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Chapter 115 Mother and Son Reunion

"

Jax found out from Ed that Gemma was hired to answer phones. TB was old fashioned and he liked a real person answering his phones. He also found out when she was going to be off work. He wanted to make sure that he confronted her as soon as she was home.

As the day wore on, he grew angrier by the minute. He hadn't killed her. She should have taken that gift and then stayed the hell out of his life. His mother was dead to him, but he still had feelings connected to her. He couldn't cut them off that fast. At that moment though, they were closer to hate than love.

Jax gave her a ten minute head start before jumping on his bike and going to the house Gemma used to share with his father until she helped kill him. His timing was perfect. He caught her just as she unlocked the door and walked into the house. He followed right behind her not giving her the chance to close and lock the door.

"You startled me," Gemma said.

Now that she'd had some time to consider what happened with Jax at that last horrible meeting, she was convinced that she had overreacted when she thought her son might kill her. He'd loved her all his life and that didn't just disappear overnight. In time, he'd remember everything that she'd done for him and all the love she'd shown him over his entire life. No one knew him like she did.

"We need to talk," he said tersely.

Gemma wasn't naïve enough to believe her plan to get Jax back was working already. She expected him to fight her at least one more time before giving in and accepting that she was his mother and he would always love her and need her in his life. He would get over the whole JT thing and maybe even see that she had acted in his and the MC's best interests.

She walked into the kitchen and poured two glasses of tropical iced tea. Jax loved her tropical ice tea almost as much as he loved her cherry lemonade.

"I'm not here for refreshments," he said coldly.

Gemma put the two glasses down at the kitchen table and sat down. She took a sip and looked at her son. He felt like a stranger. That scared her more than the idea of him killing her. It brought flashbacks to how JT treated her after he began spending so much time in Ireland. She hadn't understood his coldness until she found the love note from the teenager he was fucking. The son of a bitch deserved getting run down by a big rig. It was just too bad his teen slut wasn't with him.

"What the hell are you doing with TB? I know you spent the night with him."

"We're consenting adults. Figure it out Jackson."

The muscles in Jax's jaws clenched.

"He's a decent guy. He doesn't deserve someone like you."

"You mean an old used up whore?" Gemma asked. His words still stung. "He likes me and I like him. You don't have the right to tell me how to live my life."

"And your job. What about that?"

Gemma took a leisurely sip of her iced tea and looked at Jax. "I needed a job. You fired me, remember? TB was kind enough to give me a job." She got to her feet and faced Jax.

"Does he know how you helped Clay kill my father?"

"I told him," Gemma said triumphantly. "He listened to me when I told him I was the victim of Unser's revenge. I rejected Unser's advances and as he lay dying, he told you lies about me to turn you against me. He told you that I lured JT to that stretch of road when Clay lied to me, told me I'd won dinner in a contest he entered me in and then told me that he'd gotten the date wrong. Years later, Clay told me that there was no contest and he'd used me to lure JT to that stretch of road. He threatened that if I told you he was behind JT's death, he would say I helped him. I kept the truth from you because I was afraid you would kill Clay and end up in prison for the rest of your life, so I stayed silent.

"I told TB that when you found out all this from Unser, you disowned me. Unser poisoned your mind. That's the truth. Unser is getting revenge from beyond the grave because when he told me he loved me, he thought I'd say it back to him because he was dying. I can't tell someone I don't love that I love him even if he is dying."

Jax stared at his mother, a gleam of admiration in his eyes. It was a damned good story—one that TB could easily believe because Gemma had some time to come up with a better story now that could take the facts and build a story around them. That's why he'd carefully gotten her to commit to a series of lies and then confronted her with the truth.

He realized that if she'd told him this version of her truth when he first confronted her, he might have believed her. He didn't want to believe his mother had cold-bloodedly set his father up for Clay to run down, but being a man meant facing the truth about Gemma. She had come up with a series of clever lies to make herself look good to TB and make him look bad. She was conniving and every bit as ruthless as Clay.

There was no doubt in his mind that if somehow the proof Unser had left for him made its way into TB's hands, Gemma would explain that away too. Maybe she would claim that Unser had made up all the proof and back dated it all because he'd planned all along to get back at Gemma for not loving him. She was a practiced liar and he would put nothing past her. Not anymore anyway. He was furious with himself for believing that she would just go away after one conversation.

"So that's the play?" Jax said scoffing at her revised truth. "You're the victim and I'm the bad guy."

"No, of course not, sweetheart. You are just reacting to Unser's twisted version of the truth," Gemma said touching Jax's arm consolingly. "I don't blame you."

Jax pulled away from her roughly, staring at her astonished by her brazen ability to lie her ass off and twist this back on him. Had she always been this ruthless and completely amoral and he had just not seen it? Whatever the answer, he knew that his mother was dangerous.

"Get out of TB's life and stay away from me."

"You are my son and you do not tell me what to do," Gemma said fiercely. "You took away the only real job I ever had. You took away all my friends including my best friend Luann. You took away the MC that I have been a part of for more years than you have been alive. And now that I have found a job because I need to support myself, you want to take that away from me. No, I am not leaving TB's employment. Get over it and get used to seeing me around. I'm not going anywhere."

Jax wanted to bounce Gemma's head off the walls, but he suspected that if he laid a finger on her that information would find its way to TB. She would use it to play the victim. He wasn't going to give her that advantage.

When faced with problems with the MC, violence was the usual solution. Someone takes something of yours, you take it back and kill or beat the guys responsible. It was simple and effective. This problem with Gemma was going to take more thought.

"I hate you," Jax said.

Gemma flinched as though he'd struck her.

"I have only ever done what's best for you. As president of SAMCRO, you will discover that you have to make hard choices to protect and advance the MC. That's what I had to do about your father. Clay had to do what was best for the MC. It's bigger than one person. I loved your father, but he changed. His little Irish slut scrambled his brain and he was thinking with his dick. He wasn't the man you idolize."

"You just didn't want to take the financial hit that getting out of guns would have cost you," Jax said contemptuously.

"TM doesn't provide a lot of income. We needed the gun money and not just Clay, but all the guys depended on that money. You'll see now that you took the club out of guns. The guys will need to replace that income and if you can't find a way to do that, you won't be president long."

"Leave worrying about the MC to me. You aren't the queen of Charming anymore," Jax said.

He left her standing there, slamming the door behind him.