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General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death.
CHAPTER 79: BRODIFACOUM
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Sydney tapped her foot as she stood in the doorway of the clubhouse anxiously awaiting the perfect opportunity to corner Clay before it was too late - the perfect opportunity that she worried wasn't going to come as everybody mounted their bikes in preparation to carry out their designated tasks.
"Fuck." She cursed under her breath, beginning to panic until she saw it - the President separating from the group and heading into the office. She practically bolted across the compound - ignoring the tenderness that she felt in her eyes against the sunlight - aggressively stalking into the office where Clay was kissing Gemma goodbye.
"I need a minute." She told Gemma, not looking away from Clay who stood with his jaw clenched and an angry crease in his forehead.
Gemma scowled, looking between the two who were in an intense staredown. She nodded wearily, getting up out of her seat where she headed towards the door - eyeing Sydney her entire way there.
"What's this about?" Clay sighed once the door closed behind his wife, clearly unimpressed with what he knew was about to be another unwanted confrontation - something that he'd had more than enough of lately.
"Don't do this." She shook her head. "Not now."
"You asking me to wait around for him to give us up?" He scoffed, not even bothering to take the time to think about how she'd caught on so quickly.
"No, I'm asking you not to sign your own death certificate." She knew that the threat needed to be eliminated, but not when it would lead to one that could be much worse.
"If I do nothing, I'm signing a death certificate for all of us!" Clay yelled, swatting a pen holder off of the desk in frustration.
"Jax will know." She felt her lips beginning to quiver as he grew angrier and less willing to hear her out.
"Doesn't matter what Jax knows, only matters what he can prove."
"We need a flawless plan." She argued, hoping that he would realize that she wasn't trying to be combative - she was trying to be strategic.
"We have a flawless plan."
"Now is not the time."
"Now is the only time." He continued to shut down her every point with the wealth of excuses that he'd stocked up on to ease his own conscience.
"Clay… If they find out..." She warned him.
"They won't find out." He widened his eyes.
"You don't know that!" She snapped, feeling her own frustration boiling over. She should've known that thanks to Jax, he would be blind to any advice that wasn't in his favour - even if it was advice that could save his life.
"I do." He nodded as he took a step towards her. "Because we are the only ones who know, and you sure as hell aint gonna tell them." He scolded with a finger in her face.
"I'm on your side." She reminded him as he uttered the underlying threat. "Just don't make him do this now." She whispered.
Clay scoffed once he realized what this was really about - her feelings for Tig. She was only thinking about herself - just like Jax. "I said I can handle you fucking him if it doesn't interfere with the club! Don't forget that." He threw the door open and stormed out onto the compound.
Sydney stood with her chest heaving as she tried to process the horribly botched attempt at getting him to see anything other than what was right in front of him. She had no idea what the right move was - to trust her President like she was supposed to do, or to trust her gut that was telling her to stop her old man from the death trap that he was walking into. All she knew was that she'd come to Charming for one reason - and it wasn't to find love, it was to earn a patch. Now she had to decide which meant more to her.
"What was that about?" Gemma's voice pulled her from her thoughts, having listened in on the entire conversation from outside the door.
Sydney turned to see her standing in the doorway with a raised brow. "Nothing." She turned and stomped away, unable to take any more scrutiny than she was already under as she sat wedged tightly between what a member would do, and what an old lady would do.
Gemma chewed on the arm of her reading glasses as she narrowed her eyes at the young woman that she knew to be just as conflicted as she was. She hadn't ever wanted her son's best friend to be taken from him - knowing how it would crush him. But as the facts became more black and white, she realized that the alternative was much worse - that her son could be taken from her, and that was a pain that she couldn't relive.
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Jax stood above Opie where he was crouched on the ground next to the crates, angrily screwing the parts together on the guns before aggressively passing them back.
"You think this is a bad idea." Opie surmised, peering out the open door of the cabin bedroom to be sure that they wouldn't be overheard.
"Yeah. I do." Jax responded curtly, avoiding eye contact. After a stressful morning with Tara and an even more stressful morning with the club, he was losing hope. He'd gotten everything that he'd wanted: his best friend was safe and clear, the love of his life finally wanted him back, and his son was healthy enough to come home - yet everything still felt wrong.
"Clay made a deal with the Mayans to make sure that the war didn't reach Charming." Opie tried to bring him back to earth, figuring that it was just another flare up of whatever issues he'd had been having with Clay recently.
"It's bigger than that now." Jax ground his teeth.
"What?" Opie scowled.
"Let's just get this done." Jax sighed, knowing that planting doubt in somebody else's mind would only make things worse.
"Hey." Opie regained his attention. "Look man, if you think I'm walking into something…"
Jax blinked a few times as he stared at his shoes on the wooden floor, realizing that maybe it wouldn't make things worse… Maybe now that he and Opie were on the same page about their commitment to the club, he would have somebody in his corner…
"Look at the last few months…" He began, stopping what he was doing and taking a seat on the edge of the bed that the guns had been stored under. "The warehouse gets blown up, the Mayans try to kill Clay, Bobby's in jail, we got ATF trying to stick RICO up our asses, we're lettin women patch." He scoffed as he listed off just a few of the things that he knew went directly against what his father had always envisioned for his club. "How much longer do you think this club's got?" He posed the question out loud for the first time.
Opie nodded slowly as he took in everything that Jax was saying, finally beginning to see what it was that had gotten him so twisted up over the last few months. The whole time he'd thought it had just been some power struggle with Clay, but now he saw that it was indeed much bigger than that.
"We're better than this, man…" Jax chewed his lip pitifully. "My old man? He saw the nightmare coming… He was smart, Ope - way smarter than me." He sighed as finally poured his heart out about all of the turmoil that had been spinning in his head over the last two and a half months. "He had ideas about where to take the club, you know? Legitimate ways to earn - he knew that SAMCRO's gotta change to survive." He floated the idea, realizing as Opie listened to him so attentively that maybe it wasn't as unattainable as it seemed...
"Clay will never walk away from running guns…" Opie surmised as he began to wrap his head around what exactly had caused the rift between his superiors.
"I know." Jax nodded regrettably. "He's made that very clear." His frustration began to creep back in, brushing it off as he got back to work.
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Sydney laid back on Tig's bed with her head buried in the pillows, taking deep breaths where she tried to inhale enough of his scent to silence her conscience - but all it did was increase the throbbing in her still sore face. She would need a much bigger distraction to be able to stop worrying about what she knew was taking place this very second - what she was letting take place this very second; the fallout that would come afterwards, the consequences that it might have… She shook her head, refusing to let herself go there - picking up her phone and scrolling through her contacts until she made her way down to Tara's name. She pressed the call button, holding the phone to her ear where her eyes fell closed as she nodded her head back against the pillows while she waited the painfully long four rings until the doctor finally picked up.
"Hello?" Tara answered the phone a little wearily when she saw who it was that was calling.
"Hey." Sydney nearly gasped when she finally heard Tara's voice on the other end - not realizing how much faith she was putting in the brunette to keep her from doing something that she might regret. "What are you up to?" She cleared her throat, regaining her composure.
"Just uh, finishing up at the hospital." Tara looked around her nervously, half expecting to turn around and find Sydney standing behind her. "Why?" Her forehead creased.
"Um." Sydney took a deep breath, trying not to sound as desperate as she felt. "Tig and Jax are out on club business… Probably gonna be a late night. I thought maybe if you weren't doing anything, you'd wanna come over? I'd hate to waste a perfectly good Friday night waiting around for a man, and I have a new patio set that's dying to be used for something other than arguing with Tig on." She forced a chuckle.
"Yeah." Tara smiled. "Yeah, sure." She nodded, thrilled to be receiving the invite - she'd been avoiding Sydney for the last few days, worried that she would be upset with her for telling Tig the truth about her injury, but she was glad that it seemed to be water under the bridge. Besides, she needed a distraction of her own.
"Okay." Sydney smiled gratefully. " I have plenty of wine and snacks, but if there's anything you want - feel free to bring it."
"Sounds good." Tara nodded. "I'll head home and shower, probably eat some dinner and then make my way over?"
"Great." Sydney smiled, hanging up the phone where she felt the tiniest bit of relief - but she knew that the real distraction would come from the next phone call. She couldn't handle any more questions today, she needed to be around someone who could give her answers.
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Hale dug into the deep pocket of his khakis when he felt his personal cell phone vibrating against his leg - a sensation that he didn't experience often, especially while he was on the job. He fished it out, reading the tiny display that read 'PRIVATE CALLER'. "Hello?" He answered with a scowl.
"Hi Davey." He heard a familiar voice down the line, coupled with the use of the nickname that only two people called him by - and it definitely wasn't his brother that he was speaking to.
"Who is this?" He looked around the station - thinking that this must be some kind of prank that the newbies were pulling on him.
"Working hard or hardly working?" The angelic voice chuckled.
"How did you get this number?" He scowled again, sure now who it was - there was nobody else who could manage to speak so seductively while still being playful.
"Does the good Deputy care to perform an act of service for an injured member of his community?" Sydney played up her southern accent.
"And what act of service would that be?" He chuckled when she ignored his question - something that he should've expected.
"Givin this damsel in distress a lift home from a hard day at work."
"It's 2:00 P.M." He deadpanned with a blink of confusion.
"I said hard, not long." She smirked. "See you soon." She hung up the phone, heading out to the compound to wait for her ride.
Hale winced as the line went dead, cursing himself for giving in so easily as he got to his feet and grabbed his keys, but with the suffocatingly tense atmosphere in the workplace that he was no longer welcome at - he was desperate to get some air.
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Opie drove down the streets of Oakland with Tig in his passenger seat - the pair riding silently the entire way to pick up the money from the arranged location that Clay had set up with Alvarez
"Hey." Opie nodded to Tig who was staring out the window with a scowl. "Think I could borrow your cell? Gotta check in with Donna - let her know that I won't be home until late." He explained as he looked at the clock in his truck, knowing that by the time they made it back to Charming, counted up the money, and shared a few beers - it would be well into the night.
Tig didn't reply, simply reaching into the pocket of his kutte where it laid on the seat next to him and passing off the burner before turning his attention back to the dingy streets of the rough neighbourhood as he hoped that Sydney hadn't managed to catch on.
"Thanks." Opie nodded, flipping the phone open and dialling their home phone number. "Found mine in a pitcher of beer… You know anything about that?" He remembered the odd phenomenon as he brought the phone to his ear.
"Maybe it was thirsty." Tig shrugged, bringing his hand up to the handle on the roof as if to brace himself as he looked over at the man that was going to put him and his club in jail if he didn't pull this off.
Opie chuckled, listening as the call rolled to the family answering machine. "Ah, that's her voicemail.." He snapped the phone shut. "Thanks again." He passed it back to Tig who stuffed it back into his pocket. "Don't wanna call your old lady?" He tried to strike up conversation with the man whom he'd never really bonded with and seldom worked with, figuring that if he was going to be serious about his role in the club and help Jax move SAMCRO in a different direction - he better start.
"Nah." Tig almost snapped his neck when he recoiled at the mention of Sydney - remembering just how much was riding on him to perfectly execute this hit. "Syd doesn't give a shit what time I get home as long as I clean my plate when I get there and fuck her before I go to bed." He shrugged as he chewed his fingernails.
"Sounds nice." Opie chuckled again, shooting the older man a knowing glance.
"It is." Tig turned his head further away from Opie's gaze. He felt bad to talk about his relationship with Sydney so dismissively, but he didn't feel like having a heart to heart with the man that he was about to kill.
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Hale chuckled as he pulled up outside of the clubhouse, immediately picking Sydney out of the crowd where she sat on top of a picnic table smoking a cigarette. He hated himself for the smile that he had on his face as she walked up - her hair bouncing with every step that she took - hardly noticing the bruising around her face that was still prominent as she pulled off the giant pair of black sunglasses that had been hiding it, focusing solely on those piercing green eyes that were burning a hole right through him.
"Couldn't have gotten somebody else to give you a ride?" He asked with a raised brow as she settled into the passenger seat, scanning the full compound.
"Well, I was having a bad day and I thought to myself…" She tapped her chin theatrically - feeling that the distraction of fucking with none other than David Hale was already having the desire effect on her ego. "Who could make this better? And then it hit me - the Deputy Chief." She smirked.
"You might be my biggest fan these days…" He mused, chewing his lip bitterly as he turned onto the street that the criminal establishment sat on - the criminal establishment that he was actively aiding.
"Havin fun playing fetch?" She chuckled smugly as she looked out the window of the open vehicle.
"I'm nobody's bitch." He side-eyed her with a smirk of his own when he managed to decode one of her infamously cryptic one-liners.
"You really are smarter than you look." She grinned when he caught her joke, reaching over and poking his neck playfully.
Hale shivered when her long nails grazed his skin, pulling away lightly. "Maple Street, right?" He cleared his throat as a blush creeped up his neck.
"You remember where I live?" She raised a brow with a flirty smirk as she kicked her feet up - which put her clunky combat boots right out the open-front window and onto the hood of the first generation Ford Bronco.
"It's a small town." He reminded her as he turned onto Main Street.
"And somehow it's big enough for the both of us..." She turned her attention back out the window as the familiar line of shops came into view on the main stretch of road before the turn that led to her house.
"Not if Stahl has anything to do with it…" He grumbled as he turned at the coffee shop, the chugging of the engine filling the silence as it brought them up the small hill while he wrestled with his conscience in the presence of the one person who he knew he could trust to keep Opie safe.
Sydney chewed the inside of her lip as her distraction reminded her exactly what she had been trying to forget. She forced the anger and worry back down as they pulled up in front of her house, turning to thank him for the ride where she was surprised to see that he looked just as conflicted as she did.
"I never thanked you for that…" She realized, remembering what he had done for her by keeping Tig out of jail.
"Any man who lays his hands on a woman deserves what they did to him. That's no crime in my eyes." He ground his teeth in memory of the horrible scene that he'd had to witness - something that he had vowed to put an end to when he became a cop, not allow his fellow officers to get away with.
"Maybe you're not so bad after all." She smiled playfully, but the genuineness of her expression showed through her eyes clear as day.
"You killed him... Didn't you? Your stepfather." He asked softly, thinking back to her file that he'd poured over for hours - reviewing the case that he knew she was guilty of but there hadn't been a shred of evidence to even warrant considering the teenage girl a suspect.
Sydney nodded slowly, unsure what in the world had possessed her to believe that confessing to first-degree murder in the presence of a cop was a good idea - but as her mind caught up to her body she realized that it was because she wasn't admitting her guilt to the Deputy Chief, she was sharing her truth with a good man.
"What they did was wrong." He told her sincerely as he bought his hand up to her face, lifting her chin as he stroked his thumb over her split lip - hoping that the softness in his voice would tell her that she hadn't made a mistake in telling him the truth. He would never penalize a woman for defending herself against a man, no matter what the law was.
"Is what you're doing much better?" She whispered.
"Well that depends what team you're on." He smiled sympathetically as he lowered his hand, finding it ironic that in the entire time that he'd tried to gain her trust in order to get ahead on his case - he finally succeeded as soon as he stopped needing it.
"And what team are you on, Deputy?"
"I never wanted the bad guys to win… And they're going to." He nodded sadly.
"Thought you were all about doing your job?" She mused, realizing for the first time just how many of his actions went against his words as she wondered what exactly he meant by that.
"My job is to make things right." He gave the most truthful answer that he could while the voice in the back of his head screamed at him for being a liar - if his job was to do the right thing, then he would be telling her about Opie. But as she sat talking to a good man, he was still talking to a criminal.
Sydney nodded somberly as she traced the pattern on her fishnet stockings underneath one of Tig's t-shirts that she was wearing as a dress, properly taking in what he was saying - realizing that maybe the man before her wasn't as black and white as she'd previously thought.
"So is mine." She looked back up with a nod.
Hale chuckled, shaking his head. "I could fine you for half of the shit that you think is right." He scoffed.
"If a fine is all you're willing to give me…" She winked, getting out of the car with a smirk.
"You need help?" He called after her.
"Why would I need help?" She scowled.
"Because you were shot less than two weeks ago." He widened his eyes incredulously, speaking in his notorious deadpan.
"You worry too much." She rolled her eyes. "Go back to work, Deputy. Make things right." She mocked him studiously before heading towards her door.
Hale rolled his tongue over his teeth as he realized the impossibility of fulfilling her request; that if he went back to work, he wouldn't be making anything right, he would be doing the opposite - which, little did he know, was the exact same internal struggle that Sydney was having.
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"Drop as many as you can." Laroy ordered his crew over the phone as his two teams approached the intercept points that Clay had given him. "I want those guns, I want that money, and I want all those men dead." He smirked as he snapped his phone shut, hoping that by the end of this there would be no more ignorant white boys, no more greedy Mexicans - the Niners would finally be the most notorious street gang in Northern Cali.
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