Chapter 5: Ghosts of the Past
It had been hours since Bobby had died, Liv still remained tied to the chair in the same room. They had moved his body out of the room but as she gazed over at the chair Bobby had been tied to she could see a dark burgundy stain that was covering the floor. Liv cried until her tears ran dry. She mainly cried for Juice. She wanted the man she loved with the depth of her soul; it was hard for her to comprehend that he was gone. She also cried for Bobby, from the short amount of time she spend with him she could tell he was a good man. The one person she didn't cry for was herself, she didn't have it in her; her tears were gone by then. She was resolved to her fate of being stuck in the room with a dead man's blood on the floor, aching wrists and a jaw that was throbbing sharply with pain.
The door opened and flooded the room with sunlight. Liv turned her head away from the light; it hurt her eyes. The person stood in the door way, she couldn't tell who it was because the sun back lit them. The only thing she could tell was the person was a man. He closed the door, it was August. He walked up to Liv and touched her face where Moses' blows had landed. "I'm sorry about that." She turned her face away from August, hiding behind her hair. Marks stepped back with his hands up in the air, "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. I've just come here to talk." He put a chair backwards in front of Olivia and straddled it. He studied her for a moment, she could feel herself squirm under his gaze. She didn't like the way he looked at her, she felt like his pray.
"Talk." Liv said, her jaw hurt as she said it. She would have rather been left with the darkness and quiet, than the man who she saw murder another person, like it was nothing at all.
He liked her fire, if Jax didn't fulfill his end of the bargain he would have fun breaking her. He smiled to himself before saying, "You said your dad died before you were born. How do you know that?"
Liv gave him a dirty look. Really? How wouldn't I know that? It was something I had been told from childhood. Liv thought. "That is what I was told by my mom and my adoptive parents."
"Looks like they were lying to you." He raised his eyebrows at her.
She shook her head, they would never had done anything like that. They wouldn't have kept her from the only family member she had left. "They must have had good reason." She said quietly more to herself than to Marks.
"Didn't save you from your fate did it? Seems that the club's sins found you anyway." He responded. "There will be two men in here shortly to bring you back to your room. If you don't fight with them, they won't lock you back up but if you cause trouble you'll be tied back up to one of these chairs." He warned Liv as he got up and started to walk towards the door. He stopped and turned back to her. "Olivia." She looked up at him. "Sorry you had to hear about Ortiz that way, Moses gets a little passionate about his work. You should remember that next time you decide to spit blood at him." That being said she was alone again with the darkness and silence.
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Tig hated the thought of his youngest daughter being tortured. It had been over 48 hours since they had received the iPad, he was worried the next time they would receive a body part. Was he paying for the sins of his past by losing his daughters one by one? Were they the ones who had to pay? He sat at the bar with a glass of scotch in his hand. He was brought back to the day that Aria told him she was pregnant…
Aria walked into the house she had been battling the flu for a week; he had finally convinced her to go to the doctor.
"How was it? You going to survive?" He asked Aria as she walked into the house she looked exhausted and ill. But she was still beautiful, her brown hair was tied back in a ribbon. She had delicate facial features and big blue eyes that made Tig often think she looked like an angel. His angel!
"We need to talk." Aria sighed as she sat down on the couch, Tig followed her and sat down. He was worried that it was something bad. Aria took a deep breath, "Tig, I'm pregnant."
"Shit baby that is wonderful!" Tig smiled at his angel. He was thrilled to hear that she was carrying his baby. Nothing in the world could have made him happier. He could tell by the look on Aria's face she was not happy about it. "Are you not happy about it?" He questioned her.
"A baby?" She said quietly, "in this life style?" He wished he could have read her mind. "If it's a girl she would become a croweater, passed around from member to member and if we had a boy he would be thrust into the violence. I can't have that, I don't want this life for our child." She said touching her belly protectively.
"What does this mean?" Tig asked her sadly. He knew he would not leave SAMCRO, even it if it meant losing her.
"I don't know Tiggy. I need time to think, maybe it would be best if I terminated the pregnancy. I am still early enough along…."She trailed off.
Tig stared at her with coldness. How could she think about killing his child? A child that he hadn't met but he already loved even though he just found out about it. He thought about how Dawn and Fawn would have felt if they grew up knowing that they could have had a little sister or brother but Tig allowed the child's mother to abort it. He would be willing to give up his angel if it meant his child had a chance in life. "Angel…" Tig said softly, with a tenderness he only showed her. "You're not going to terminate the pregnancy." He could see in her eyes she was relieved. He saw how she was already protective over their unborn baby. "You are going to go, you are going to raise our child away from this life." He was willing to sacrifice his love, for the baby.
"Tig, I…" She started, but he stopped her by placing his lips on hers.
"Aria, I love you, but if you think that our child needs to be away from this. Than I am willing to let you go for its safety." The ultimate sacrifice and gift of love, he thought to himself.
Tig loved that woman any other woman in the world and he had never loved another like he loved her. She did end up leaving in the end. It took her five months to do it but when she did she moved up north to be with some of her family. Tig was able to visit a few times while she was pregnant and just one time after he gave birth to their beautiful baby girl, who he wanted to name, Harley. Aria wanted nothing to do with it and named her Olivia Grace after her grandmother. Several months after Olivia was born, Tig went to visit and found Aria's apartment was vacated and there was no forwarding address left for her. It was almost five years later when he got a phone call about his angel and their daughter.
Tig's phone rang, he rubbed his face; it had been a long night of drinking the night before. He looked picked up the phone from the receiver.
"Hello?" His voice was gruff with sleep.
"Is this Alex Trager?" The voice on the other line was a woman. She called him by actual name, he thought that was strange.
"It is…who is this?" He questioned sitting up in bed.
The woman on the other line sighed, "My name is Sasha. I was a good friend of Aria Mason." She was a good friend, Tig thought to himself, before the woman continued on. "I have some bad news."
Tig instantly went onto high alert, his angel. "What is it? Is Aria okay? What about Olivia?" Their names lingered on his tongue, he had longed to be a part of their lives but Aria made that impossible when she disappeared. So he just kept them locked away deep in his heart.
There was silence on the other line, "I'm sorry, Aria is dead." Sasha's voice was quiet and sad.
Her words echoed in Tig's mind. "Dead?"
"She was found this afternoon, by Livi."
Their daughter found her? Tears built up in Tig's eyes, his angel was now a real angel in heaven. "How?" He managed to say.
"She overdosed. We were trying to get her help, Livi had been staying with my husband and I while she was in treatment. She got back a few weeks ago and wanted Olivia to move back home. Seems that her life of drugs pulled her back in." Sasha said sadly from the other line. Tig didn't understand Aria had never touched drugs before, she got mad at him for smoking pot. "I wanted to tell you the funeral is in two days, at noon in Charlotteville, Washington. If you want we can have Livi ready to go when you get here."
"What?" Tig was still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that the only woman he had ever loved was dead and now this woman was saying he had to take his kid. "I'll be up for the funeral. I don't know if I will be able to take Olivia." He didn't know if he could raise a child on his own, granted Gemma would have took the little girl under her wing. He wouldn't be able to provide her with the life that she deserved.
"I will see you in a few days Alex. I am really sorry that I had to deliver this news to you." Sasha's voice was soft and oozed with sympathy. "If you are not able to take Olivia, my husband and I would be willing to keep her with us. We love her like she is our own."
The day of the funeral came quickly. Clay offered to join, Tig but he knew it was something he needed to do on his own. He walked slowly up to the funeral which took place in the cemetery. He didn't make it for the wake, he wanted to remember Aria as the vibrant and vivacious woman she had been when they were together and not the junkie she had become. He stood in the back of the group, silently saying his good bye to Aria, his angel. The funeral ended and the crowd parted; that is when he saw her, a miniature version of Aria with his eye color and hair. She was holding hands with a little blonde girl who was around the same age. He wanted nothing more than to sweep her up into his arms and hold her tightly telling her Daddy would make sure everything would be okay. She looked up at a tall blonde man who was standing next to her She gave him a small smile as he patted her on the top of the head. Tig was too busy watching Olivia to notice an African American woman, wearing a black and white dress had walked up to him.
"Alex?" She asked, pulling his attention from his little girl.
"Yes." He smiled politely at the woman, who must have been Sasha.
"I am glad you could make it. Would you like to meet Livi?" She asked him.
He nodded. "I do but I don't want her to know I am her father. Aria left because she didn't like my lifestyle. I have decided that I cannot bring Olivia into it, it is the one thing that I can do to honor for Aria." Tig said sadly.
"Tom?" Sasha called over to her husband who was the man who had patted Olivia's head. "Bring Livi with you." Tom and Olivia walked up to them hand in hand. Tig stared down at his little girl, she was so beautiful. She took his breath away just like when he saw her for the first time. "Olivia, I want you to meet a very dear friend of your mother's, Alex."
"Hello." Olivia said, her voice was soft and tinkled like a little bell.
"Hi, sweetheart." Tig crouched down so he was at her level. "I am sorry about your mommy." He held back his tears.
"Thank you." She said politely. "You weren't one of my mommy's bad friends were you?"
Tig frowned at Sasha. She shook her head at him. "No, sweetie. I knew your mommy before you were born. Before she moved here, she loved you very much. You do know that, right?"
Olivia put her head down. "If she loved me then why did she leave me?" She had tears coming from her eyes.
Tig hated seeing his daughter is such pain, he opened his arms offering her a hug and she openly accepted it. He smoothed down her hair and shushed. He pulled back and looked down at her, "Your mommy will always be with you. God needed to call an angel back home, so he called your mommy." He kissed Olivia's forehead. She hugged him tightly grabbing on to the sides of his shirt. He didn't want to let his little girl go but he knew he had to.
"Mr. Alex?" She pulled back from him. "My mommy will watch over you too." Tig smiled at nodded at her. Olivia looked up at Tom, "Can I go play with Natalie now?" Tom nodded and they all watched the little girl runaway.
"I would like to sign my parental rights over to you." Tig said abruptly as he stood up. He knew that giving up Olivia would be the best thing for her, he could protect her that way. She would never know the violence that his club could bring. She would never know her father was a killer.
"Hey Tig." A voice called him out of his thoughts. He hadn't realized that he was crying until he saw the look on Jax face. He quickly wiped his eyes and tears away.
"Sorry." Tig apologized.
"Nah man, it's okay." Jackson squeezed Tig's shoulder. "We are heading out to meet with Tyler, you want to come?"
Tyler was the only man that could potentially get information on where Olivia was. "Yeah, give me a second." Tig stood up and walked towards the bathroom, he splashed water on his face. He had tried to give Olivia a life away from the violence and there she was thrust directly into the middle of it. And of all the places for Juice to end up. If he wasn't already dead, he would have killed him, himself for letting his baby girl get kidnapped and torched. He didn't know if any of the other had noticed but he saw the large cuts on her rib cage that were oozing blood down the front of her. He would kill the man who did that to her. He would do his job as a father and take care of his little girl, he wouldn't let his angel down by letting their daughter get hurt ever again. He walked out of the bathroom a determined man.
SAMCRO parked their motorcycles in a secluded lot, next to an abandoned warehouse off the pier. Tyler hadn't arrived yet. Tig waited anxiously. Jax looked over at him, he hadn't seen him that on edge since Dawn was murdered. He felt for Tig, he knew what it was like having a child get kidnapped. His heart broke when Abel was taken from him. However he didn't know how long it had been since Tig had seen his daughter; he never mentioned her until he saw her face. The girl said her father was dead, for all Jax knew she didn't know Tig was her father.
A black Escalade with darkly tinted windows pulled up into the lot. They parked and Tyler and two other men got out of the SUV.
"Jax." Tyler shook his hand and nodded at the rest of the members of SAMCRO.
"What news do you have?" Tig asked impatiently. Jax shot him look that told him to shut up. He ignored it.
"Well we know where they have her. Pete followed Moses there last night after you called me. I suggest that you follow through with what Marks wants from you Jax." Tyler said.
"I'll take that into consideration, where is she?" He also wanted to get Bobby's body back, he wanted to lay him to rest. He hoped that they still had him there and not buried in a shallow grave somewhere.
Tyler sighed, he knew Jax was going to go in guns blazing. He handed Jax a piece of paper with the address to the building that Moses had turned into his fortress. "Pete said that they have two guys outside the building and maybe four or five more inside during the day from what he could tell. They only leave two on at night."
Jax opened the paper and looked at it, then handed it to Chibs. "Then we'll go tonight." He said.
Tig was relieved that his president wasn't going to leave Olivia in there for another day. He just hoped she would remain safe her few remaining hours of being imprisoned.
A/N: Another chapter down. The next one will probably not be out until Monday or Tuesday. I have to work the next few days. Yay for working overnights. :-/
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it wasn't super exciting but you got to know more about why Liv doesn't know Tig. If you are wondering about why Aria got into drugs…don't worry you'll learn more…in chapters to come.
Feel free to let me know what you think. Cheers.