"Daddy said that you could help me 'cuz you used to do all that Julius Caesar shit -"
"Abel."
Denise raised her eyebrows in surprise at Abel's colorful use of four-letter words while she and Gemma knelt on the ground next to him, pinning hems of his clothes into place for his costume in the school production of Peter and The Wolf for the holidays. Abel had just gotten the good news from his teacher that he was going to have the lead role, and Jax, knowing nothing about being in school plays, immediately enlisted the help of the single person he knew who was into that sort of thing.
"Sorry, Aunt Deedee," Abel said, though the broad grin on his face made it clear that more than anything, he was more amused than anything else by her response. Denise clucked her tongue disapprovingly, but gave a concealed little smile nonetheless. "Peter is the most important part!" he continued, gesturing with his arm and causing Gemma to drop one of the pins she was trying to place. "He gets to kill the wolf -"
"Woof!" Thomas spoke up, hobbling across the floor to watch what was going on. Denise put down the pins she was holding and went off to distract the younger boy, very thankful that Sofia was well entertained in her bouncer and wasn't wandering around the house.
"Well, of course you got the biggest part," Gemma said, her eyes full of warmth for her grandson. "My grandbaby's always number one."
Gemma didn't presume she would ever get to be with her grandsons every day the way she had been before - there was a point that even she knew when something was too much to ask. But every time the boys went out on a run and the boys were left with Denise, which they often were because Jax still sought ought every possible alternative to leaving the boys with Wendy, it went without saying that Denise would call Gemma in for backup, because Denise Ortiz harbored no illusions of being able to handle three of them on her own.
A few hours later, Sofia and Thomas were both down for a nap and Abel was settled in front of the TV while Gemma and Denise moved over into the kitchen to make dinner. Denise was in the process of chopping tomatoes when Gemma moved away from stove and the meat she was browning to make a lasagne.
"Hey, babydoll," she said, crossing her arms and gently reaching out, stopping Denise's hand from cutting the vegetables - it was her, I'm-gonna-talk-to-you face, and Denise recognized it well enough to know she ought to put the knife down and listen. "I just wanted to say thank you for this. For all this."
"For cutting the vegetables?"
"No - Christ, I forget how blonde you can be sometimes, sweetheart," Gemma smirked, shaking her head. "Thank you, Deedee. For sticking your neck out, for making sure I get time with the boys."
Denise cleared her throat and went slightly pink in the face - Gemma chuckled, knowing that this was just the way Denise was. She struggled with accepting gratitude or compliments and always became this awkward, stammering mess that fluctuated between infuriating and endearing. "Mama," she said, shoving her hands in her pockets and looking down at her feet. "Listen, I wouldn't have made it through the past year without you. You saved me and Fifi - I didn't know anything about being a mom, or having a kid," she said honestly.
Gemma was caught a little by surprise when Denise made the first move, reaching over and hugging her tightly. The girl, Gemma realized, truly cared about her - truly saw her like a mother, and wanted to see her get back the things she missed most. She'd brought the boys back into her life, she'd brought Nero back to her.
And Gemma knew - the innocent were usually the first to suffer when the shit hit the fan. From what she'd been hearing about Marks and the Triads, that time would be soon.
"If you and Juice have an out, you should take it," Gemma said suddenly, still hugging the smaller woman in front of her. Denise stiffened and pulled away slowly, her expression confused and almost childlike as though she were a little girl being turned away by her mother.
"I..." Denise started, clearing her throat and gently scratching the back of her neck. "I don't think that's gonna happen, Gemma. Whether I admit it or not, Charming's all I got now. It's the only place I have anybody," she said. Gemma had to strive to suppress a frown at the fact that she sounded so much like the way Juice used to sound - the way Juice had been before he'd met her. "It wasn't supposed to turn out like this, but it did."
"And..." Gemma began, her gaze leveling with Denise's, her expression hardening slightly. "You're sure you're okay with that? You sure you can handle it here?"
Hidden somewhere behind the motherly concern of the question was a hint of suspicion - and Denise understood well enough why it was there. Gemma didn't want Denise to hang on for this long, only to become another Tara in the end, to decide she couldn't handle it after all.
"I'm more than capable of taking care of my family. My whole family," Denise said, raising her eyebrows defiantly. "I plan on coming out the other side fully intact. Nobody left behind. Nobody stabbed in the back."
"Charles is your family."
"No." Denise's tone grew icy at the mention of her brother, and Gemma inhaled deeply at the fierce, hard expression on the young woman's face. There was an anger there, nothing like the anger she had shown when Juice was mentioned after she'd first run away from Charming. The anger in Denise that appeared at the mention of Charles was different. It was dark. It didn't stem from hurt, or from love. It stemmed from hate. "He's not my family - and he made the decision not to be," Denise said, the muscles in her neck tensing visibly. Gemma reached out and placed her hands on Denise's shoulders in an unspoken apology for bringing it up, then she placed a kiss on the girl's cheek.
"You stuck around for Jax even when Juice booked it to SAMBAY with Chibs," Gemma began. "I love you, kid. Like the daughter I never had. And I just wanna be sure that you always look after Jax. Like a brother."
Denise laughed skeptically shaking her head at the idea of being the one to protect Jax, to look after him as though he needed a twenty-six-year-old girl fighting any of his battles for him. But, Denise realized, Gemma was completely serious.
"You've been a good Mama to these idiots while I can't be," Gemma continued honestly, coming closer to Denise again. "You did exactly what an Ol' Lady should. Make 'em feel like they're strong, like they can take on anything."
"Nobody does the job like you, Ma," Denise laughed, shaking her head. "And besides - if anyone's close to bein' Queen, it's Wendy -"
"I know she's doin' good," Gemma interrupted shortly. "But that ex-junkie's got her own demons, and if I had to pick between her demons and yours to be around my boys, I pick yours in a heartbeat."
"Mm."
Denise made a small, noncommittal noise before looking down at the floor again, shuffling her feet. "Gemma?" Denise began quietly. The sudden shift in her mood signaled that something was amiss, that Denise was worried about something. "Can I ask you a favor?"
"Depends on the favor."
"It could be nothing," Denise said, forcing a laugh and shaking her head. "But if something... if anything happens to me," she said, her face paling as she spoke. "I talked to Attorney Horkowitz and..."
"Sweetheart, you're not gonna die."
"Just hear me out," Denise said through slightly clenched teeth, and Gemma shut her mouth to allow Denise to continue, even if only because she could tell whatever Denise had to say was incredibly difficult for her. "I put the paperwork together without telling Juice so I need you to keep this quiet until it's really needed. Until I'm not here anymore. I'm leaving a third of the money to Jax for the boys - but I need you to make sure it goes to the boys and not the club. Okay?"
The weak expression on Denise's face made it clear to Gemma that she'd been holding onto the secret for a long time - and Gemma knew the importance of secrets. She knew the level of trust it took to confide in her, and there was a strange warmth to the thought that someone - even if it was just Denise - placed their trust in her again. There was a time that everyone did.
"You've got my word, sweetheart," Gemma said, leaning over and placing another kiss on Denise's cheek. "This is our secret. Thank you for lovin' my boys this much."
Letting go of such a massive secret was exquisitely calming, but so very surreal as well. Denise was so distracted by this that when Jax and Juice both arrived back at the house, Denise hardly even realized that she had agreed to do Jax some kind of favor. She was so distracted that she was practically on autopilot until she was dressed and on the back of Jax's bike.
It dawned on her finally to question why Jax needed her help - and why, for that matter, Juice hadn't been against it. Denise bristled slightly as it hit her that things were slowly sliding back into the way they were before, back to her being used for the club. But she was already along for this ride out of her own negligence and no one else's, so there were no choice for the time being except to go along with it.
Jax pulled his bike to a stop and allowed Denise to get off first, removing the helmet. Her hair had been pulled back and braided to one side, because she'd learned her lesson. Rides on the back of someone's bike made her sick enough - she didn't need to add bad hair to it.
"Where are we supposed to be going?" Denise asked, glancing around at the alley they had pulled into, her eyebrow irked. Denise was sure Jax knew she still kept the Beretta on her practically at all times, so if he was taking her out back to shoot her - the possibility of which, honestly, was only far and remote in Denise's mind - she didn't think her friend foolish enough to expect she wouldn't return fire.
'We're goin' to a restaurant."
"So the club business you needed me to help you with so badly is tryin' out a new restaurant?" Denise asked skeptically. "Where are we?"
"Manteca. Grand opening of a new bar and lounge," Jax said, lifting open the flap of his saddlebag. "Lin Kwan Pearl Lounge."
The name was enough to quell Denise's suspicions - Jax had brought her for credibility, for a reason to show up to what was likely to be some major shindig. While Uncle Henry played well in the art of subtlety when it was needed, Denise knew Charles did not share this gift.
"I'll turn around. You change into this," Jax said, holding something out to Denise which she recognized in the purplish twilight was a dress.
"You expect me to wear that shit? Nope," she said, raising her eyebrows. "No one said anything to me about a dress and those torture heels. If you wanted someone to strut around in that, you shoulda called Lyla -"
"Dee," Jax said, raising his eyebrows as he removed his kutte just long enough to remove his plaid flannel shirt and replace it with a cleaner button up shirt. "Do you wanna stick out like a sore fuckin' thumb in there?"
"No, I wanna go home where I can wear whatever the fuck I want, because my daughter's just gonna spit up on it anyway," she retorted, but she snatched the dress out of his hand nonetheless. She sneered in annoyance and gestured for Jax to turn away, and she quickly changed into the dress, which admittedly was probably a size too small, as it clung to her petite form rather tightly. Denise shoved her regular clothes back into the saddle bag and removed the shoes Jax had brought as well.
"Lyla loaned 'em to me, said the whole outfit'd fit you like a glove," Jax smirked, still not turning around out of respect for the fact that Denise was most likely making a very clumsy spectacle of herself, like Bambi learning to walk, except in heels.
"Tightest fuckin' glove I've ever worn, then," Denise grumbled under her breath, reaching up and undoing the braid in her hair so that it now cascaded over her back in waves. "Come on, let's check this place out before I break my ankle, Teller."
"Ma'am, yes Ma'am," Jax chuckled, smirking as Denise strode off past him, towards where the alleyway opened to reveal a roped off line and a brightly lit building. He frowned when he saw her pause, and he quickly realized that the Lin family symbol, the same one burned into her skin, was in large, bright lights. She sneered at it for a moment before her movements became erratic - Jax had to hurry to follow her to the front of the line.
"Miss, are you on the guest list?" One of the bouncers asked, garnering a sharp glare from the petite woman. She glanced him over - a muscular Chinese man with dark glasses, clad in a tight t-shirt. "Mr. Kwan's guest list-"
"How about you tell Charles that Denise is waiting outside for him and is feeling a little talkative about the last few times we spoke?" she said, raising her eyebrows in defiance. The bouncer stared her over, and his eyebrows rose in realization upon hearing her name, just as Jax caught up and approached behind her. Denise shifted her weight so her hand rested on her hip. "Excuse me," she said, pushing past the bouncer as he now showed no further sign of resisting. Jax followed behind her.
They certainly didn't make places like this in Charming - and Jax though inwardly, their mission was to make sure it never did. But there were so many people, so many flashing lights, Jax almost thought the place would make him sick. The idea that Marks and the Triads wanted to build something like this in his town, the town he had lived in for his entire life, caused a wave of queasiness in and of itself.
"How are we gonna track him down?" Denise practically had to shout at Jax over the music. Jax, however, was immediately faced with another concern when he realized the many wolfish grins raining down on Denise from the men in the bar and on the dance floor. Denise shot from the hip. She wandered off. She did what she wanted. And Jax knew, if word got back to Juice of so much as an assgrab from one of the pieces of shit in this place, it would be a scene. It had been uncomfortable enough, asking to borrow the guy's wife to take her to a nightclub. He'd asked Lyla to loan the girl something to blend into the crowd - but, he realized, a porn star was probably not the right person to go to for blending in.
"There's no need to track me down, Meimei."
Charles seemed to appear in their midst from out of the crowd like he had materialized from nothing, and Denise's head snapped in his direction, eyeing him with frigid caution. Jax, however, immediately began scanning the crowd for another face.
"August isn't here this evening," Charles said calmly. "Come, follow me."
Denise and Jax shared a glance before warily treading through Charles' wake he left in the bustling crowd, leading them upstairs to the wide open VIP area, where a handful of men in suits were already being entertained by scantily clad women.
"What do you think, Mei?" Charles said, gesturing proudly at his surroundings. "This is just the first of many, of course -"
"Of course. Daddy and Grandfather would be so proud," Denise interrupting in a cold, biting tone. "It's cute."
Charles frowned at his younger sister's lack of interest in his business, but forced a laugh, walking around and circling her like prey until Jax shifted, blocking his path. "Of course, you were never interested in this sort of thing. You can clean up as nicely as you want, but you're still - well. You know what you are," Charles replied. Denise, however, remained blank and expressionless. Was this truly her brother? Her own flesh and blood? The idea that she had once trusted him above all others seemed so foreign, so unthinkable.
"I came here with him," Denise said, nodding in Jax's direction, "because he has business with you, Charles. So if you'll excuse me."
Denise walked away, back down the stairs towards the bar until she was certain Charles' gaze was no longer following her, at which point she changed courses. Nothing built by Triad hands was ever what it seemed. There would always be something hidden below the surface, and while Jax took care of his business, Denise was going to try her damnedest to find it.
A/N's
So, nothing world-shattering in this chapter, but this scene will continue into the next chapter, which you will be seeing soon. But - Denise's little secret with Gemma comes into play very soon, so I'll be accepting bets for how that comes back in a way. But I'll give you a clue - it doesn't bode well for quite a few people. I'm finally, slowly getting over the last episode, so while I still have a little emotional stability, I'm working on writing some of the heavy stuff to come.
Short and sweet author's note for this chapter! Cheers!