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Taming Ava & Fixing Jax - A Modern Fairytale
Chapter 22 Checking Gemma
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Gemma found the guys sitting at a table in the hospital cafeteria drinking coffee and eating donuts. Not much different from how they usually spent their mornings just a different location.
"You have news on Jax?" Opie asked.
"He has an infection. They gave him antibiotics. He wasn't getting better, so they gave him another."
"What got you so fired up?" Clay asked. Gemma's face was flushed and she looked angry. He'd seen that look often enough directed at him.
"That little bitch he married. I can't stand her. She told me that it was my fault—my fault—that he got shivved," Gemma said indignantly.
Clay looked at Gemma. He didn't completely buy her explanation.
"Out of the blue she just said that to you? What did you say to her?" Clay demanded.
Opie and Tig exchanged glances. Clay might love and worship Gemma, but that didn't mean that he didn't see her flaws.
"I told her Jax wouldn't have gotten shivved if he hadn't been in line for the phone so he could talk to her, so that makes it all her fault."
"Gemma, that was wrong," Clay said. Part of being a member of an outlaw MC was keeping your old lady in line. That was done by any means necessary including dispensing a vicious beat down if the behavior called for it. Gemma's behavior currently only called for scolding.
"She said I was a bad mother because I raised a criminal."
The men laughed. They didn't regard being called a criminal as an insult.
"It's not funny," Gemma said tartly. "I hate that little tramp."
None of the men thought Gemma would have a warm and loving relationship with her daughter in law. They figured any woman Jax married would be strong and outspoken. Jax wouldn't pick a doormat of a woman to marry. That meant that Gemma and Jax's old lady would clash probably all the time.
Jax never said anything to SAMCRO about his marriage to Ava beyond that he was getting married. He didn't tell them of the deal he'd made with her, but the guys knew that Ava came from money and they suspected his hasty marriage had something to do with fighting his weapons conviction.
They knew he'd been set up because they didn't sell the weapon the ATF claimed he'd sold them. They were trying everything they could think of to help him, but there wasn't much they could do.
The government was enormously powerful. It was going to be a long and expensive fight having someone with money and power behind his appeal could make all the difference. They would all marry a woman if she could help them appeal a conviction with a long prison sentence. A guy gets a longer sentence for a nonviolent crime like selling a gun than if he'd raped a woman or molested a kid. It just wasn't right.
Clay would love to see Jax's marriage go up in flames preferably today, but he knew Jax wasn't going to do anything to rock the boat with his new father in law who was bank rolling his appeal. He assumed that was what was happening because of the high caliber of Jax's new attorneys. The MC wasn't funding the appeal and Jax's new attorneys didn't work for free.
He knew about Jax firing Lowen through Lowen, but Jax hadn't said anything to anyone in the MC about it. He also hadn't said anything to Gemma or she would have said something to him about Jax getting rid of Lowen as his attorney. He wondered why Jax was being so secretive. Whatever Jax's reason, it couldn't be good for him.
"You need to take her under your wing and teach her how to be an MC old lady," Clay said. He was just fanning the flames of Gemma's anger for his own enjoyment.
"Like that's going to happen," Gemma said scornfully. "She's a little too fancy to be a biker's old lady."
"When she came to the clubhouse those couple of times, she was real nice," Tig said. "She let us drive her car.
"It's just going to take her a little time to get used to being married to a guy in an MC," Opie said.
"That marriage will never last," Gemma predicted optimistically.
"I'm going to make a couple of calls. Check on TM. Stay here and keep Gemma company," Clay said.
"You sure you don't want me to go with you?" Tig asked.
"I'll be OK."
Tig took his job as sergeant at arms seriously. Keeping Clay safe and the guys in line was his job. He didn't like Clay going anywhere alone when they were outside Charming. You never knew when an enemy was going to turn up.
Clay put in a quick call to TM to make sure the garage was running smoothly without them. Piney had everything in hand. It was a slow day. Clay updated him on Jax's medical condition before ending the call.
The next call he made on his burner phone wouldn't be as pleasant.