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General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death.

CHAPTER 29: A TASTE OF CHARMING

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Sydney watched with an evil grin as everybody filtered into the garage to where she had successfully secured their rogue exile, ready to finally strip the asshole of the patch that he'd been too much of a coward to remove himself.

"What is this?" Kyle asked as he looked around the garage frantically, his heart beating faster and faster with each familiar face that passed through the door before it plummeted in his chest when Opie and Jax - who he'd thought had left long ago - trickled in behind them.

"Take your shirt off." Sydney smirked.

"W-what?" Kyle stammered, struggling to comprehend how the stranger in front of him had known all of his secrets before it finally made sense... "Come on Jax." He looked to the VP with a nervous laugh, hoping that he was just overreacting and that this was all just some kind of re-initiation joke.

"Take it off!" Jax yelled, letting his rarely expressed anger take over now that there was finally somebody who everybodycould agree was deserving of it.

The cornered man looked around, realizing that he had no way, trying the last thing that he could think of as he lunged toward the girl who had tricked him into this position in the first place - but he was quickly pulled back by Tig who ripped his shirt clean from his body and turned him around, showing off the offending ink to everybody in the room.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry Clay. I know I was supposed to black it out - and I tried, man…" He panted the pathetic pleas over his shoulder. "Look, I went a bunch of times and I couldn't- I couldn't do it." His hyperventilating only got stronger as his weak case went ignored after he'd dared to disrespect his old crew yet again. "It's the only thing I have left, Jax. Please… I'm sorry."

"Good job, baby." Tig handed Sydney the shredded t-shirt as a trophy, kissing her cheek as he glared at the pussy with the buzzcut.

Sydney let him kiss her. She knew that he was only doing it as a taunt to his former competition, but she didn't care - he was so fucking hot when he was jealous and angry that she would've let him do whatever he needed to re-establish his dominance.

"Oh, come on!" Kyle groaned. Of course the seductive little tart was Tig's girl.

"Told you she was a good one." The dark haired man winked.

"Fire, or knife?" Opie asked coldly.

Kyle desperately looked at each of his old friends, hoping that just one of them would have mercy - even if it was just for old times sake - but he came up empty handed.

"Answer him." Jax ordered.

"Jax..."

"Answer him!"

Sydney smirked as she watched fear cripple the traitor, breaking down the cocky facade that he wore - her smile doubling in size over Jax's outbursts; a small show that maybe he was capable of what the outlaw life required.

"Fire." Kyle finally decided after one more round of silent, unanswered pleas.

Opie nodded to Tig - this was a task that even vengeance couldn't help him stomach, so it was one for the Sergeant. Jax offered Kyle the only token of sympathy that he was willing to give; a bottle of whiskey, allowing him to take a few gulps before dousing his back with the flammable liquid - slamming back a few shots himself. Sydney scoffed, shaking her head. One step forward, two steps back.

Bobby grabbed Kyle's other wrist, wrapping it in a thick piece of chain that he found on one of the workbenches - securing it to the pole opposite to the one that he was already cuffed to while Tig lit the blowtorch and readied himself for the glorious revenge that he was about to carry out. Clay sat back, watching the scene unfold as he sipped his beer and looked to Opie who nodded - giving Tig the go ahead.

Tig got to work searing off the identifying ink. Kyle's cries instantly calmed his scattered brain, providing a perfect distraction whilst Sydney inhaled the smell of burning flesh with a sadistic smile on her face, Clay lit a cigar, and the other members stood around, shifting uncomfortably - especially Half-Sack.

Sydney grabbed the prospect's hand, squeezing it as she nodded reassuringly, meanwhile Jax watched the dark ink melt into the bubbling skin with an expression harder than she'd ever seen him wear - but she couldn't tell if it was one of hate, or one of disgust.

Kyle's screams eventually stopped once multiple layers of his skin had been scorched through - the pain finally reaching a bittersweet peak that allowed him to slip unconscious where the garage fell silent until the deed was done, his burnt and limp body hitting the floor as Bobby released the restraints.

"Creme brulee, anyone?" Tig asked with a smirk.

"Now that's what I call 'A Taste of Charming'." Sydney responded with a smirk of her own before she crouched down to retrieve her handcuffs, letting her eyes slide lewdly over Tig as she stood back up.

"Your personal collection?" Clay questioned with a raised brow, nodding to the metal confines that she was twirling around her manicured finger.

"Party favors." The wild blonde winked.

"Sack good to take him?" Tig asked both Clay and the prospect as he nodded to Kyle, not taking his eyes off of Sydney as he made his intentions clear.

"Yeah." Clay confirmed, deciding that for the time being, a Sergeant who was distracted by pussy that cared for the club was better than a Sergeant who was distracted by doubt caused by that same pussy when they weren't on the same page. Maybe if he let them fuck their problems away, he would be able cross something off of his evergrowing list of things to worry about.

Tig nodded, grabbing Sydney's hand and practically dragging her across the concrete floor of the garage until they were outside where he stopped his long strides, turning to face her where he harshly gripped her throat and descended his lips onto hers and claimed her mouth with his tongue.

"You're mine tonight." He stated as he pulled away.

Sydney's chest heaved with excitement until she looked into those beautiful blue eyes and saw a hollowness - the one thing that she'd never seen when he looked at her. Her heart sank to her stomach as her face fell when she was able to physically see just how she was losing him, and knowing that she would keep losing him as the secrets piled on.

"The hell you waitin for? Go." He nudged her towards the clubhouse.

"Um." She stalled, shaking her head while she came up with an excuse. "I just remembered I have to go get my car from the school." She didn't have the strength to play it off, she'd been playing things off all day.

"You can't get it tomorrow?" The angry, whirling storm cloud reappeared in Tig's head the second that she closed herself off, dimming the reflection of the sun that she had always been to him.

"No. Gemma said the lot needs to be cleared out tonight, and I'll get towed with all my tickets." She gave a small smile, hoping that some humour would add enough credibility to her story.

"Okay." Tig nodded as he was forced to accept yet another one of her lies. He couldn't make her stay or be truthful with him, he could only prepare himself for what he knew was coming; for her to leave him. "You need a ride?" He asked even though he already knew what the answer would be.

"Nah, I'll catch one with Ope."

"Alright, you comin back?"

"Gemma will probably get me to help clean up, so..." She didn't even try to deliver the lie sincerely - it hurt her too much to have to come up with it in the first place.

"Yeah, okay." Tig clenched his jaw, nodding before he headed into the clubhouse for the one thing that would never leave him: alcohol.

"You good?" Sydney looked up to see Opie standing outside of his truck, realizing that she had zoned out while staring at the clubhouse door in the darkness of the empty parking lot.

"Yeah." She shook her head. "Can I grab a ride with you back to the school?"

"Sure." He nodded.

"You seen Jax?" She knew that this was what she needed to do if she wanted to salvage the club's safety, and her relationship.

"I think he's in the apartment."

"Okay, I'll be right back."

"Don't take too long, I can hear Gemma swearing from here."

Sydney shared a laugh with the bearded man before hurrying into the clubhouse, walking right past everyone who had resumed drinking where she barged straight into Jax's room.

The blonde man jumped up from the bed when the door flew open, scrambling to hide the secret manuscript from his father that he'd hoped to find some solace in after the gruesome and moral-questioning scene.

"I have to tell you something." She announced before he could start yelling at her from where he stood at the edge of the bed, fumbling with some old manual. "Love letters?" She quirked an eyebrow at the stack of worn parchment.

"What the hell do you want? You upset that you didn't get to carry it out?"

"Well seeing that your pussy ass couldn't do it, I would've been doing you a favor." She sneered. "What exactly do you think my angle is here, Jackson? Undermine you the way that you undermine Clay?"

"I think you're using that tight pussy and pretty face to take over this town." He scoffed, ignoring her accusation.

Sydney's lips curled up, slowly dragging her feet along the carpet as she walked up to him. "You jealous that I'm not using them on you? Or are you jealous that it's working?" She taunted close to his face with a rasp - if he wanted to be petty, she would be too.

His hateful blue eyes fell to the bruising that he'd left on her chest - which was almost touching his - quickly looking away before he could allow even more guilt to seep in tonight than he already had.

"What do you want?" He reiterated coldly.

"You need to talk to Tara about Kohn." She took a step back, creating a less threatening distance between them.

"What?" He had no idea what she was talking about. "Why?" He scowled, she didn't even know who Kohn was, let alone why he was there. They may have been making progress in their painfully slow reconnection, but it hadn't been nearlyenough progress to even consider starting to trust her with club business - she hadn't been able to handle that even when they were together.

"It's not my beef." She re-stated with a sarcastic smile before turning out the door and heading out to meet back up with Opie. But when she emerged from the hallway, she came face to face with none other than Cheryl sitting with Tig at the bar. She felt her body freeze, so much for trying to salvage things.

She tried to shake off the shock as they turned to look at her when she entered the room, lifting her leg to take a step but her foot stayed firmly planted on the ground. She took a deep breath, successfully taking one step, then another, then another. She refused to let the croweater think that she was fazed - forcing herself to raise a brow smugly as she walked past them and out the door.

"So... How about my offer?" Cheryl asked the distraught man, sliding her hand over his thigh compassionately as he longingly watched his girlfriend walk away from him.

Tig looked down at her hand on his leg before he looked up into her eyes, taking one last look out the door and locking eyes with Sydney who stared back at him with what he knew was a deep hate that he would never be able to bring her back from.

Sydney took a shaky breath, willing herself to control her emotions as she walked away from the clubhouse and further into the cool air of the night. She was upset over their ongoing issues and frustrated that Jax refused to take her - or her efforts - seriously, but she refused to cry over this; something that was her fault, something that she let happen. She cursed herself, she should've known that this was what would happen when she so stupidly left her old man hanging when he needed to blow off steam - forgetting everything that she'd always known about what it meant to be a good old lady.

"Everything okay?" Opie asked when she slammed the door of the truck and wordlessly settled into the corner of the bench beside him.

"I'm fine." She stared straight ahead.

"He's just jealous, you know." The quiet man informed her after a few moments of stoney silence.

"What?" She came back to earth.

"You tryin to earn your way in." He nodded. "Reminds him that he didn't do shit to get his patch."

"I don't think that's any way to talk about your best friend." She scoffed. She didn't know a lot about Opie, but what she did know was that he was incredibly loyal to his loved ones, and had a rocky relationship with the club and what it had cost him - which made his words all the more surprising.

"It's the only way." He looked over to her with a small smile. "Don't let him get to you." He turned his eyes back to the road. "As for Tig? I don't got any advice about that crazy prick." She gave a watery laugh as he closed out his pep talk with a joke.

Opie smiled when he got her to laugh, finding a tight spot in the crowded lot to squeeze in his old truck - hoping that Donna wouldn't see him with Sydney. He'd had a trying day, he didn't want to deal with the invasive questions of his wife.

"Thanks, Ope." Sydney smiled before parting with the family man, heading over to a tall tree where she sat down on the lush grass, pulling out a joint as she waited for the fireworks to start in a desperate hope that the combination of the two would distract her from what she knew Tig was doing right now.

"Got anyone to watch them with?"

"You, I hope." A grin spread across Sydney's face when she heard the raspy voice, turning to see Happy standing behind her with a smile. "Where you been hidin?" She hadn't seen him since the Fourth of July party and she'd needed him more than ever, but she knew that if she told him that, then she would have to tell him why she needed him - and that wasn't an option.

"You don't wanna know." The Tacoma Killer smirked as he sat next to her, resting his back against the rigid bark of the thick tree trunk.

"With your secret girlfriend?" She raised a brow. Happy was staying somewhere if he wasn't staying at the clubhouse while he was in town, and her guess was the tight little blonde that he'd met at Fun Town.

"I don't got no girlfriend." He scowled with his lip turned up.

"Okay." She laughed with her hands out in surrender, too emotionally exhausted to grill him about why he'd been keeping it from her.

"How you holdin up?" He asked after minutes of silence, knowing that she was never silent for this long unless something was heavy on her mind.

"Stop talking to me like I'm some fucking charity case." She felt the anger bubbling in her chest, her choice of words in the spur of the moment holding much more meaning than just a response to him checking up on her.

"You got anger." He pointed out with a smirk, her reaction only further supporting his point.

"Yeah." She backed down, chuckling humorlessly. "I guess so."

"For real." He urged. "I aint gonna ask again."

"I'm ruining him, Hap..." She looked away, shaking her head shamefully.

"Thought you liked having that power." He nudged her with a playful smirk.

"Nah." She couldn't even let herself smile at that one. "Not when I'm blowing it this bad."

"You're overthinking it, you just don't know him well enough."

"How am I overthinking it?" She scoffed. "He doesn't sleep and he drowns himself in whiskey everyday because I'm not what he needs."

"Aint you been listening to anyone?" Happy had spent enough time in Charming over the years to know that Tig was not an easy man to tame - hence why he hadn't been thus far. Women learned not to bother looking past a one night stand because it wasn't worth it to deal with all of the baggage that accompanied the troubled Sergeant. He was a man who only knew how to act on impulse - and usually with violence and little logic at that. He was loud, obnoxious, unreasonable, stubborn, and he drank heavily on a good day - let alone on a bad one. "He aint drinking because of you."

"What the fuck do you mean he's not drinking because of me?" She whipped around in frustration where her widened eyes landed on the stone-faced man incredulusly. "He grabs the fucking bottle everytime I-"

"He's drinking because he can't face all that shit in his head tellin him that he'll lose you - that he don't deserve you." He cut off her tantrum. "You really think he wants a perfect old lady?" Happy knew that even after their talk the week prior, the thought was still present in her mind by the way that she tremendously downplayed the position that she'd quickly taken in his life - humble was never something that he'd taught her to be.

Sydney didn't say anything. She didn't necessarily think that Tig needed a picture perfect housewife, but lately she felt like maybe he needed someone safer - someone who would listen, someone who wasn't reckless, someone who wouldn't worry him more than his own life already did, someone who wasn't her.

"Of all the things that could trip you up... It aint blood, it aint bullets - it's romance." Happy chuckled.

"Yeah, well, I get it from you." She rolled her eyes with a smile, leaning over and resting her head on his shoulder. "This is why I didn't want things to change, it was easier when we were just-"

"You've never liked easy, don't forget who you are." He reminded her, his bicep flexing around her shoulders as he became painfully aware of how the unstable Sergeant was twisting up his princess in a way that he'd told himself he would never allow a man to do.

"Easy." She calmed him playfully, grabbing his hand that hung from her shoulder.

"He fell for you for a reason." He checked himself, resorting to combating the situation with his words instead of his fists - a relatively uncomfortable and foreign concept for Happy Lowman, but he knew that it was effective with her, which was all he cared about. "There's plenty of pussy around here that would make a good old lady - always has been. So quit thinkin about being what you think he needs, and be yourself - cause that's want he wants."

"He'll get tired of it." She sighed.

"What?" He recoiled, looking down at her with a deep scowl. He had no idea how anyone could ever get tired of someone as exciting as the Cali Queen.

"If I be myself." She clarified, peering up through her eyelashes and into his dark eyes - the low light making them barely distinguishable in the deep crevasses of his face. "He'll get tired of having to chase after me, or worry that I'm crossing the wrong line, or pissing off the wrong person."

"He'll get over it." Happy nodded reassuringly, he knew that this was just a temporary flare up of Tig's infamous self-doubt - it never lasted long for the egotistical man.

"If it's not that, it'll be the boring domestic shit that sends you guys riding for the hills." She gave a weak smile.

Happy chuckled at her paraphrasing as she resumed her position snuggled against his side. "Are you bored?" He asked simply.

"Well, no. But-"

"Would you stay if you were?"

"No..." Sydney trailed off, knowing where he was heading with this.

"He's the same. If you aint bored, then he aint either. If he was, he wouldn't stick around. It's what he wants, stop fighting it."

"Guess this is why he came with so many warnings." She chuckled.

"I don't know anyone else who could handle him..."

Sydney nodded, absently staring at the grass beside them - not bothering to tell him that he was wrong, because if he had been right - that she could handle him - then maybe he wouldn't be balls deep in a croweater right now.

"What about everything else?" He recognized the lack of sincerity in her agreement to his previous statement - deciding that maybe a positive subject change would distract her from the doubts she was having about Tig.

"It's been a perfect distraction." She sighed wistfully.

"That all it's been?" He was surprised by her answer, expecting something much more chipper over the leaps and bounds that she'd be making towards achieving her lifelong goal.

"I don't feel like talking, Hap." She sighed sadly.

"Aight." He nodded, squeezing her shoulder but stopping when he felt her tense up, looking down to see her wincing in pain. He lifted his palm, his eyes taking a minute to adjust in the darkness before the bruise on her shoulder came into focus, his eyes trailing down her collarbone where there was another. "What happened?"

"You don't wanna know." She repeated his own words back to him, laughing convincingly this time before laying back against his chest to watch the display of exploding lights in the sky.

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David Hale was on his way out of the fundraiser after having served his civic duty - and a shit load of sausages - when he caught that same glimpse of white-blonde hair; the glimpse that made his heart skip a beat. But just as it had earlier - the exciting palpitation came to a screeching halt when somehow, for the second time today, he laid his eyes on Sydney with another man. His brows furrowed in confusion where he watched her cuddle up to Happy Lowman under the tree as they watched the fireworks. Hadn't she been with Tig earlier? Maybe she was just a patch chaser like he'd expected her to be in the first place - but patch chasers never got so involved in the club's business?

He stalked to his squad car, flipping open his phone and dialing the one person who he knew would truly help him get to the bottom of things, once and for all: Josh Kohn.

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How are we feeling (apart from crushed)? Do we think Tig went through with it? What do we think Sydney is going to do?

Song for this chapter

Carousel - Melanie Martinez