill the now empty spot directly next to her. She looked over seeing Unser getting out of his cruiser and walking over to her side and knocking on the window.
"License and registration." He joked with a small smirk as she rolled down the window. He saw the unshed tears in her eyes and was already on guard. "What is it with you club ladies pulling guns on people today?"
She just stared at him not exactly sure what other incident he was talking about but she was sure it was about Gemma.
"Got a call saying a woman in an Audi was threatening to blow a few holes into a group of men. You alright, sweetheart?"
"I'm fine."
"You need me to call Jax?"
"No!" She said a little too harshly. "No. They're on their way to Eureka. Everything is fine, Wayne."
"Everything don't look fine." He tried to reason with her.
"W-what do you know about that Zobelle guy? Y'know, the cigar king?"
"Why?" Unser looked at her questioningly, knowing that Gemma had told him who she thought was responsible for her attack.
"Him and a few of his Nazi friends followed me and Abel throughout Murphy's today. Then when I tried to leave, they… they blocked me in. Threw some veiled threats at me. So, I pulled my gun on them, I-I think they were the ones that attacked Gemma. I couldn't let them get to me, or t-to Abel. I had to protect him." Vanessa's tears were pooling in her eyes, a few drops falling down her face.
"You did good, protecting him and yourself. They're just trying to scare you, Vanessa."
"Yeah, well it's working." She took a deep breath.
"Gemma's out of sorts, too. Only a matter of time before she hurts someone. Herself." Unser sighed. "Not sure how to help her."
"She needs to talk to someone about what happened. I tried to talk to her but she's not exactly the most easy-going person. She needs to tell someone who can make her feel safe."
"Sounds like you're talking from experience." Unser whispered to her. Vanessa just looked him in the eye with a sad smile on her face, otherwise ignoring his insinuation. She didn't want to delve into her past today, especially not with Chief Unser.
"You care about her."
"Known her since she was 12." Unser chuckled lightly. "Me and Emily Koza's the ones who tried to talk her out of running away." Vanessa's eyebrows furrowed, never knowing that Gemma would ever want to leave Charming. "She split when she was 16. Came back ten years later with a baby and a motorcycle club. Sorta like you did, without the baby and such."
"Yeah…" Vanessa whispered sadly, looking down at her steering wheel, her mind going back to her and Jax's baby, Liliana. She quickly looked back up to Unser, trying to hide the sadness in her voice. "Is it always like this? I've been here for what 4, maybe 5 months, and I feel like… like this shit is never gonna end."
"That's the club life." Unser shrugged. "You and Jax seem to be doing okay, regardless. Seem happy together."
"Yeah." She gave him a small smile.
"You come across something that don't make you miserable, enjoy it." Unser cleared his throat. "Jax ain't gonna let nothin' happen to you. You don't gotta worry."
Jax was sitting on his bike as they were filling up at the gas station. He smiled when he saw that he had a text from his old lady that she sent a few hours ago while they were still riding.
We miss you. The text said with a picture attachment. It was a picture of Vanessa holding Abel in her arms in their kitchen. His son's face was covered in baby food, but he was giving a gummy smile, his tongue slightly out, while Vanessa was laughing into the camera. His heart swelled with happiness as he looked at the picture. Jax quickly typed his reply saying he missed them too and looked up just in time to hear Clay yelling into the pre-pay, his moment of bliss and pride slowly fading away.
"Where the hell were you guys?" Clay yelled, causing Jax to sigh knowing that something was going down. "And you just let 'em…" Clay jumped off his bike the annoyance and anger flowing through his voice. "No, no. You just wait there. You've done enough goddamn damage today!"
"What?"
"Bounty hunters just picked up Tig."
"The hell for?" Opie asked, causing both men to look at him.
"They didn't stop to say. Half Sack's trailing 'em."
"Jesus Christ. How does that happen?" Chibs shook his head, baffled by the news.
"Ask the Jew in leather." Clay clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth.
"It'll have been the hospital. Bounty hunters pay admins to call in names of nefarious types." Jax shared with them, something Vanessa had shared with him after bounty hunters picked someone up from St. Thomas a few months ago.
"If Tig had an outstanding warrant, I'd know about it."
"Might be out of state." Jax tried to remain calm. "If the bounty's big enough they could be hauling his ass to Maine."
"We got to go after him." Chibs spoke quickly.
"We got a delivery to make." Clay scoffed.
"The bondsmen have no jurisdiction. There's nothing to stop us taking him back." Chibs explained, knowing they had to get Tig back.
"What's stopping us is six bedrolls full of illegal handguns."
"We go after him now; we got a chance. He crosses state lines…" Jax started but was cut off by Clay.
"If Tig was here he'd vote to deliver the guns."
"We dump the bedrolls somewhere safe." Jax jumped off his bike, trying to talk Clay into doing the smart thing. Even though he didn't trust, or necessarily even like Tig after finding out the truth about Donna, he was still a brother. "Relay gets pushed by a few hours."
"We're going." Clay got back on his bike, putting his helmet on.
"Maybe we should call a vote."
"You vote all you want. I'm delivering the guns." Clay started his bike, getting ready to take off when his hands couldn't turn the throttle properly, causing his bike to fall over. "Goddamn it. Shit." Clay whispered angrily to himself. Opie tried to help him pick his bike up when Clay yelled that he got it, dropping it once again, causing Chibs and Jax to lift it together, while Opie went to go talk to Clay away from the other guys.
Jax rolled his eyes and shook his head, his jaw clenching at the sight of his best friend looking like he was getting closer to Clay. To the man that ordered the hit on him, and who was responsible for it landing on his wife. Jax heard his phone go off and saw that Vanessa had texted him again, making him feel a little less annoyed.
Love you, baby. Her text said, a little heart next to the words. Jax sighed, wanting nothing more than this run to be over and to be lying in bed next to his old lady.
"He okay?" Jax asked as Opie walked back over to them.
"He just needs to know we've got his back." Opie assured. Jax shook his head slightly and gripped his handlebar a little tighter.
"Let's go get Tig."
Jax watched as Piney drove the truck into the parking lot, just a few seconds later Half Sack pulled up to them on his bike. Half Sack was explaining what was going on with Tig when Clay and Piney both walked over to them.
"They got Tig in a motel about two miles down the road. Four of 'em." Jax informed him.
"Sportin' heavy hardware." Bobby continued.
"First floor, room 12." Half Sack told them all.
"Why'd they stop at a motel?" Chibs asked the question that many of them were thinking.
"Don't know. They beat the shit out of Tig on the side of the road. The motel was the next stop."
"That crazy prick must've provoked 'em." Bobby ran a hand over his face. "Can't bring him in beat up to a pulp."
"So, they're patching him up." Opie added.
"Aight, let's go handle this." Jax looked to Clay.
"If they hit a motel, they got a long ride ahead of 'em. They're gonna be there for awhile. Call up the run." Clay told Happy. "Tell the boys from Tacoma to get back down here."
"That's gonna take hours. We gotta do this now." Jax tried to convince him.
"No."
"He's right. We don't know how long they're gonna keep…" Chibs tried to back Jax.
"What, in broad daylight? This is the way we stay off the radar, right? We're gonna be doing runs up here every two weeks with a blanket full of guns."
"And bringing five more guys into the mix is gonna make it low profile?" Jax retorted, getting fed up with how Clay was trying to run shit.
"We wait until dark. Somebody goes out for food…"
"We don't know if they're going to be here after dark! We got eight on four."
"You heard Bobby!" Clay yelled. "They're armed to the teeth. We have no idea what kind of firepower they're sitting on. We got handguns."
"We got surprise." Jax argued.
"Call the guys." Clay pointed to Happy.
"Call a vote!" Jax broke in.
"You don't call a vote." Clay pushed Jax back roughly, causing Jax to jump back in his face, pushing him even harder.
"You don't lay your goddamn hands on me-" Jax yelled, while Bobby was trying to get in between the two men who were about to have an all-out brawl.
"Hey, you two, come on!" Bobby tried to be the voice of reason. "Everybody's fried, and it's my fault. I got Tig hurt. Stupid shit. But everybody has to calm down." Jax just walked away, knowing that if he didn't leave the situation alone, he would be about to face a Mayhem vote for killing another member. "Everybody clear your head."
"Where you going?" Jax asked Piney who was in the driver's seat of the tow truck again.
"You wanna get this done, jump on the back." Piney told him, handing him his shotgun. Jax willingly jumped on the bed of the tow truck, the shotgun in his hands.
"Chibs, Sack. Come on." Jax yelled to them.
"What's up?" Happy called out.
"Shit-kicking."
"I'm in!" Happy cheered, a little too enthusiastically. They all jumped on the truck as Piney started driving towards the direction of the motel. Jax looked back as he heard Clay yelling and smirked to himself.
When they got to the motel, Jax looked around, spotting room 12 easily. The parking lot was empty, but they still needed to be smart about this.
"We got a plan here?" Chibs asked Jax.
"Ask the old man." Jax nodded to Piney.
"Alright, hang on, guys!" Piney yelled out, maneuvering the truck in front of the motel rooms window.
"Well, it's a simple plan." Jax sat down on, shotgun still in his hand, as Piney started backing the truck towards the window.
"Shit." Chibs yelled. "Arm up, ladies." Piney sped back until he crashed into the window of room 12, all of the guys jumping down and holding the bounty hunters at gunpoint.
"Don't move!" Jax yelled, cocking the shotgun back.
"Or I will blow your balls off." Chibs added on. Happy quickly untied Tig, helping him out of the chair and onto the back of the truck as Tig joked around with the bounty hunters.
"I'd really like to thank you for everything. I hope we can do it again sometime!" Tig laughed, watching as the bounty hunters were still held at gunpoint. Piney started driving off, as all of the Sons laughed about what just happened while Jax just muttered to himself.
"Jesus Christ."
After finishing the run and heading to the party at the Eureka clubhouse, Jax watched as all the guys made out with croweaters, drank, or smoked. He didn't want to admit it in fear of being called pussy whipped, but it was late and he was missing his old lady and his kid. Like she was reading his mind, his phone started ringing. Jax took the bottle of Jack Daniels and walked over to his bike where he could talk to Vanessa in private.
"Hey darlin'." He answered, a small smile on his face.
"Hi, baby." She took a deep breath, just happy to be hearing his voice. "Am I being too clingy? Calling you and texting you throughout the day and shit, I just… I don't know how this old lady stuff works."
"Nah, babe. I'm glad you called, pulled me away from all this bullshit." She could hear the tenseness in his voice.
"Long day?"
"Very long fucking day. Bullshit with the run, me and Clay buttin' heads again. Just too much shit going on. Got all this pent-up aggression, causing me to miss my sexy as fuck old lady even more."
"What a charmer." Vanessa laughed. "Tomorrow, baby."
"What are you doing?"
"Laying in bed." He could hear her yawn, and a smirk came to his face.
"What are you wearing?" He asked with a flirty smirk.
"You trying to get me to have phone sex with you?" She laughed again.
"I wish, darlin'. So what's going on? How's the kid?"
"We're good, Jax. I-uh, I actually got good news today. I got accepted into UC-Davis' Nurse Practitioner program. If I decide to go, I would start in January for the spring semester."
"That's great news, babe." Jax smiled to himself. "I'm proud of you, you know that?"
"Thanks, baby." He could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. "What do you think about me going back to school? You sure it's the right time? I can put it off if I have to-"
"I don't want you to put it off." Jax cut her off. "Just because we got some shit going on doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to go back to school. Everything will be fine, babe." Jax ran his hand over his face at the sight of Clay coming towards him. "I gotta go. We can talk about this more tomorrow, okay? I love you."
"I love you too. See you tomorrow." Jax hung up the phone and looked at Clay, who was smoking his cigar. He sat on his bike next to Jax and cleared his throat.
"Old lady?" Clay questioned him, as if he actually cared. All Jax did was nod his head, switching the subject.
"I didn't know what the old man was up to till we were crashing through." Jax informed Clay.
"I don't give a shit about today. Where does this go tomorrow? Next week?"
"Where does what go?" Jax's anger getting the best of him.
"Your need to undermine my every goddamn play."
"I got no need to undermine you." Jax shook his head, taking another sip of his whiskey.
"You wanna challenge me? Fine. But you're making this shit personal and they're gonna realize that. They'll lose respect for you and they won't trust you anymore."
"The things I call out are about the club."
"Nah. About you and me." Clay theorized.
"Yeah, maybe they are. Guess I gotta get right with you. What you did and the decisions you're making."
"Yeah. You do." Clay demanded.
"Well, you got decades of experience. Why don't you tell me how I do that? How I get right with you pulling some of these shitty moves. How I get right with you threatening my old lady. How I get right with you trying to kill a brother behind the club's back. Your little trigger man blowing an innocent woman's head off."
"Well… you're going to have to figure that out for yourself, son. But… I'd do it soon. 'Cause if you mention Donna or the incident again, I'll kill you." Clay spoke with pure unadulterated hostility lacing his tone, and Jax had a feeling that this was more than just a threat. It was a promise.
AN: Holy shit this story has almost 42,000 views! That's amazing and you have no idea how much I appreciate all of you! Thanks to UnderElectricCandlelight for reviewing. I love reading the reviews that you guys leave me. It's a great motivator to write/update. Thanks to everyone who follows and favorited this story, it means so much. Sorry this update followed the episode so much, I'm just trying to set up future chapters. Don't forget to leave a review!
