Perfect Life chapter 8
Chapter title: We're Broken
A/N: Hey everyone I am soooooo sorry this is late! But on the bright side it is over 5000 words so you get an extra long one!
Gemma got up from her place in the silent chapel, the smell of the candles burning away was a new comfort of hers. She never really knew why she got into all this praying shit, but even if it doesn't work, it was an easy way to get things off your chest.
The woman grabbed her bag before exiting the tiny church and making her way out of the hospital, just as she turned the last corner she spotted the Anarchy reaper down the hall, as she got a bit closer she realised that the fitted biker vest belonged to Chase. The girl was standing there with a cup in her hand, smiling at this cute, male nurse. Gemma smiled herself, she'd known the girl most of her life and she knows that guys never really took an interest in her due to her 'line of work', so seeing her with a guy who was as good looking and well just generally good as him, well that wasn't a bad thing in her books. Gemma decided to take the long way round to get to the exit, she didn't want to distract Chase from her little date.
Chase had no idea as to why, but she seemed to be so relaxed around Luca, he made her laugh and smile more in 10 minutes than she had in the past three days. "Okay, okay. Look you have to tell me where you're from because I've been trying to figure your accent out and it's killing me" he smiled at her again, his perfect teeth on show
"well, where do you think I'm from?"
"okay, don't judge me because I've never been good with accents," she wasn't kidding, she actually thought Chibs was Irish at first "but you gotta be eastern European, Russian maybe?" he chuckles and shakes his head and she does the same "oh come on," she says between laughs "I can't be that far off"
"no, no I'll give you that. I am from Eastern Europe. I'm from…" he leaves a pause and they both laugh again
"aw come on, don't do this. The suspense, it's killing me" she says, the sarcasm practically dripping from her words and he laughs again.
"I'm from Croatia"
"ah, so I wasn't too far off. So why'd you move over to the states?"
"Well I was twenty one and I needed to get out, a friend offered me the plane ticket and I took it. The rest is history. What about you? Was it the English weather?" she laughed again, she noticed the quick change in subject, must be a sensitive subject for the guy.
"Not entirely, no my parents were never really meant to be parents I guess. Same old sob story, Mum ran out when I was little since she couldn't handle it all, and my Dad, he had contacts with his Irish mates so he moved stateside in hopes to get 're-acquainted' with them. Never really happened though, we moved to Charming first, then he couldn't hold his Job so we moved to Tacoma where he got a new one, and by the time he fucked that one up, I was old enough to head out on my own so I moved back to Charming and the rest is history." He smiles at her use of his saying. "Damn our backstories are just too uplifting." He laughs
"I guess you could say that. How long have you lived in the US?"
"Since I was 13" she laughs and shakes her head "how I kept the British accent I will never know, with a German mum and an Irish father then living in America for most of my life, I should have the weirdest voice concoction you've ever heard."
They continue to just laugh and chat until someone's phone goes off. Luca starts patting his pockets before he realises it's not him "I think that's you" Chase puts her tea down and pulls her phone out
"Guess so." She flips the phone open, unknown number, hmm. "Hello?"
"Chase. That you?"
"Clay? Yeah, it's me what's up?"
"We got caught earlier, we've been arrested and we're getting moved to prison soon." Chase had to struggle not to drop the phone, talk about a bomb dropping on you. She put her hand over the mouth piece and excused herself from her company
"What the fuck?! Are you being serious right now? Clay you've got no fucking protection in there!" she ran a hand through her hair, which seemed to be becoming greasy from the constant action.
"You let me worry about that, listen I need you to talk to Gem, get the lawyer out there and find a way to get us the hell outta here. And as for the protection, I'm gonna need you and Opie on standby in case we need anything on the outside. Listen kid, we're gonna be fine, but I need to know that you can do this" she sighed and ran a hand through her hair again.
"We both know I can do it. I'll get it done brother, wait for your call."
"Good, we love you girl."
"Yeah, love you guys too. Stay outta trouble, you hear me" she ends the call and puts the phone back in her pocket. She drops her forehead onto the wall in frustration and sighs, shit was really starting to hit that fan lately but it could only get better right? Because honestly, what else can go wrong?
She walked back over to the nurse "everything alright?"
"Not really, listen I've gotta go, clubs business calls. But this was actually pretty fun, we should do it again sometime" she gave him a soft smile "I can't give you my number but maybe I can have yours?" he got the idea and handed her his card
"Sure, I'll see you soon, I hope"
"Yeah, see you around Luca" the Son jogged out to her bike and headed over to Gemma's place.
PERFECT LIFE…
After she dumped the news on the old lady and dealt with the rant afterwards, Gemma made the call to the lawyer who wasn't best please about being disturbed in the middle of the night, but he still said that he'd come over tomorrow to assess the situation and their possible options on how to solve it. This was good enough for the pair so Gem hung up the phone and dropped into one of the dining chairs in her kitchen. The woman lit a cigarette and offered one up to the girl sitting next to her, Chase took the thing and let Gemma light it for her and they just sat in silence for a bit. "Things just keep getting better and better" the woman stated as she took another drag,
"You can say that again. What the hell is happening to us Gem? The club, between Jax and Clay, the feds and the A.B. we're falling apart."
"They'll figure this shit out, don't worry. And as for the Nazis, their time will come, you should know that by now sweetheart." Chase chuckled at the woman
"Fair point" Gemma decided to lighten the mood a bit.
"Saw you at the hospital earlier" this caught the Son's attention "talking to one of the doctors. You know the one, Cute, brunette, nice smile, gorgeous voice." Chase just looked at the woman in shock, she was bloody everywhere! She hadn't even noticed her! How the hell did she even-? It was safe to say Chase was a little scared of her right now. Gemma just smirked at the girl, victory in her eyes "there something there?" the younger woman sighed and put her smoke out, she then ran her hand through her hair again
"I don't know Gem, he stitched me up a few days ago and we talked a bit, then he caught me when I was leaving Chibs, so we grabbed a drink and he gave me his number. But it's all still pretty new to me, we both know I haven't had much experience. But he's a nice guy and it couldn't hurt to see him again." The woman's smirk never faltered, she was happy for the girl, she needed to get out there and start seeing some guys, the girl was twenty five and she'd only had a couple of relationships, and one of them was a total screw up with some psyco who tried to kill her. Poor girl definitely hadn't had much luck up until now.
They chat a little while longer "So how you holding up? You know, after the car crash and all." Gemma looked at the girl,
"Fine, why wouldn't I be?"
"I dunno? You just seem a little more… Jumpy than usual" Chase made direct eye contact with the woman, guess it was now or never "Gem, you practically brought me up over the years, I've inherited your woman's intuition. I know something else is up. But I also know you, I know that this approach is probably the worst way I coulda handled this but I want you to know that you can tell me anything, I love you Gemma, you can trust me." Said woman just continued to look at the girl before her, she soon broke the eye contact, she couldn't hold it any longer, which was the final indication that Chase was right. "You gotta talk to someone Gem, you need to get this off your chest because your only just gonna keep hurting yourself by keeping it all bottled up." The old lady just looked at the club member before sighing and giving into the girl, and her own wishes. Chase was right, she needed to talk to someone other than Tara and Unser.
It was two long hours before Gemma started to dose off after telling Chase about what happened, she still couldn't believe that it had actually happened to her, those Aryan bastards were going to die a slow and fucking painful death, but Gemma made her promise not to let her anger get the best of her when she was with the club. She understood why she kept it from them, and if she was being honest, it made her look up to the woman even more, how someone can go through that and carry on like normal to protect their family was beyond her. She was one of the strongest women that Chase had ever met, without a single doubt.
Chase made sure the woman was alright before getting her to bed and leaving to head back for the club house so she could wake Opie up, she had to dump the whole prison thing on him too, just what the guy needs right now.
PERFECT LIFE…
After telling the man what happened they made a plan on how to keep up with the work at T-M until Clay called them again. By that time it was long past midnight and her hopes of going home for a decent night's sleep went out the window, so she left the man's room and headed to the one next door, they only had a couple of rooms back here so some people had to share. Jax, Opie and Clay all used the same one, as did Tig, Bobby and Happy, whenever he came down, and then Chase shared with Chibs and Juice. There was still one room spare so if there were loads of them staying then a couple of people would use that one. It was weird since the boys offered the lone room to her, since she was a girl and all, but she decided to just stick with her brothers, she didn't want any special treatment.
She opened the door, dropped her bag and just fell onto the bed. She took a few moments to herself just to unwind from today, it's so weird how everyday just felt long lately, there was always something to do, something to worry about. She wiped her hands across her face, re-adjusted her glasses after the action and jumped back up, then regretting it immediately as her knee started to protest. She headed to the dresser to grab something to sleep in then went to the bathroom to wash off today's events. She dumped her stuff on the closed toilet seat and braced herself in front of the mirror, the left side of her face was still badly bruised but it was changing colour which was a good sign plus the swelling had all gone down. The cut above her eyebrow wasn't doing too bad either, all the other little nicks like the one on her lip were also healing over nicely, she'll be fine in a few days.
Next thing to do was get changed, she unstrapped the black knee support and left it to the side, she couldn't sleep in the thing anyway. She pulled on a small pair of sleep shorts and one of Juice's old t-shirts that he never wore anymore, it had some weird skull print on the chest. She'd borrow one of Chibs's but she couldn't be bothered to deal with the extra bagginess of his t-shirts tonight.
Finally she scooped up her hair into a ponytail, the shorter layers and her side fringe falling out in the process and left the bathroom. She chucked her old stuff onto a chair in the corner, but she placed her kutte neatly on a hook on the back of the bedroom door, because anything less was no place for the reaper. This time she fell onto the bed and let the tiredness of the day consume her until she was finally getting some sleep.
The next morning Opie knocked on her door which roused her from her sleep, she rubbed her eyes, grabbed her glasses and went to let the man in. "Morning"
"Morning, Ope. What time is it?"
"just gone six" she groaned at that answer, she would've had another forty minutes "I know, but I bought a peace offering" he handed her the steaming cup of tea
"alright, I'll let you off this time" he chuckles
"You wanna head downstairs with me"
"yeah, sure."
And that's what the two of them did, they both headed downstairs and sat around for half an hour trying to wake up. Opie seemed a lot less tense when he was just wearing casual clothes, he didn't have his beanie on so his long, and slightly greasy hair hung around his face, his back seemed relaxed without the weight of the kutte and he just looked more like himself in a way. Okay that didn't make much sense but she knew what she meant.
"so, how's Chibs doing?" the man asked her as he looked up from his mug
"ok I guess, they said that he's still critical but if the internal bleeding doesn't start again then he should be just fine."
"Good, he didn't deserve what happened to him."
"I don't think many people deserve that to happen to them, except those who would cause it." They were both thinking of the choice people who deserved to be blown away. But she decided not to get lost in the thought, they were going to stop Zobelle and Weston eventually, they just had to be smart about it. Her anger had subsided enough to stop clouding her mind, it was there but it was just simmering right now, waiting to be aggravated enough to come back full force, but until then she could think straight and see that this was a waiting game, they needed to be patient and not fall for Zobelle's tricks like they already had. The others being in prison was just proof that Zobelle had the upper hand right now.
After their little morning chat they both went upstairs to get ready for the day ahead, they both knew that it was likely they were going to have to do some favours for someone on the inside so the boys could get protection, but neither of them minded too much.
Gemma and Tara walked in just after they came back down, "morning girls" Chase said as they moved further into the club house
"Morning sweetheart" Gemma replied to the girl who smiled up at her. She had to admit she was glad she told Chase what happened, there was no pity there, and no change in how she treated her and no change in how she acted around her.
"That lawyer should be around in a bit. Ope, you got the shop covered 'til we finish?" the man nodded
"Yep, I'm gonna head over there now to get everything set up. See you in a bit." Alright now that was sorted they women could deal with the lawyer.
PERFECT LIFE…
A shiny, new Audi rolled into the lot and a sharp man dressed in a suit walked out and into the club house. Rosen saw the three women and walked over, they welcomed him back to the place and lead him over to the sofas so they could chat.
The man explained to them what he had found out about the situation and Gemma wasn't best pleased "They're jamming us. Seven-figure bail? No court date? Its bullshit!"
"Apparently they have security tapes. Women and children running for their lives." Rosen's tone and facial expression were both patronizing and annoying as fuck, but Chase kept her cool and remained silent throughout the exchange, she didn't trust herself to say anything. This was his job after all, should be glad he's not all jittery and shy.
"You saw what happened to Otto. They got no protection."
"I know." The man replied to Gemma whilst sighing. Tara suddenly speaks up
"What about a bondsman?"
"Five-hundred-thousand a head at 10%, you'd need three-hundred K to get the six of them out." The lawyer explained but Gemma came up with a suggestion.
"Well, I can post the house."
"My dad's too" Tara offered
"I've got some savings to put towards it as well" the Son added
"okay, well that's enough to get out Clay, maybe Jax but that's it." Gemma sighs
"No. Clay won't leave 'em behind."
"I'm sorry Gemma… Chase," the girl looked up at the man "Clay needs you to call Laroy. Deliver this message, ASAP. I never saw it, never gave it to you."
"Alright, I got it." The man nodded before getting up and saying his goodbyes.
After making the call to Laroy she joined Opie in the workshop, they had a lot of stuff to get done. They were working on an engine when Mary pulls up with Ope's kids, the man walks out to go see why they're here whilst Chase continues her work.
Chase looks up when Mary's car starts up, she sees the two kids standing there with Opie who could barely even look at them. The girl sighed, cleaned the oil off her hands with the bandana from her back pocket, and made her way over. "Hey kids, what brings you here?"
"Grading day" Kenny replies to the female Son
"awesome, day off school. Hey why don't we get you guys set up in the office, give you something entertaining to do on your free day." They both nod and follow the woman into Gemma's office, she looks behind her at Opie who is looking at her, he mouths a 'thank you' before heading back into the garage.
"Alright you two, gimme a shout if you need anything, I have to get back to work" she winked at them before heading back into the workshop herself. Opie looked up as she walked back in
"sorry I-"she cut him off
"Don't Ope, let's not get into this right now. Let's just finish this engine up and wait for Clay's call." She had to say she was disappointed in the man, he promised not to throw himself too far into the club and now look at him, he could barely talk to his goddamn kids, he needed to sort himself out.
They worked in silence for a bit until Opie's phone rang "Hello?...Hey brother. What'd you need us to do… Alright, what's his name?... yeah, okay, we've got it handled" just as he finished the conversation Gemma walks in, Opie looks at her "that was Clay."
"On the cell?"
"He needs us to run an errand. It's gonna take a while."
"Okay. I'll have Neeta take Kenny and Ellie. And I'll just go grab the baby." The two club members started to walk out
"Pick 'em up from Jax's?" Opie questioned as he walked away
"Yeah. Is there anything I can do?" they both pause at the door
"Not right now." After that the pair walk off to the club house to grab their stuff and make a phone call to officer Trammel.
PERFECT LIFE…
They meet the office down one of the backroads in Stockton. The pair dismount their biked and walk up to the rolled down car window where Opie starts to tell the man the information for their little mission. "Name's Vincent Bell, A.K.A. Venus. He's a tranny dealer." Chase hands the police officer the money bribe
"We need you to track down the he/she. We'll take it from there." They watch the man observe the money "It's direct from Clay" the girl confirms. The man nods, signalling his agreement
"Okay. Just plant it in the car. All right? I don't need a warrant for that." The outlaws nod
"Put it under the driver's seat." Opie states to the man who waves a hand at them
"And don't skimp on the dope, all right? I need a lot more than a misdemeanour to get him into County."
"Cool."
"Yeah, all right. We'll wait for your call. Cheers mate." Chase taps the roof of the car and the pair walk back to their bikes. "So, who do we call about the drugs?"
"I'll handle getting the dope, you head back to T-M and wait for the call. I'll come pick you up once I've got it."
Chase tightens the last bolt on the engine when Opie's back comes riding in. She walks over to her brother "Hey, you get it?" he pulls a clear, plastic bag out of his saddle bag and holds it up for her to see
"Yup. Did Trammel call?"
"Yeah, found out where she's headed, you just in time actually, he wants us to meet him in Stockton just before Venus's next dealing." He nods and heads back into the club house, Chase trailing behind.
Chase grabs her rucksack from her room and brings it down, along with a hoodie and her kutte. They start sorting out what they'll need, into the bag. "Okay so how should we do this?"
"We gotta be a bit discreet about it. Okay, I know what to do but you're not gonna like it" she looks at him with a raised eyebrow "leave your cut here, you can carry the bag and plant the dope whilst I do the driving, but that means we gotta use one bike only." She realises what he's getting at
"are you being serious? I have to ride bitch with you?"
"It looks a lot less suspicious if there's one bike, plus you really want me holding onto whilst you ride? I'd pull you off the damn Harley" Chase huffed
"alright fine, but don't think I'm doing this again. It's a one off, we clear?"
"Transparently" she hits the man on the arm, who is smirking, before finishing packing the bag.
The two of them pull up to the road where Trammel told them to go. Opie looks around and spots the officer down the side road to his left. He follows where he's looking and spots the tranny getting out of her Land Rover. The sons waste no time riding over to the car.
Chase jumps off the back of Opie's bike and swings her rucksack down from her back and opens it. She pulls the Slim Jim tool from her bag and jimmies the door open and plants the dope under the driver's seat. Finally she does her bag back up and hopes back onto Opie's bike and wraps her arms around his waist before he drives off and over to Trammel, they give him the thumbs up as they pass him and park in the distance.
The two Sons watch as the Police officer pulls the tranny over and gets out to talk to her, they watch as he stands by Venus's open car window and they watch as the officer falls to the ground from a gunshot wound and they watch as the bitch speeds off without a hitch. "Oh, shit! Ope drive!" the man does exactly that, they speed over to the fallen officer and jump off the bike. Chase is the first over to him, the man is groaning in pain whilst holding his bleeding stomach "Aw shit, Ope get over here" the man was right behind her as Chase shrugged off her hoodie and used it to stop the bleeding
"aw man, we're sorry"
"I guess that bitch didn't wanna be set up" Trammel states
"What do we do?"
"Get on my Radio. Officer down" the officer says whilst breathing through the pain of his wound
"All right" Opie runs to signal down the radio whilst Chase stays with the man and applies pressure as best she can.
After all the drama with the ambulance and the Police, Opie and Chase made their way to Caracara, since it was closer than the club house, to get themselves cleaned up because people seemed to give you weird looks when you walked around covered in blood. Once they got their Lyla greeted them both before going to fetch them something to wear, Chase was easy to search for since they were practically the same size, she brought her a tight, cropped vest and a small check shirt to change into then she went to hand Opie some clothes.
Chase waits in the Lobby for her brother, who finally emerges wearing a dark purple and faint green check shirt "Oh god, we look like a couple of knobs who tried to match their outfits" she shakes her head at the thought with a smile. Opie looked her up and down and smirked.
"Holy shit, you look like one of the Caracara girls" the man laughed as he reached her
"You say another word and I'll drop kick your arse all the way to Oakland." He held his arms up in surrender. As they walked outside she spoke again "I called Clay, told him what happened" the man sighed and nodded, it wasn't like they could change what happened anyway, hopefully the guys did enough inside to buy them some protection.
When they finally got back to the club house, Chase was freezing her arse off due to lack of clothing on her torso. The walked inside and the place felt eerily empty, it was weird. Opie didn't stick around for long since he had to go pick up his kids so Chase went to go see Gemma in the Teller-Morrow office.
Gemma looked up from her paper work as she heard footsteps approaching "Hey darlin'" the woman had to do a double take and Chase laughed
"God, don't ask. All you need to know is that I had to borrow some clothes from Caracara" Gemma smirked
"You look good babe. You should show off that stomach a bit more often" Chase felt blessed at that moment that she couldn't blush because she sure as hell would've done, she wasn't so used to compliments, especially about her body since she was usually seen in long trousers and jackets, due to riding a bike, so not many people saw beyond that.
"The MC is just a walking exercise program. I have Happy to thank for that" they both laugh "so you need a hand with anything?"
"nah, I think I've got it, but the workshop looks like shit"
"I'll get started on that, I need to talk to the T-M guys because they really need to start cleaning up after themselves, men honestly" Chase tsks before heading off into the garage.
As she's tidying up she sees Elliot's car pull up, she smiles at the man, who returns the gesture as he walks into Gem's office.
A few minutes later a shell shocked Gemma comes out to see her. "Hey what's going on?"
"Elliot, he got enough money to bail out the guys, all of them. They should be getting released any minute now."
"Holy shit! You serious? That's, wow. That's amazing" Gemma nods "I better call Ope with the good news, guessing they should be here soon then." The woman repeats the action as Chase flips her phone out, Gemma heads back into the office to call Tara.
PERFECT LIFE…
The three women were sitting in the office when the Sons black van pulled up, they each got out of their seats and went to stand by the bikes. The men filed out, one by one, but something was wrong, there was an obvious tension in the air which was confirmed when Jax walked straight past them and into the garage whilst the others went into the clubs house. Tara went to go after her boyfriend but Gemma stopped her and shook her head.
Tension or no tension, Chase had to see her brothers so she went for the club house to see them all. They all looked up as the door opened and she walked in, she went around them all and hugged them, thankful they were alright. The last person she hugged was Clay, who looked her up and down "What the hell are you wearing" the men chuckled at the question
"things got bloody with Trammel so we headed to the porn studio to change, I don't think they own normal clothes at that place." They all laugh "I'm just glad my jeans were alright, bloody hell imagine me in those short shorts" Chase shuddered at the thought
"I think I can" she turned around to glare at Tig and punch the smirking man in the arm
"Douchebag" she was so happy to see them all that she almost didn't realise something, she furrowed her eyebrows as worry filled her "hey guys. Where's Juice?" Bobby speaks up with a sigh, they were dreading telling the girl this.
"There was an incident with the Aryans, Juice… He got shived to the back twice. After the bail was posted he was moved to St. Thomas, he's fine though, they missed the vitals." She stood there, her eyes blown wide with shock.
A/N: And there we have it. I loved this chapter personally. I'd love to hear your thoughts guys so just a little review would make my day! But anyway enjoy the rest of yours.