A/N - Well, look what happens when you get up early and have an uber productive day! Double update! Hope you all enjoyed Tig earlier, let's catch up with some Charming folk...
Juice always tried to be a good Son. Jax had done more favours for him than any other person he had ever known, he had welcomed him into SAMCRO when Juice was sure he was done for. In return, Juice always tried to do right, even when it was hard.
Saying no to Gemma, however, was nearly impossible. She was a force to be reckoned with at the worst of times, but when she wanted something, she was a nightmare. So when she backed him into a corner in the garage and said she needed him, Juice nearly melted into a nervous puddle on the floor.
He glanced around anxiously as he pulled the loaner around to the back of Gemma's place. It was strange parking in Clay's spot out front, but Clay had left it vacated since he had lost it on her. He knew he wouldn't be welcome back.
Juice fiddled with his backpack as he waited for Gemma to open the door. When Nero pulled it open, he froze, panicked.
"Uhh, hi." He gave him a goofy smile. "I'm looking for Gemma."
"Come on in, mano." He opened the door wider and Juice sauntered in. Gemma came out of the bedroom, towelling off her hair, and smiled broadly to see Juice had done as asked.
"Hey Juicy," she said. "Thanks for coming."
Juice sat at the dinner table and looked between them. "Am I in trouble?"
Nero laughed and patted his shoulder. "What are you, five? No, of course not, we just need your help."
"Help?" Juice was instinctively unpacking his computer. "What with?" He slowly unfurled all of the neatly-wound leads, laying out his kit across the table. Gemma looked at Nero to take the lead, but she could see he was already emotionally struggling.
"You know Nina, Nero's daughter? Cute, nice tan, good rack?" Juice nodded, blushing a little. "Think she's in a bit of trouble, we're just trying to track her down."
"I don't know how you think I can help," Juice frowned. "Chibs has been calling her for days, I can't trace her phone, I've already tried, she must have dropped the SIM out."
Nero looked at Gemma hopelessly, he was already so sure this was a losing battle. Gemma, on the other hand, was not giving up.
"She's been playing cards in Vegas. Need you to tap a few systems with your mumbo jumbo shit on there, see how much she was playing with. How much she won."
"How much she lost," Nero corrected. If she'd been winning, she'd be okay, Nina knew how to keep off the radar. Little and often, that was the way she earned at the tables.
Juice was already pulling up the right websites, trawling through membership databases for her name. Within an hour he had locked her down to seven casinos in and around Las Vegas. He tapped his screen.
"This is the last one she went to. Bought in with..." He frowned and glanced up at Nero. "Seven hundred and fifty k."
"Jesus." Gemma leaned over the screen to get a better look, that kind of money was something the club should keep in mind.
"Cash out?" Nero looked at Juice, fearing the worst. Juice shook his head.
"She didn't. She's either carrying some big chips or-"
"-she lost it." Nero felt his heart sinking into the pit of his stomach, already so sure. Gemma could see him growing withdrawn, she put her hands on his shoulders and leaned her head against his.
"It doesn't mean anything," she whispered as she put her arms around his neck. Juice looked at them with one eye before returning his attention to the screen. He clicked around, trying to find what he was looking for.
"Here." He turned the computer around. "Security footage of her." He scrubbed through to find the point where she left the table and then wound back a few minutes. Gemma leaned in, looking at the screen. A man sat beside her, smart-looking, chatting casually, his fingertips rolling up and down her arm. Nina didn't seem to mind, she smiled and laughed as they played hand after hand. They watched as her companion flicked a chip to the dealer as a tip before the next hand was dealt.
None of them really understood the game, they watched her raise and raise again, confident. The sudden anguish on Nina's face as the dealer turned over his cards made them all sure she had lost. The man beside her looked outwardly angry but his body language seemed remarkably calm, considering. He gripped Nina's wrist tightly and yanked her away from the table.
"Go back."
Juice dragged the pointer back and they watched it again. Nero frowned and tapped the screen as the man threw the chip on the table.
"What is that? Ten grand?" Gemma narrowed her eyes and Juice zoomed in.
"Fifty."
"Who tips fifty grand?" Juice chuckled. "These people have too much money."
"Nobody. Even people with money don't tip that much," Gemma muttered. "Slow that tape down."
Juice did as she asked and they re-watched the cards being dealt. With deliberate ease, the dealer laid out her cards before turning over his own, nudging something straight with his fingertip as he did.
"There's something wrong," Gemma scowled. "That doesn't look right."
Nero nodded. "Look," he said, taking the mouse and running it again. "It's not. He's turned over two cards."
"That's cheating." Juice scowled. "That's..."
"Collusion," Nero frowned. "This guy, he bribed the dealer with that tip. That's a set up."
"Why would you want to lose that kind of money?" Gemma crossed her arms and dropped down onto the seat beside Nero. She leaned her head on his shoulder but Nero's chest suddenly became tight and anxious.
"Because owning her body is worth more." Nero knew the value of a girl like Nina, especially to the right crowd. A year's work in a brothel would make her profitable. The very idea made him sick, he stood up and ran to the bathroom. Juice looked after him and moved to stand but Gemma stood and shook her head.
"I'll go."
She followed him to find him leaning over the sink. His eyes looked bloodshot, Nero was miserable. Gemma knew what he was doing, he was blaming himself, just like they always did.
"This isn't on you," she said gently. "You couldn't control this."
"You know what they'll be doing, right?" He hated himself for even skirting around the world she would be dragged into. "Pumping her full of drugs. Smacking her around. Whoring her out. That's what happens with these women, Gemma. They owe money and they spend the rest of their lives working it off. She'll be dead in eighteen months and it'll be on me, because I couldn't protect her."
His eyes were full of tears as Gemma held him close, trying to comfort him. Nero was a mess, weeping as he realised there was nothing he could do.
"We'll find her."
He was already shaking his head. "You'll need a goddamn miracle. You know how many of these girls disappear a year? She's a twenty-seven year old Latina, she's probably already out of her head on their crap. She'll just be another junkie whore the cops don't care about finding."
"Stop it." Gemma hated hearing it, every damn word made it more real and she could see why he was so close to losing it. "She's your daughter. She's a smart girl, strong, resourceful. She'll be okay."
"What if she's not?" The question hung uncomfortably in the air for a moment. "What if they make that call, Gemma? The one to identify her body in the damn morgue? Because I was a shitty father, because I never took care of her when I should have done, because I abandoned her Mom to get high and sell women, because I couldn't keep her from Tig or Chibs or this asshole who's doing God knows what to her."
He slammed his hands against the counter furiously, making Gemma jump. She understood, of course she did, but she simply didn't know what she could say to him.
"Nero."
"This is karma, mama. This is the years of encouraging girls to sell their bodies for cash, that's what this is. This is God, testing me, telling me I made the wrong call."
Gemma was silent, neither of them spoke until Juice knocked on the door and peeked around. "I, uh, everyone's back, at the club. I have to go."
Gemma nodded and went to give him a hug. "Thank you," she said, kissing his cheek. "You've really helped us, sweetheart." She squeezed his hand and murmured, "Maybe don't tell Chibs, okay? I know he's your friend but..." She glanced at the distress in Nero's eyes as he paced the room, his hands on the back of his head. "I think it'll do more harm than good right now."
Another successful run. Jax looked around, he couldn't understand why the club's energy seemed so low when they had just made so much money. The delivery to Pope's guys had been easy, very easy, it would be a brilliant addition to the business when it was so simple.
He wriggled, uncomfortable in his pants after the long ride. He popped another of Chibs' pills, hoping it would ease his discomfort, and knocked it back with a beer.
"All good, brother," Bobby murmured as he put the rest of the money away in the safe. "All there, ready for church tomorrow."
Jax nodded approvingly. "Without a hitch, I knew it was worth it." He gave Bobby a cheerful slap and nodded across the bar towards Chibs as he sat in the corner with Fiona beside him. Fiona was stroking his cheek softly, kissing him lightly. "Looks like things are settling around here."
"Settling the way you want them to, not the way they were naturally going." Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Convenient, that she would turn up and Nero's kid should disappear all in a few days of each other."
"I'm just lucky, I guess." Jax grinned as he glanced around. "Tig back from gash heaven?"
"Haven't heard from him," Happy called out. Jax laughed.
"Probably knee deep in pussy," he shrugged nonchalantly. "We probably won't see him for a week."
"If he's running up a bar bill, you should go fetch him," Bobby murmured disapprovingly. "I know we're making money but it's best not to waste it when we've got crow eaters crawling out of every orifice known to man here."
Jax laughed and nodded, Bobby was always so very practical. "Yes sir," he said. "Give him another day then I'll send Chibs and Hap on the ride to fetch him. He'll be okay, he's probably in heaven right now, drunk and... sticky."
"Speaking of." Bobby motioned for Jax to follow him into chapel. Jax tossed himself down in his seat and kicked his feet up onto the edge of the table. "I heard about him. What he did to the girl."
Jax sighed, he should have expected as much. "I didn't know. I figured it out, but Nero, they've evened their shit out."
"It should never have happened, Jax," Bobby said quietly, looking up towards the bar. "He raped someone. Now we're outlaws, I get that, but that's not what we do."
"They were both a mess," Jax said, trying to explain it away. He knew what had happened was bad, he didn't want to talk about it any further. "It's not an excuse but it's an explanation. Tig owns what he's done, he knows he made a mistake."
"That's some mistake, brother." Bobby's expression was serious. "It's cost us that venture with Nero."
"We're setting up our own," Jax shrugged. "I'm not worried."
"And Nero?" Bobby raised an eyebrow. "We all know his history. He knows what he's doing. Got Biz Lats in his pocket, Mayans if he needs them? This war you're starting with him..."
"There's no war," Jax smiled. "Guy's a mess since his kid skipped town, Ima says he's barely keeping Diosa together right now. He's either not there or drunk, he doesn't even know what we're doing, he has no clue that half of his girls are leaving at the end of the week."
Bobby shook his head. "This isn't right. Nero did good by us, he was a good ally."
"And now he's not." Jax looked at him squarely. "He wanted out. He made his choice. This club has to find ways to survive, Bobby, you know that. Guns, drug running. We're growing up, we're making families, we can't always be doing this shit forever. I've got two boys, I don't want them to go through that, I don't want them never knowing when their Dad's gonna come home."
Bobby nodded. "I understand that. I respect it. I like the direction, but I don't like the way you're doing it. This shit with Chibs, Fiona. Making rules about Nero's kid. You're interfering. This isn't what a President does, brother."
"I have a different kind of reign," Jax said proudly, puffing out his chest and pushing his hands in his pockets.
"It's not a reign if you're a dictator, Jax." Bobby crossed his arms as he leaned back in his seat. "You got good ideas, but you gotta learn to work with the club. You have to let go of this control streak, Prez, before you take it a step too far. You overstep the mark?" He shook his head. "There'll be no recovering."