Denise's hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel as she glanced into her side mirror and saw Jax on his bike, just barely clear of her blind spot. They'd already dropped everyone off at the Ortiz house, and Jax had declared it their safe zone where the women and kids were supposed to wait. After he'd called Lyla to bring everyone over, he'd directed Denise to fulfill her end of the bargain. He wanted to see Gemma. He made it clear that after he dealt with this situation, whatever it presented, the boys would ride out and bring Bobby home. They would be waiting for him at the rest stop just outside of Charming, and Wendy, Lyla, and the kids would be at home waiting for Denise.

Before leaving to bring Jax to Nero's to face his mother, Denise had tried to find a moment alone with Juice - but he was unreachable. Even when she was standing right next to him, the burden of knowing that at that very moment, Marks had probably already filled a shallow grave, and that Chibs was likely the one filling it, was more than he seemed able to withstand. So, Denise let him go. He needed to ride. He needed to see that at least Bobby was safe, that something good had come of all of this.

Denise's hands were shaking by the time she pulled up to Nero's house - Jax dismounted from his bike first and stepped up to her window, rapping his knuckles on the glass until she rolled it down.

"Let's do it," he said, nodding towards the door. Denise complied, getting out of the car as Jax bounded again, pounding the side of his fist on Nero's front door. The older man opened the door quickly.

"Need somethin', mano?"

But before he received a verbal reply from Jackson Teller, he caught sight of Denise walking up behind him, her face nervous and pale. He raised his eyebrows slightly as he looked at her. She wouldn't bring him here, not unless...

"I know she's here," Jax said stiffly, his voice loud enough to carry through the house, to draw her out rather than force Nero to hand her over. "Where's my mother, Nero?"

"Jackson."

Standing behind Jax, Denise saw his fists clench when he caught sight of his mother emerge behind Nero, looking him square in the eyes. Denise thought she ought to have seen it coming. She ought ot have known that Gemma Teller wouldn't show shame in the least.

"Leave."

"Jackson -"

"I said," he growled, his teeth clenched in the herculean effort to keep from lashing out with Nero still standing between them, "leave. Get out of Charming. Get away from me, from my kids -"

"You tell that to the girl standing behind you, she wanted me here -"

"Is this fuckin' game to you, Gemma?" he hissed, stepping up close to Nero so that the older man had to reach forward and push jax back gently with his palms to make sure he kept his distance from Gemma. "You couldn't get into my head, into Juice's head anymore, so you decided Dee was the next best thing? You're done. Maybe she doesn't know any better, but the rest of us do. Get the hell away from Charming."

"Jax, please. Just - just open this. Just look at what's inside," Gemma said, holding out a sealed envelope toward Jax over Nero's shoulder. Denise's eyes widened slightly when she recognized it as the envelope Gemma had been carrying when Charles had brought her to Stockton. "This is why the mayor is under August's thumb. It might help you take him down." Jax stared at it for a few moments as though it would soon burst into flames but eventually snatched it away harshly, tearing open the top.

The contents were unassuming - just photographs. However, upon closer scrutiny, Jax exhaled hard when he recognized the man in them was the mayor, Deacon Bollinger, inside one of the Triads' nightclubs, engaged in what was clearly more than a simple lapdance with one of the lounge's girls. Denise, who was watching over Jax's shoulder, was the first to gasp when he flipped to the next photograph where the girl's face was visible.

"Dee. Make sure Wenya's here when we get back from pickin' up Bobby," Jax said stiffly when it finally sank in that it was Wenya in the photo having sex with the Mayor. "We gather at your place. I'm gonna head out -"

"But..." Denise said, glancing back into the house towards Gemma, who made defiant eye contact with her. "What about -"

"Go back home, Deedee," Jax said sternly, with such finality that Denise, after having been so adamantly put in her place by recent events, could do nothing except comply. "There's no one else here worth seein'. Bring this home with you, keep it safe," he instructed, shoving the envelope into her hands. "I'm out."

Jax turned and started walking back to his bike, riding off without so much as another backwards glance at his mother. Denise, however, gave a heaving sigh and looked between Gemma and Nero with a dismal expression. She opened her mouth a few times as though to speak, but found nothing else to say. She shook her head and started back to her car.

While driving home, Denise managed, despite her shaking hands, to call Wenya and tell her to meet at the Ortiz home - by the time Denise arrived after having been so distraught and distracted that she missed two turns along the way, Wenya was already waiting outside for her rather than asking to be let in.

"What's going on, Xiu?" she asked with the brief, affectionate nickname she had taken to using for Denise. "Something -"

"Come inside," Denise said shortly, leading her up the front steps and into the front door where Wendy and Lyla were waiting with the kids. Denise nervously locked the door behind her looked at Wenya with a grave expression. "It's you. You're the leverage Marks is using against the Mayor -"

"What?"

"He was one of your customers. Deacon Bollinger," Denise said. She shoved the manila envelop into Wenya's hand, unable to explain why she was so frustrated with the woman. Denise knew from the beginning what Wenya did for a living - but this realization was too overwhelming. Denise wanted - needed to be angry at someone. "Those pictures are the reason Bollinger is under Marks' thumb -"

But Denise's voice halted abruptly when she saw something she didn't expect in Wenya's face - shame. Her cheeks went red, and her eyes sparkled with restrained tears as she looked inside the envelope, making sure the pictures were still out of the children's view. "I didn't know who he was," she explained feebly. "Charlie just pulled me in from out back, said that I was his best girl and the guy was an important customer. I didn't know -"

"Deedee," Lyla said chidingly as she walked over with Sofia and held the quiet little girl out towarss her mother, knowing that Sofia was probably the only one with the power to calm Denise out of the frenzy she'd worked herself into. "Let up on her. It was just work."

For the first time, Wenya and Lyla seemed to really be in sync with a strange kinship that came in their line of work. Denise, standing between them and holding her daughter, finally managed to take a breath and nod.

"I'll fix it," Wenya said, shaking her head fervently. "You come up with the ideas - you're the smart one. Whatever I need to do."

"I can't have the ideas anymore," Denise said in a discouraged tone, shaking her head. "Not my place."

"Bull-s-h-i-t," Wendy smirked as she walked up to the group as well, cocking her head to one side. "I mean, look at us. Are any of us gonna stop doin' what we do because one of the guys gives us a good talkin' to? No."

"But -"

"No buts," Lyla said, raising her eyebrows at Denise and holding up a perfectly manicured index finger to shush her. "Fact of the matter is, this is our life too. We get our asses kicked and our hearts ripped out every day so they can do what they do."

Denise took a moment to really mull over what was happening - standing here with Wendy, Lyla, and Wenya, Denise realize that for the first time in her life, she had a circle of friends that she felt she truly shared a life with, friends that she trusted with her life. She offered a weak smile and nodded.

The hours that followed, however, were far from calm - they knew where the guys were headed. They knew that as they spoke, they were riding off to meet Marks and save one brother, while another was probably dead. After the high of the earlier conversation had died down, Wendy and Denise again looked as though they were visibly carrying the burden of the choice despite their most valiant attempts to appear otherwise for the sake of their children. There was a tension and an apprehension in the air, so when the sound of a knock came, all of them flinched in surprise.

"Jax doesn't want us to open the door for anybody," Lyla pointed out, holding out her hand to still Denise as the dark-haired woman had stood from her seat to see who had arrived. "Safety thing. We don't know -"

The knock came again, but this time, they realized that it was coming from the back porch door, not the front. They looked amongst one another, then at the children they were charged with protecting.

"Mommy?" Abel asked, looking on in confusion at the panic that had set over the women's expressions. "Mommy, I'm scared. What's happening?"

"Nothing, baby," Wendy said quietly, leaning over and kissing the little boy gently on the forehead. "How about you help Ellie and Kenny get all the babies into the bedroom for a nap, yeah?"

"Okay..."

The knocking came again while the kids herded into one of the bedrooms. Ellie, who was now old enough to understand these things, nodded at Lyla and closed the bedroom door behind them, locking the door. If something was going down, the kids would be safe inside. Denise now reached over for her bag and pulled out a small pistol - by the time she had looked up, she found that the other three woman had the same idea.

They moved together towards the back door with a strange sort of solidarity. This felt right. As old ladies, this felt like it was what they were supposed to be doing - what Gemma had once been tasked with doing. They protected their own. Standing in the doorway as a unit, Denise reached out to open the door - but rather than finding an enemy or a threat at the threshold, there was a collective gasp at the sight of their visitor.

"Chibs," Denise said, unable to resist the urge to pull him inside by the arm and hug him tightly. Wendy quickly followed suit, while Wenya nudged the door shut again with her foot. "I'm so sorry - I'm sorry, Chibs," Denise said tearfully into his shoulder, shaking her head fervently. "You and Bobby -"

"I know, sweetheart," he said, wrapping an arm around each of the women hugging him and pressing a kiss into the side of each of their heads in turn. "I knew they chose Bobby. I'm supposed to be dead but Jarry let me go. 'S alright," he said, squeezing both of them. "I know you had nothin' to do with all this -"

"Hap refused to vote," Wendy said honestly, pulling back and looking Chibs square in the eye. "So Jax had me and Deedee make the call. They chose Bobby because of us..."

Chibs' face darkened at the revelation of Jax's call, and he exhaled in a slow, exasperate hiss. "Jesus Christ," he groaned, shaking his head and releasing his hold on Denise, who rubbed gently at her eyes. "He did tha'?"

"But you're here now," Denise said, feeling her body finally relax as though a great pain had been lifted from her. "Jax is supposed to call when they're on their way back with Bobby - it's over," she nodded. "This - this whole -"

"What happened to your face?" Chibs interrupted, finally getting a good look at Denise.

"Niners," she replied shortly, averting her gaze downward. "Chased me and the kids through a casino and cornered us in an alley."

"What happens to the Sheriff?" Lyla piped in, crossing her arms and letting a few errant creases form on her forehead as she processed the situation. "If Jarry let you go, it doesn't matter if it looks like you overpowered her, Marks is gonna make sure she doesn't have the chance to screw up again."

"She got away. Somewhere far," Chibs said. "Got on a train to her family in Colorado, never settin' foot back in this state again. 'S for the best."

"Well, Juice'll wanna hear from you," Denise said, reaching out and clasping her hand onto his. "I'm so sorry, Chibs. I - I don't know what to -"

"You aren't the one who need t'be apologizin', lass," Chibs said, squeezing her shoulder. "I was the reason Juicy and you couldn't be a family for a whole year, I never woulda expected ye to choose me."

But despite the fact that the tension was still present and the future was still uncertain, there was a certain peace that came with this moment, with this revelation, this turn of events. In a few hours, all of them knew the rest of the guys would come back home. Everyone would be home together, and things could start again the way they were supposed to. In a few hours, life would be alright again.

A/N's

I'll keep this author's note short and sweet! I didn't get to put as much time as I had hoped into editing and making additions to this chapter because I've been completely swamped. But the chapters to come are going to be intense, and I'm hoping there won't be too much time in between them. I've started writing chapters of my other story, Flown South, to give myself a little bit of a distraction to recharge while working on the tougher chapters in this series.

Anyway, I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend and as always, I'm excited to hear all of your feedback. Until next time, cheers!