Sarah's heart slammed against her chest. She didn't bother stopping at the hospital to see Hannah—the place was crawling with Tellers and SAMCRO. She didn't exactly know how to feel about her daughter's resurfacing. It certainly wasn't part of the plan. As she sped down the road, she knew Jack Petty had laid Lucius' body to rest in a shallow grave at the edge of her father's property. A strange shiver shot down her spine as she thought of his body lying in the red Carolina clay. It was a pity that such a sweet kid had to be disposed of in such an ugly way, but Sarah Sinclair had come too far to let a mere orphan boy stop her.
As she drew closer to the home she shared with James, her mind was a movie reel that played over and over again. There were moments of pure happiness—her wedding day and Victor's birth-and there were moments of sheer hell. Flickers of Fiona's face spun in her memory, as did the look on James' face when he learned of his lover's fate. Tears swelled in Sarah's eyes as she drove, and she reached to push them away. Her mouth crushed inward as she hated herself for allowing the inconvenient emotion. Taking a deep breath, she pulled into the long, paved driveway.
He's home. His SUV was parked in by the house. Sarah shuddered. There had been many, many nights where she still waited up for him, despite everything that had happened. Her gut clutched, and she knew that he wouldn't be doing the same. Since leaving Ireland, there had been barely any physical interaction, much less any social interaction. The only intimacy they shared now was, oddly enough, in public. It was all part of the plan-divorce, no matter how much sense it made, was just not an option.
He needs to die, Sarah. Sarah closed her eyes as she clicked the car off. Her father's words rang in her ears. The betrayal is one that deserves a bullet to tha brain.
It all started after James returned home from St. Anne's. Sarah would never forget the look in her husband's eyes as he walked in the door. She was cutting up bananas for Victor when the door opened. She turned and smiled in welcome, but that smile died the minute she saw his face. His jaw was set, his eyes were narrowed, and he walked past her like she didn't exist. Seeing his face, she quickly placed Victor's breakfast on a plate and followed James down the hallway. As he entered the bedroom, he turned to shut the door, but when she came into view, he paused.
"Don't. Fucking. Speak. To. Me." Each word was a staccato stab to her heart. "Not now."
Sarah stopped walking. She stood there, completely lost. James didn't slam the door; he didn't have to. Sarah wasn't going to fight him. She had no idea what happened, but after growing up at Declan's feet, she knew it wasn't her place to pry. She knew he'd been working for her father, but it didn't matter. James' face spoke volumes, and she left well enough alone. Quietly, she turned her back on the closed door, took a deep breath, and walked back to her son.
There was no doubt in her mind that her little boy was with Delylah Teller, snaked beside her, throwing the career he worked so hard for away. She knew that Hannah was forever linked to Abel Teller, even more so now, since she was pregnant with his baby. Sarah gritted her teeth in frustration. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Carefully, she swung the car door open and stepped out. The memories took over again.
"You knew what my father was when we got married, James." Sarah's voice had taken on a tone he'd never heard before. She was cold, frozen. Her eyes were dry as she looked at him, and he didn't know what bothered him more: the matter of fact attitude or the fact that he missed it in the first place.
"So no one is immune to your father's depravity?" he'd countered. His dark eyes flashed as he neared her. "Is our son next?"
He was now mere inches from her face, and Sarah didn't flinch. It was shocking, at best. He'd come back completely devastated, and instead of calming him down, instead of talking about it, Sarah could only defend it. Above and beyond the love she had for James was the deeply ingrained values of loyalty and fucked up honor for Declan. It was justified by saying the kids were placed in good, Catholic homes. The words made James' blood boil.
"He'll grow up no differently than I did," Sarah said through gritted teeth. "Our son is already in a good, Catholic home. Those babies werna loved or wanted, James. They were discarded—like goddamned garbage."
"That's what I'm afraid of," he said low. He was dangerously close to his breaking point. "I believe just as many babies were stolen as were given away."
"And what if they were?" Sarah said with a sick smile. "They werna taken from Catholics. I canna even think the life that would fall on them had my Da not saved them."
"You really believe this bullshit, don't you?" he asked slowly. She didn't respond. Instead, she walked away from him, went into their tiny bedroom and shut the door.
"Aye, I do," she answered, unashamed. She didn't look away from his gaze. Instead, she met it with fierce determination. "Ye knew what ye were getting into." James rolled his eyes. "Ye did! Ye absolutely did!"
"We were barely together a year when we got married," he retaliated.
"That's just as much yer fault as it is mine," she bit back brutally. For a moment, they were both silent. They stared at one another, man and wife, and they realized that neither one knew a goddamned thing about the other.
"Lust is a powerful drug," Sarah whispered, amazed. A few years had gone by since their wedding day, and Sarah never realized that there just wasn't love there. Not the true, binding kind of love that a marriage needed to survive. There had been great sex, good talks, some awesome, amazing moments, but there was no undying devotion. As she glared at James, she silently wondered if it was even a possibility-to love someone like that.
"What did you say?" James asked.
"Lust is a powerful drug," she repeated. "It blinds us, completely and totally, tricks us into thinkin that love can be equated to making somebody come."
"Fuck you," he responded.
"Go fuck yourself," she spit. "I'm sure ye'll enjoy yer hands more than I will."
Sarah could still hear the slam of the front door. It jolted her and shook her to her core, and as she purposefully strode through the entrance of their home, she knew that was when she lost him. James flew into Fiona's arms after that. She didn't realize what was happening at first; she just thought he was angry. She truly believed that, one day, he'd settle down and make sense of it all. Part of her longed for him to return to her, and part of her didn't give a damn. She refused to back down.
Her hand now grasped the golden knob that opened her front door. She wasn't surprised to see every single light on, nor was she surprised to see the bar open and covered in glasses and bottles. With a shake of her head, she walked forward and climbed the stairs. She knew exactly where James was. As her heels sank into the carpet of each step, the past came back to haunt her.
"What do ye mean, she's pregnant?" The words were a mere whisper. Sarah stood in their flat, dumbstruck, staring at her father. Declan had learned about the affair from one of his many soldiers in Belfast, and that night, while James was at the hospital, the old Irish King had paid his daughter a visit. She'd just laid Victor down for the night.
"Dinna worry about the whore," Declan coldly replied. "Or the bastard she carries. That whole family will be wiped out, all in good time."
"I thought her husband was dead." Sarah's voice was still very soft. It was almost as if she was talking to herself.
"She has a little girl—well, Kerrianne's not all that little anymore. She'll be seventeen soon."
"O'Phelan's get?" she queried as she walked towards the window. It was snowing outside. Stunning crystalline flakes fell silently onto the blacktop. It was so peaceful. Meanwhile, within her chest, war was breaking out. She couldn't cry-the back of Declan's hand taught her how to bite the tears back-but as her father spoke, her heart felt as if it was collapsing on itself.
"Nay, Filip Telford's," Declan said offhandedly. Sarah didn't know the name well, but she knew she'd heard it at least once or twice. She chewed her lower lip as she searched her memory. SAMCRO. It hit her like a brick in the face. The little blonde boy. The one James said he'd examined. The one from America. Maureen and Kellan Ashby. Fiona. They were all involved with him. And strangely enough, Telford was part of the American tribe. Sarah's eyebrows knitted in confusion.
"Yer gonna kill Kerrianne?" she asked as she turned to face him. He was a small man, barely five-foot-seven, with white hair and dark, probing eyes. Even with his smaller stature, he was the most terrifying man she'd ever known. She didn't doubt for one second that he'd kill the teenaged girl.
"Not if her mama cooperates," Declan replied. Sarah wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but she wasn't going to ask about it, either.
"So what do I do, Da?" Sarah sighed. "This is so goddamned shameful."
The irony of that statement wasn't lost on her, even as the words flew out of her mouth. She was the daughter of the hardest, roughest gangster in the Irish mob. She knew Declan had more blood on his hands than she could even imagine, but there was still a code they all knew to abide by. It was fucked up code of honor, but it was ingrained into her soul.
"Ye dinna hae to worry about it," Declan grumbled. "I'll be here when James gets home."
Declan's voice echoed in her brain as she turned the doorknob. Cracking the heavy door open, she caught a glimpse of his unconscious form, draped haphazardly across the bed. Her breath caught. There was a small part of her that remembered the handsome, sweet man she knew he could be. That's why she still waited up some nights. She was tempting fate to bring love back to her, even though she knew it was impossible.
"Fiona…" she heard him whisper. Her blood ran cold.
"Figures. I should have known you would be drunk."
The words were jagged and brutal, and combined with a hard shove, they woke him and divested him of his memories.
"Sarah? Is that you?"
As his eyes flicked open, Sarah could see his face drop in disappointment.
"God, you've barely aged," he said as he blinked rapidly. He smiled, and for a split second, she let her guard down and smiled back. "Botox has helped more than even I realized."
As Sarah's smile faded, James drunkenly observed his wife. The dark hair was now a golden, honey blonde. When they moved back to the States, she wanted to give off the appearance of the American dream. Her Irish brogue was long gone, a part of the plan—the plan Declan created.
"I should know by now that all your dreams are of her." Sarah's voice was low and almost guttural.
"Nice to see you too, dear," he drawled drunkenly. Sarah watched him try to get his bearings. He sat up and struggled to breathe for a moment. Sarah couldn't help but love his pain. You deserve it, you bastard.
"You're shitfaced," she accused. She stood against the wall, arms crossed across her chest. Her still-slender frame was encased in fitted black jeans and a black button-down, she cut a lean line against the gold and cream wallpaper. In another time, James fancied his wife as beautiful. Over a quarter of a century with her taught him otherwise. As her eyes drank him in, he saw traces of the dangerous man that spawned her. They were calculated and cunning, and there was nothing loving in them at all.
"I am," he candidly stated. Sarah gritted her teeth in frustration. He didn't bother sugarcoating anything. There was no need to spin the words to her liking. He was obviously too drunk to care at this point.
"You're fucking amazing," she quietly raged. "Your daughter is in the hospital after months in captivity, and instead of being there, you're here, wasted. Da was right; I should've left you the minute I found out about Fiona."
James laughed bitterly as he sat up. "Ah, Da. Good ole-fashioned, baby stealing, priest killing, gun trafficking Da. A true pillar of the community."
"You didn't give a damn about that the first time we fucked, James," she replied candidly. "You didn't give a damn about it when you said I do."
"I didn't-" James began, but Sarah silenced him, interrupting him before he had a chance to speak.
"You did," she finished. "You knew my father. All of Belfast knew who Declan Brogan was. You knew what you were getting into; you just chose to keep your head in the goddamned sand."
"You're a liar," he mumbled drunkenly as he struggled to sit on the edge of the bed.
"What did you say?" Her almost black eyes glittered dangerously.
"You. Are. A. Liar!" he yelled as he made his way to his feet. "Today is no different than any other day! You lied when we got married; you lied when you were pregnant with Victor, when you were caught up with Ashby—our whole life was a fucking lie!"
"Poor James," Sarah said with a low rumble of laughter. "Poor, sad James. All these lies, all this sadness. You lied just as much as I did, baby. Don't fucking forget it."
Sadness masked his face. It was unmistakable. Sarah could feel the guilt ooze from him, but it didn't matter. Not now.
"You know I can't take it back, Sarah," he said quietly. "Fiona was-"
"She was your greatest mistake," Sarah stated. "That whole goddamned relationship, all secret and behind my back, behind my father's back—You're lucky you're not fucking dead."
"She may have been my greatest mistake," he whispered. "But I loved her. Just like I loved you, once. The only difference is that, aside from Hannah, she was the greatest love I'd ever known."
Sarah's cold, hard laughter echoed in the bedroom.
"Of course," she said jaggedly. "Hannah and Fiona are your greatest loves. Not me, who gave your first son. Not Victor, who always begged for your love, even when you took your pain out on him. It's the Irish bitch and her baby that have your heart."
"Sarah, I-" He held his hands out, as if he was trying to explain himself. She wanted none of it.
"No!" she bellowed. "When you cheated on me, I saved you!"
"I cheated because my wife, as I knew her, was dead to me," he murmured. "Your father was stealing and selling babies for profit."
"And you bedded the bitch that did the majority of the stealing!" Sarah yelled. "Where was your logic, James? You left me because Da's business, then you shack up and impregnate Fiona, who helped facilitate many of his deals?! That makes sense."
"She did what she did to survive," James retaliated. Sarah's eyes narrowed.
"So did I," Sarah stated. "It was never a question. What Da wanted, Da got. There was never a choice-not for me. Fiona could have left long ago, went to California with SAMCRO-"
"What?" James' voice was confused. "How was she affiliated with SAMCRO?"
Sarah stopped for a moment, mouth agape. Here it is, she thought. The moment where it all falls apart. The moment where the story comes together. Her heart was in her throat, but she didn't care anymore. She was tired of running, tired of being a lie.
"She never told you?" Sarah asked with a sardonic grin. "I thought you two were soulmates."
James opened his mouth, but nothing came from it.
"What, baby?" Sarah teased. She was beginning to enjoy this. "Were you too busy fucking and pretending to be in love to know who you were banging?"
"Loving someone doesn't have to mean you know everything about them, Sarah. Obviously, I didn't know shit about you."
Sarah laughed, but the sound ended abruptly. She was more than a little surprised that James really never knew Fiona's connection with SAMCRO.
"Do you even know who Kerrianne's father is?" It was a simple question with a complicated answer.
"Jimmy O," he said with certainty.
"Jimmy O never had any children," Sarah fired back.
"Kerrianne is Jimmy's," James stated. "That's why Fiona couldn't leave."
"You know nothing," Sarah replied, her voice dripping with contempt. "I mean, you truly fell for the lies, didn't you?"
James stood in silence, unable to answer his wife.
"There was a time, many years ago, where Fiona only had eyes for Jimmy O. When he decided to work for non-Catholic gun distributers, Fiona felt like he'd turned his back on the cause. While Jimmy was in California working with Clay Morrow, Fiona quickly took up with Filip Telford."
"Who is that?" James questioned. "And what the hell does he have to do with SAMCRO?"
"You may have heard him called Chibs," she said softly. Her dark eyes were aflame with vengeance.
"The murdered Irishman from Hannah's wedding?" James couldn't breathe. Through his drunken haze, things began to come together, but the puzzle pieces just didn't fit yet.
"Yes," Sarah answered. "Chibs Telford was Kerrianne's father. After Fiona's death-"
"Murder," James corrected. "You killed her, remember?" Sarah glared at him, ignored the comment, and moved on.
"He sent her to Maureen and Trinity Ashby to live," Sarah stated. "She was already a year into university. No need to disrupt the child's life further."
"Yeah, because slitting her mother's throat was more than enough interruption," James seethed.
"No more of an interruption than fucking her mother," Sarah spat back.
"Fiona was a damned good mother," James slurred.
"Yeah, bedding a married man, getting knocked up, getting locked away and ending up dead is great parenting."
It was then that James stood, and before Sarah could register what was happening, he'd already slammed her to the ground. She viciously squirmed beneath him, kicking and trying to claw at him, but he was much bigger than she, and he was much stronger.
"Fuck you Sarah," he growled. "I wished a thousand times that it were me lying in that room, Glasgow grin across my face, my throat cut. Hannah was barely a couple hours old, for God's sake. Is your appetite for revenge so great that you still have to have redemption, all these years later?"
Sarah stopped moving. For a moment, they lay there, James atop her, staring at one another. Their relationship was sick and sad, a product of Declan's grand plan. Despite her hatred for Fiona and for him, when the time came to kill her husband, Sarah couldn't follow through.
"I canna do it, Da," Sarah whispered. Her eyes were full of tears as she stared at James' bruised and broken face.
"Ye can, and ye will," Declan quietly ordered. "There's no time fer tears, Sarah. Finish this. I'll take care of Victor and ye. Fiona's bastard will be taken care of." Declan's voice dripped with double entendre, and James didn't miss it.
"You won't touch my little girl," James yelled. With a quick, almost imperceptible nod, Declan gave a silent order, and a huge, brawny man stepped from the shadows. A thick fisted hand crunched James' beautiful face, and a thick growl escaped her husband's throat, but no tears fell from his eyes, even as Sarah openly wept.
"Da, dinna hurt him!" Sarah cried. "Please! He's Victor's father! I don't want you to hurt him! Please!"
"He's gonna die, Sarah," Declan growled, glancing in his son-in-law's direction. "He's dishonored this family by dallying with that whore Fiona and making her enceinte. He deserves death."
"Aye, Da," Sarah agree, steeling her backbone. "He's brought shame on me, and by extension, he's brought shame on ye too, but I canna let ye murder him."
"Let it go Sarah," James ordered. "I brought this on myself."
Sarah flinched as she looked at her husband. Tied to a chair, he had already sustained a brutal beating. She should have wanted him murdered. She should've wanted him to be maimed, tortured, broken. But the fault didn't just lie with James. Fiona, she'd learned, had sought him out. Fiona tempted him. Fiona threw caution to the wind and didn't take birth control. It was just as much her fault as it was his.
And there was Victor. How would she explain James' death to him? What happened if he found out. She thought of her beautiful, dark eyed boy. She couldn't even begin to imagine his possible pain. No, it was better that he know as little as possible.
"Shouldn't I choose, Da?" she whispered. "Couldn't ye leave me to decide the punishment?"
Declan's eyes grew bright with pride, but that emotion was quickly extinguished.
"Speak on, Sarah," he commanded. "What say ye?"
"You never answered why," James said. "I mean, I always kind of knew-but why did you want Hannah? It makes no sense."
Sarah rounded the bed, and she faced him now. He was too drunk to notice both arms hidden behind her back.
"I spared you because of Victor," she stated. "I didn't kill Fiona immediately because it would've killed that baby, a baby that was innocent of her parents' disgusting past. Holding her captive through her pregnancy was a choice I'd make again. I got Hannah out of it, right? What better way to make Fiona think of all her wrongs? Solitary confinement will fuck a person up."
"Of course they would, especially when her days were numbered," James replied. "She knew she was dead the minute Hannah was born." Sarah smiled for a moment. "The confinement never made her crazy; she just knew she was marked for murder. As much as she hated the idea of leaving Kerrianne and Hannah behind, she-"
"She what, James?" Sarah asked. "She'd do it all over again?"
"I'd like to think so," James replied. Sarah's eyes welled with tears again, but she looked through them enough to drive a quick knee to her husband's groin. James wailed in pain and rolled away from her. In a split second, she stood and rushed to the bedside. Opening the side table drawer, she grabbed the Glock James kept at the ready. She always wondered if he kept it because of outside threats or because of her. Pointing it in his direction, she pulled the trigger, shooting him in the knee. An ungodly scream escaped his lips. She approached him quickly.
"Shut up, James," she said quietly. "Shut the fuck up." James bit back his cries.
"What the fuck is happening?" he breathlessly asked.
"The beginning of the end," Sarah stated. "I've been waiting twenty-plus years for this. Do you think that me sparing your life was a pure act of kindness? C'mon, James. You know me better than that."
"I-always-thought-" James was gasping as his wounds poured blood. "Your intention was to-make me suffer. You did an amazing job with that. If it-weren't for Hannah-I would've killed myself long ago."
Sarah saw the defiance that rested within his eyes. He didn't care that Fiona trafficked those babies back and forth. He didn't worry about Fiona forgetting to tell him who Kerrianne's real father was. He was completely blinded by love for her, and even her death couldn't change that. If anything, having Hannah in his life made the love affair continue. Sarah swallowed her emotions. She couldn't afford sadness or pity now.
"I'm glad you didn't," Sarah said low. "I've planned this for a long, long time, my dear. You have only seen the beginnings of what I am doing."
"My gut told me your intentions weren't pure, Sarah," James replied. His breathing was slowing. It appeared that Sarah had hit his femoral artery, which bled like a sieve. He'd be dead soon, but not before he suffered. She sighed and lowered her gun.
"Oh, but you don't know how deep it goes," she stated. "Part one of the plan was to kill Chibs and weaken SAMCRO. Now, I am picking off the Tellers, one by one."
"That's why you pushed so hard for Silver Spring," James said, understanding. "It wasn't your father's mountain mansion. It wasn't the sentimentality. It was the Tellers. It was WitSec bringing them here. You knew all along, didn't you?"
"Yes," Sarah's voice was a mere whisper. "I did. Before Da died, he'd caught up with them. Tara and Jax had betrayed the Kings by leaving SAMCRO behind. It all but demolished our gun business in America. He wanted their blood. The fact that I could go after Chibs and the Tellers was a bonus."
"A bonus," James croaked. "Really? Then why did it take so long?"
"A plan like this has so many moving parts," Sarah replied. "It takes time. I had to move us here, stake everyone out, put soldiers on the ground. Do you know how hard it was to get Hannah into the family, especially when she had no idea what was happening? The fact that she actually fell in love with Abel was blessed irony."
"So what happens now?"
"Like I said, it's already begun," Sarah answered. "Killing Trinity Ashby was easy. She fell off the deep end once she thought Jax was dead."
"Why did you want her dead?" James asked.
"Maureen was a dear friend to your lovely Fiona," Sarah stated matter-of-factly. "And she was Jax's half-sister. I knew that killing her would propel Chibs into action, which it did. He showed up here a couple of weeks before the wedding; I just didn't bet on him running security while we were there."
"You didn't kill them," James said. His leg was pulsing as the blood rushed from his wounds. "You were with me on the wedding night, and you haven't left the country in months."
"Lucius and Jack Petty," was Sarah's reply. "Lucius throttled Trinity. I called Jack to take care of the Scot."
"Sheriff Jack Petty?" James was quickly fading, but the shock was still there. "And Lucius-?" James' eyes grew wide. "Does that mean that you're the one behind the girls' disappearances?"
"Aye," Sarah snarled.
"But why?" he questioned. It still didn't make complete sense.
"Because, James," she said calmly, raising her gun as she did so. "My end game is killing all parts of SAMCRO to avenge Da's memory. Killing your daughter and your grandbaby make it that much sweeter."
James' face was a mask of terror as Sarah's words sank in. She's gonna kill Hannah. She's gonna kill them all.
"What about Victor? He's in love with Delylah Teller, after all."
"He'll understand." She raised her gun once more, and before he could say anything more, she pulled the trigger. The bullet now rested between his eyes. James Sinclair was dead. To her surprise, her eyes were dry. She thought she'd cry when she killed him, but those tears were gone long ago. Lowering the gun, she looked at him one last time. Blood seeped into the hardwood, and his eyes were wide and glossy as they gazed at the ceiling. There was no emotion as she reached in her pocket and grabbed her phone. She quickly dialed a familiar number and listened to the ringing.
"Jack Petty." The sheriff's voice was a dark warble.
"I need you, Jack," Sarah stated. "Come to the house."
There was no hesitation. "I'm on my way."
Sarah clicked the phone off. Without another word, she placed the gun on the bed and left the room, she walked downstairs to the open, messy bar James had left for her. Pouring a goblet of Glenlivit, she began casually sipping. It'd been a long, difficult day, and she reasoned a good stiff whiskey was a hard-earned reward.
"We're almost done, Da," she said aloud. "I just hope I can make you proud."