A/N: My continued thanks for all your support! I appreciate all your feedback more than I can say. Please continue to let me know what you think of the story!

I am so sorry for the delay in posting. Life is hitting pretty hard these days, but I'm working through it, and I've struggled with getting this chapter to come out the way I wanted it to.

Ghostwriter- As always, thank you! I'm getting anxious too, lol. Things are heating up on Dani's quest to find and stop the baddies.

BekaRoo- Happy definitely found some stuff, let's see what he found!

KS- Yes, Happy is the guy to put on the case.

*********WARNING: DARK THEMES AND MENTIONS OF ABUSE*********

Chapter 29

"Easy, babe. You're so jittery, I could power the truck off your vibrations," Opie said, giving Dani's hand a squeeze. They were sitting in Opie's truck on their way to the club house.

Dani had been restless since Opie had gotten the phone call last night. She hadn't slept well and had declined her morning coffee because of all the nervous energy running through her; adding caffeine to the mix would only make things worse.

Dani looked over at Opie and returned the squeeze. "Sorry, I'm just—arg, I don't know what I am. I just need to see what Happy found."

"We're about to find out. No matter what he had for us, it's going to be ok." He said trying to assure her, but Dani just nodded absently and bit her lip. The rest of the drive was short and when they pulled into the lot at TM, Opie took her hand and guided her out of the truck and straight into the clubhouse into the room they called their chapel.

Clay was there with Jax and Happy and Opie pulled her over to the edge of the table that they all stood around. Dani looked at them all anxiously. "What is it? Did you find something?" Jax looked at Happy and nodded for him to begin.

"It didn't take long to find this guy. Asked a few questions and followed a lead to an office building just outside Tacoma. Been sitting on it for a few days now. Getting a feel for who's coming and going." Happy said.

Jax came around the table to stand in front of her. "We want you to look at some pictures, make sure we've got the right guy. You ok to do that?"

Dani nodded as Jax opened a brown file folder and took a photo out of a stack and handed it to her. Dani took hold of the photo, and as soon as her eyes focused on the image she froze. Every muscle in her body tensed, the hairs on her arm stood up, fingers clenched tightly around the corner of the photograph. The man in the image was older than she remembered, with more gray streaked through his dark hair and neatly trimmed beard. He was tall with a fairly athletic build, dressed in what looked like casual office attire—dark jeans, a polo shirt and a sports coat. Some people might say he looked distinguished, but all Dani could see was the coldness in his eyes. In her mind she could hear the echoes of his voice calling her. "Diana!"

Her vision started swimming with black spots as her lungs had ceased to work. She couldn't hear the voices taking to her, trying to reach her, she didn't feel her knees give out as she was coaxed into a chair. It was the rough pair or hands that grabbed her harshly by her shoulders and shook her somewhat violently that snapped her back into reality. She gasped as she gulped down air, breathing harshly as she ran her good hand through her hair. "Jesus Christ." She said to herself once her breathing as under control. She looked into her brother's eyes as she registered that he was still gripping her by the shoulders. "I'm ok, Jax," she said.

Jax eyed her as he slowly released her. "I thought I was going to have to slap you to get you to snap out of it and fucking breathe."

"I'm ok," Dani assured him again, and turned to take in Opie. His hands were in fists by his sides, knuckles white, his jaw clenched, eyes tight. Dani could tell he was angry, not at her she knew, but at the new target he'd just been given. She knew her reaction of fear only increased the anger he felt towards Eric. "I'm ok," she said again, this time to Opie directly and his eyes softened slightly and he gave her a nod.

"I take it that's him, then?" Clay asked.

"Yeah, that's him." Dani confirmed. The guys started talking strategy on how to handle it, and Dani sat there and glanced curiously at the brown folder that Jax had taken Eric's picture from. The folder was sitting open on the table next to her and she pulled it closer to her. She started looking through the other images, several more were of Eric, but there were pictures of others as well. As she looked through the images, a larger picture came together in her head that brought her worry to its peak, but this time not for herself. "Whatever we do," she said interrupting the conversation, "we have to do it fast."

"What do you mean we?" Opie asked.

Jax was on the same page as he simply asked "We?"

"What's the rush?" Clay asked.

Choosing to ignore Jax and Opie for the moment, Dani looked at clay and gestured at the pictures. "He has a kid in there."

"What makes you say that?" asked Clay.

"A couple of things," Dani said, rifling through the pictures. She pulled out two images of the same man. "Look at this. You can see he's heading inside, look in the bag he's holding- it looks like there's a stuffed toy. Here he is coming out. No bag. Who would be inside that building that would want a stuffed animal? A kid."

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," Clay argued, though he frowned. "Maybe he left it behind on accident."

"Or maybe it was a gift to a child to make them less wary of him or to make him feel like less of a child molester. They do that sometimes, but if you don't buy that, then here. What about this, then?" Dani rifled through the pictures until she found images of two other men, each alone outside the building. "I know these men. They were…regular visitors when I was there." Dani paused, closing her eyes to steel herself against the onslaught of memories. "This man," Dani pointed to one image, "used to be a teacher. He was fired for being a bit too hands on with one of his students, though they couldn't prove anything enough to arrest him, or so I gathered from what he told me. He likes to play tutor. The other one, well he's just a sick fuck who likes little girls to sit on his lap. They have a child in there. I know it. We have to do something." Dani looked at the others in the room imploringly.

"Do you have any idea how much more risk it puts my guys at? How much more risk it Puts Your brother or Opie at to go in like that. We have no idea how many people they have in there, what kind of security they have in there."

"We can find out. I'm not saying we should go in there without doing our homework—"

"Why?" Clay interrupted. "Why should we risk it?" He demanded.

"Because it's the right thing to do." Dani shot back. Clay just continued to stare at her. Dani huffed. "Fine." She paused. "I have two reasons for you. First, because this club owes me. Who was it? Who beat the crap out of that man and set his place on fire? Was it you? Was it my father? One of the others? I don't want to know. Whoever did it, though did it because that's what the club wanted, but no done cared enough to make sure there wasn't going to be any blowback. And you accused me of dragging the club into this shit, but you all were the ones who dragged me into it! I was the fucking blowback. I wish I could hate this fucking club. It would be so much easier." Dani ran her good hand through her hair and let out an exasperated sigh as she glanced around the room. Happy appeared to be watching their conversation with calculated interest. Opie and Jax were looking at her with concern and alarm. "I don't," she said, looking in their direction. "Or I try not to, but it makes everything so complicated." As she said this she ran her hand over the back of her neck, her fingers lingering on the spot Opie had suggested for her tattoo. She saw Opie's stance shift, but she purposely looked away, not wanting to see his reaction. She could tell by the way he bristled that knew what she was referring to.

She redirected her focus back to Clay. "Saving this girl is like saving me. I need to do this. I know going after these assholes is the club's way of fixing it, but saving a child is more important. Do this instead. No tracking down anyone else, no more investigating, no more retribution. This will help me straighten out all the shit in my head more than any act or revenge ever could. It settled the debt. It makes it right. Not to mention that doing this one thing is safer long term than going after all the big baddies in my journal."

Clay was silent for a minute as he assessed the plan. "If we do this and there is no kid, if you're wrong…?"

"You would have still tried; we'd still be square. Not your fault if I'm wrong, but I'm not wrong." Dani told him. "She's there, and I'm going to help her."

"You're going to stay right fucking here." Jax interjected, coming towards her and grabbing her arm. "If she's there, we will get her out. You're not putting yourself in danger."

"I don't want to put myself in danger, but I'm not staying here." Dani said, sending an imploring look to her brother. "I'm not saying I want to storm the castle with you; I don't, especially if that's the same place I was held. I don't ever want to set foot in that place again if I can avoid it. I will wait somewhere safe, but nearby. You guys go in there and do what you do, find the girl and bring her to me. She's going to need someone who understand what she's been through to help her. She's probably going to resist going with you, she'll probably be scared of you. Having me there will help things go smoothly. Hopefully you can get her out to me without trouble. If you can't though, you'll bring me in to get her. If you can't find her, you'll bring me in to look for her myself, to see for myself no one is there, once all the baddies are taken care of and it's safe to do so. It's the best way do this, you know I'm right."

Jax stared at her harshly, trying to glare her into submission. When that failed, his eyes softened. "You don't have to do this, Dani girl. Let us take care of this for you. Let us make it go away."

Dani's features had shifted from a glare of her own into a pleading look. "Jax, this isn't me not wanting to burden you. Please understand this is something I have to do. It's the only way I have of standing up to them, of taking back even just a sliver of what they've taken from me."

Jax let out a sigh and shook his head before looking to Clay and giving him a shrug.

Clay's shark eyes trained back on her and Dani sucked in a breath, trying prepare herself for another round of battle. "Say we agree with your little plan… Whether things go right or wrong, what's to say a few months down the road it starts eating at you, you start thinking that maybe the next guy on your list might have someone new tied up in his basement too. What then?"

Dani's eyes tightened. "I've already thought about that. A deal is a deal though, and I promised not to involve the club any further, so I wouldn't—wouldn't involve you that is."

"But you'd go off half-cocked on your own to save the day?" Clay asked. Dani only shrugged in response. "You think you have what it takes to handle something like that by yourself?"

Dani shrugged again. "It took me about 30 seconds to come up with a plan to kill a man and escape captivity, and I was half bled out and delirious. That plan worked pretty well. If I had my full capabilities, some good intel and at least 5 minutes to plan I think I could come up with something."

Clay stared her down for another minute. "Someone will be with you at all times. If they tell you to do something, you do it, are we clear?" Dani nodded. "Christ, your mothers gonna kill me," he muttered to Jax.

Dani's body filled with relief that they had finally agreed to her plan, but before she had a second to silently congratulate herself on her success, Opie was by her side and had taken a strong grip on her arm.

"Fuck that." Opie said. "No." With that he led her from the room. While his grip wasn't strong enough to cause her harm, it was firm enough that it left no room for argument as she followed him out without much choice, and Dani realized she hadn't won the war just yet.

As the door closed behind them to the chapel, Dani heard Happy, who had been mostly silent throughout their exchange, say. "I like her."

Opie led her down the hall and into his room. He pulled her inside and locked the door behind him. Before she knew it, he had her planted firmly against the wall, his arms on either side of her, caging her in. She took in the sight of him, muscles tense, jaw clenched, eyes dark. Opie was not happy.