Jax got the call from Tara about forty minutes after he and Thomas left the police station. Thomas was behind the wheel, and Jax was grateful for it. He had no business behind the wheel of such a small, fancy vehicle. After he gave up motorcycles, he turned to trucks. He had never been one for cars. Trucks just made more sense.
The vibration alerted Jax first, then as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. Tara's beautiful face appeared on the screen, and Jax automatically smiled. It still amazed him how much he absolutely loved her. Over thirty years had passed since the day they'd first met. Every day, he prayed for at least thirty more. He just loved her. Tara and his family, they were all that mattered.
"Hey babe," he answered. He was glad that Thomas had decided to leave the top up.
"Jax, did Ophelia call you?" There was a hard edge to Tara's voice. Jax heard the panic. Immediately, his heart fell to his stomach. He hated that sound. He'd heard it more times than he cared to remember, and that sound was never, ever good.
"No, I thought she was supposed to call you," Jax said softly. Truth was, he couldn't remember who the hell was supposed to call who. He was so wrapped up in procedurals and old crime records and the Irish Kings that he'd paid very little attention to Opie.
"She was," Tara answered. "But when she didn't, I assumed she'd call you."
"I've heard nothing," Tara said softly. "She said she was going to the house to grab some things, and then—" She didn't have to finish. Jax looked over at Thomas, his blue eyes blazing with a mix of anger and fear.
"Turn around," he growled. "Go to the house."
"Pop, what's going on?" Thomas asked, but his father's mouth was set in a hard line. He'd only seen that face a handful of times.
"Just get to the fucking house. Now." Thomas didn't need to be told twice. He pounded on the brakes and did a k-turn that would make a racecar driver jealous. The sound of tires peeling over asphalt rang through the night. When Jax looked over at the odometer, he saw that it was pegged at almost ninety miles an hour. Thank God this a straightaway. Had the fear not been climbing in his heart, Jax would've been proud of his son. They were at the house faster than even Jax had expected. The car spit gravel as he slammed into the driveway.
"What the fuck?" Thomas couldn't believe the myriad of red and blue lights that surrounded their house. Before Abel's wedding, Thomas could honestly say he'd never seen a cop at his house. Since SAMCRO entered their lives, he'd seen them far more than he ever cared to. An ambulance and at least two cop cars were there. The chaos was unreal.
Jax bolted from the car faster than a man half his age. There had been a time when Jax would've run from the cops, not to them. The outlaw within his soul had been all but lost over the last eighteen years, and even after Chibs' murder, he tried to keep that side of him in check, but as the multicolored lights blinded him, he felt murderous.
"Pop! Wait!" Thomas was in awe of his father's physicality. He knew his father was strong and powerful, but to see him run across their lawn at such a breakneck speed rendered him speechless. Thomas got out of the car and slammed the door. He ran after his father, but he wasn't quick enough to catch him. Jax was already in the house before Thomas could catch up.
When Thomas entered the house, he was shocked to see the absolute blood bath his mother's living room had become. Tears filled his eyes as he wondered what happened to Ophelia. His mind automatically raced to Ophelia's funeral. Within a split second, Thomas already envisioned his sister's casket, covered in a spray of soft pink roses. A lump caught in his throat as he walked towards the kitchen.
The room was crawling with law enforcement, but that's not what threw Thomas off. What shattered him was the sight of Victor, completely dazed, lying in a pool of blood on the floor. The first responders surrounded him. The huge Marine looked worse for the wear. His eyes were wide and confused. He was covered in blood, so it was difficult for the EMTs to pinpoint the origin of the injuries.
"What is your name?" one of the responders asked. She was a pretty young thing, with dark hair and dark eyes. She watched Victor carefully as she asked the required questions.
"Victor," he wheezed. "Victor Sinclair." The girl grabbed a tiny flashlight from her pocket and flicked it on. Victor winced as she flashed it in his eyes.
"Pupils are reactive," she said, flicking the flashlight off. She stared into his eyes. "Do you know where you are?" The questions were rapid-fire, and they were designed to be that way. The object of the assessment was to determine the severity of his injuries.
"I'm at Jax and Tara's." The EMT looked up. The town was small enough that everyone knew Eric and Elizabeth Morgan lived at 4691 Church Road. No one knew who the hell Jax and Tara were.
"Who are Jax and Tara?" The girl blinked her huge brown eyes. Jax thought she looked familiar. Maybe she knew Abel? She didn't look any older than Abel or Thomas, but when Jax glanced at his younger son, there was no resignation on his face.
"I'm Jax," the former biker clarified. The EMT blinked rapidly, confused. "It's a long story, but trust me when I say he knows exactly where the hell he is." Still not quite comprehending, she turned attention back to Victor.
"He has a huge hematoma on the back of his skull consistent with blunt force trauma." The pretty girl's nametag was visible as her gloved hands helped her assess Victor's wounds. D. Banks. The name didn't ring a bell at all, but her face kept triggering something strange in Jax's head. He couldn't place her, but he knew she'd been in his house before. He just didn't know when.
"We found him like this," Jack Petty's voice cut into the tension. "We've questioned him as much as we can, Eric—I mean—"
"I know what you meant," Jax returned.
"I'm sure his mind is a little cloudy, given the—uh—injuries," Jack stammered. "So we'll get him to the hospital, get him treated, and we'll question him again when he's more stable." Jax nodded in understanding and turned to his daughter's boyfriend. Victor's dark eyes were tired and bleary as he tried to focus on Jax's face.
"Victor, what happened?" Jax asked. He was astounded by the amount of blood that surrounded them, and his chest ached as he realized that all that blood couldn't have come from Victor's injuries.
"Delylah asked me to come and check on Opie," Victor began. "She got worried when she didn't make it to the cabin on time." The conversation began as if law enforcement and EMTs weren't surrounding them. Jax didn't really see anyone but Victor now. The injured soldier was the only person that knew what happened to his Ophelia.
"How did she know Op was here?" Thomas spoke up.
"She told Tara she was stopping here," Victor explained. "Said she needed to grab a few things."
Jax noticed the younger man's speech was slightly slurred. His eyes appeared unfocused, and Jax was impressed by Victor's memory. Once a Marine, always a Marine, he thought. Nothing can bring this man down. A part of him hoped Victor would possibly be a son-in-law one day; the other part prayed that day wouldn't happen. He'd just watched Abel get married. He didn't know if he could handle Delylah getting hitched, too.
"So Lala called you and asked you to swing by?" Jax asked again. Victor nodded. "What happened then?"
The room felt as if it were spinning as the first responders lowered a gurney next to him. It took two of them to transfer him to the awaiting, way-too-thin mattress. The sight of the massive man on that tiny bed was almost comical. He looked up again, and he thought he saw four of Jax, when really he was just focusing on Jax and Thomas and seeing double. Father and son favored one another more than either one realized.
"When I got here, the door was unlocked, open," Victor relayed. "I walked in. It was dark—so fucking dark." A wave of nausea flowed through him, but he swallowed it down. Dizziness reigned supreme in his brain, so he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and continued.
"I flicked the light on," Victor stated. "And there was blood every fucking where. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I walked towards the kitchen, because I'd heard something—and that's when I found her."
"Ophelia?" Jax's voice trembled as he envisioned his daughter, bloody and broken, in the kitchen. "Was she—?" He couldn't image his daughter as anything but alive.
"She was alive," Victor answered. "If only, barely. She was in bad shape. Her nose was all fucked up, her eyes swollen shut—" Victor's voice cracked with the recollection. "All the blood you see here—the majority of it is hers, Jax." Unable to help himself, Victor Sinclair began to cry. "I tried to save her. I was by her goddamned side, I had her in my hands—and then something hit me from behind. Not once, but twice. I tried fighting, Jax, I did—but I failed. I fucking failed."
Without hesitation, Thomas walked over to Victor and placed a gentle hand on the burly man's shoulder. The younger Teller wept openly with the man that had endured so much. They all had. The last few weeks had been an exercise in pure hell.
"You didn't fail, Victor," Thomas whispered. Victor's hazy, agonized eyes met Thomas', and it was all Jax could do to maintain his calm. The only thing that kept the Teller patriarch sane was the knowledge that Victor had opened himself to them. He knew that, if he exploded, Victor would stop talking. He knew the young man well enough to know that Victor would retreat inward to save himself. They weren't so different from one another.
"I did," Victor asserted. "I had her—and I lost her—all to a sonofabitch that tricked us all."
"Who?" Thomas asked. His heart was skipping beats, and for a moment, Thomas wondered if he was more like Abel than he'd originally thought.
"Lucius," Victor choked. "Lucius was the one that beat her. He's the one that beat me. And he's the bastard that took her. And there's not a doubt in my motherfucking mind that he has Hannah, too."
The look of horror on Jax's face was unmistakable, but it quickly changed to sheer fury.
"Lucius?" Jax seethed. His teeth were clenched as he spoke. "But—"
"I don't understand it either. I don't know why," Victor asserted. "All I know is the agony Delylah is going to go through once she realizes her twin is missing. As much as she fights it, Ophelia is Delylah's other half."
"I will bust his fucking face for that alone," Jax fumed. "I'll break his goddamned knee caps for what he's done to you—and depending on what happens to Ophelia and Hannah—"
"Will dictate whether you show mercy or make him beg," Thomas finished with a whisper. Jax blinked his eyes, unsure of whether to be happy or horrified with his son's intuition. Thomas' blue eyes glittered with an equal, but quieter fury. A small blossom of pride swelled in Jax's chest, in spite of himself.
"Jax," Jack Petty interrupted. "The kid really needs a doctor. We can come up with how to fuck up bastards on the way."
Jax nodded in understanding as the EMTs jacked the gurney up to its full height.
"Where am I going?" Victor asked. Genuine confusion registered in his eyes as he looked about the room.
"The hospital." The girl with the D. Banks nametag stated the obvious. Thomas rolled his tear stained eyes in frustration.
"He meant which one." Thomas was annoyed as he spoke. If he could have added the word stupid to the end of the sentence, he would have.
"I want him at Valley Memorial," Jax stated firmly. Victor's eyes registered surprise. Thomas' didn't.
"I don't want Delylah to have to shuffle between two hospitals. I want him with family."
Family. It wasn't a word Victor had often heard. Once he hit eighteen, he was out the door, gone from Silver Spring, gone from everything that he hated. When Hannah asked that he come to her wedding, he initially said no. It was Sarah that orchestrated the surprise. Still, he debated staying in California until the moment he stepped on the plane.
He thought of Delylah as his head swam with pain. The humid night air felt wonderful on his aching, burning body. He loved her. He had never been more certain of anything. Still, there were times when the realization took him off-guard.
"I'll drive, Thomas," Victor heard Jax say as they followed the gurney. "Go with Victor."
Thomas gave an imperceptible nod and threw his keys at his father. Jax expertly caught them, and he climbed into the small convertible as Thomas followed Victor in to the ambulance. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed.
Victor watched as Thomas stared out at his father. His heart ached for them all. For Thomas and Jax, who now knew what he knew. He didn't know how Tara would react to her child being beaten and abducted, but it was Delylah that he worried about most. Ophelia had been with Delylah since the womb. They fought like crazy, and they loved like crazy, but once Delylah knew what happened, Victor knew she'd be lost.
"Do you regret being part of us?" Thomas seemed to read his thoughts as the ambulance fled into the night. His blue eyes were sad and broken as they stared at Victor. Nausea crept into his throat as he tried to focus. The EMT that rode with them noticed, and he flicked the loud overhead light down. Victor closed his eyes for a moment and tried to let the sick feeling pass.
"I don't know what you mean," Victor slurred. As he opened his eyes, he was relieved that the nauseated feeling passed.
"You're Delylah's person," Thomas said. He sounded like a little kid as he spoke. "Just like Hannah is Abel's person, and Will is my person. I can't imagine y'all apart. I would hate for you to leave now. I mean—Pop was right. You're family now."
Victor exhaled heavily. Getting the shit beat outta you makes you a Teller. He wanted to laugh, but he realized how serious Thomas was, and a sobering realization hit: Getting the shit beat outta me makes me a Teller. Funny, it never once made me a Sinclair. The truth was, in the few weeks he'd been involved with Delylah, the Tellers had been more of family than his own family had been. He loved Delylah, but in the last few moments, he'd realized how much he could love Delylah's family too, if they'd just let him. He never realized he wanted a family until the Tellers offered the possibility of one.
"Victor?" Thomas' voice sounded distant as he tried to focus. "Are you okay?" Victor slowly nodded.
"Yeah," Victor replied. He didn't full realize he was speaking. "I'll be—I'll be alright." As he struggled to stay awake, he smiled. "I've got Delylah" he mumbled. "And I thought that was more than-enough. Then you call me family."
Thomas felt a lump in his throat as Victor struggled between staying conscious and sleeping. Thomas knew Victor had no idea what he was saying. The wounds in his head had essentially made him drunk. Drunk words are sober thoughts, Thomas thought silently. A sweet smile played on his lips as he drifted in and out of slumber.
"I'm not going anywhere, Thomas," he mumbled over and over. "I love Delylah. And I'm staying."