SAMCRO retakes what has always been theirs from a former member, but the bikers aren't the only ones who are going after what has been taken from them as outside forces move in on the club, and their associates.

General trigger warnings for this story: Language, smut, mentions of rape, abuse, drug use/overdose, violence/death, racism/gang activity.

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CHAPTER 29: FIRE WORKS

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Sydney watched her perfect plan unfold with an evil grin as everybody filtered into the garage, ready to finally strip the rogue exile of the patch that he'd been too much of a coward to remove himself.

"What is this?" Kyle frantically looked around where she had successfully secured him, his heart beating faster and faster with each familiar face that passed through the door before it finally plummeted to the bottom of his stomach as Opie and Jax trickled in behind them.

"Take your shirt off." Sydney nodded with a smirk.

"W-what?" Kyle stammered, struggling to comprehend how the stranger in front of him could have known all of his secrets, but it finally made sense... "Come on, Jax." He looked to the VP with a nervous laugh, hoping that this was all just some kind of re-initiation joke.

"Take it off!" Jax yelled, letting his rarely expressed, but often felt anger bubble over now that there was finally somebody who everybody could agree was deserving of it.

The cornered man looked around, realizing that he had no way out, trying the last thing that he could think of as he lunged toward the girl who had tricked him into this position in the first place - but he was quickly pulled back by Tig who ripped his shirt clean from his body and turned him around, showing off the offending ink to everybody in the room.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Clay. I know I was supposed to black it out, and I tried, man…" He panted the pathetic pleas over his shoulder as the President glared into the eyes of the reaper that the traitor dared to brandish. "Look, I went a bunch of times and I couldn't-" He clenched his jaw. "I couldn't do it." But his weak case went ignored after he'd dared to disrespect his old crew, yet again. "It's the only thing I have left, Jax. Please… I'm sorry." He began to hyperventilate as he started to properly understand what was about to take place.

"Good job, baby." Tig handed Sydney the shredded t-shirt as a trophy, kissing her cheek as he glared at the pussy with the buzzcut.

Sydney let him kiss her. She knew that he was only doing it as a taunt to his former competition, but he was so fucking hot when he was jealous and angry that she didn't care - she would've let him do whatever he wanted to re-establish his dominance.

"Oh, come on!" Kyle groaned. Of course the seductive little tart was Tig's girl.

"Told you she was a good one." The dark-haired man winked.

"Fire, or knife?" Opie asked coldly.

Kyle desperately looked at each of his old friends, hoping that just one of them would have mercy - even if it was just for old times sake, but he came up empty-handed.

"Answer him." Jax ordered.

"Jax..." He almost whined as he felt his knees beginning to buckle.

"Answer him!" The VP screamed.

Sydney smirked as she watched fear cripple the asshole, breaking down the cocky facade that he wore - but her smile doubled in size as she watched Jax's surprising outbursts in favor of violence; a small show that maybe he was capable of what the outlaw life required, after all...

"Fire." Kyle finally decided after one more round of silent, unanswered pleas.

Opie nodded, handing the blowtorch to Tig - this was a task that even vengeance couldn't help him stomach. Jax offered Kyle the only token of sympathy that he was willing to give; a bottle of whiskey, allowing him to take a few gulps before dousing his back with the flammable liquid - slamming back a few shots himself. Sydney scoffed, shaking her head. One step forward, two steps back.

Bobby grabbed Kyle's other wrist, wrapping it in a thick piece of chain that he found on one of the workbenches, securing it to the pole opposite to the one that he was already cuffed to while Tig readied himself for the glorious revenge. Clay sat back, watching the scene unfold as he sipped his beer, looking to Opie who nodded.

Tig got to work searing off the identifying ink once he got the long-awaited go ahead. He felt a rush of relief through his anxiety-riddled veins as Kyle's cries immediately drowned out the silence in the room, and the noise in his head - the calm before the storm that always came when he proved himself useful before the residual adrenaline would find itself offloaded into a croweater.

Sydney inhaled the smell of burning flesh with a sadistic smile on her face as Clay lit a cigar, and the other members stood around, shifting uncomfortably - especially Half-Sack. She grabbed the prospect's hand, squeezing it as she nodded reassuringly, meanwhile Jax watched the dark ink melt into the bubbling skin with an expression harder than she'd ever seen him wear - but she couldn't tell if it was one of hate, or one of disgust.

Kyle's screams eventually stopped once multiple layers of his skin had been scorched through - the pain finally reaching a bittersweet peak that allowed him to slip unconscious where the garage fell silent until the deed was done, his burnt and limp body hitting the floor as Bobby released the restraints.

"Creme brulee, anyone?" Tig asked with a smirk.

"Now that's what I call A Taste of Charming." Sydney responded with a smirk of her own before she crouched down to retrieve her handcuffs, letting her eyes slide lewdly over Tig as she straightened back up.

"Your personal collection?" Clay questioned with a raised brow, as she twirled the metal confines around her manicured finger.

"Party favors." The wild blonde winked.

"Sack good to take him?" Tig asked as he nodded to Kyle, not taking his eyes off of Sydney as he made his intentions known.

"Yeah." Clay confirmed, deciding that for the time being, a Sergeant who was distracted by pussy that rode for the club was better than a Sergeant who was distracted by doubt caused by that same pussy when they weren't on the same page.

Tig nodded, grabbing Sydney's hand where he practically dragged her across the concrete floor of the garage until they were outside, stopping his long strides and turning to face her where he harshly gripped her throat and descended his lips onto hers, claiming her mouth with his tongue.

"You're mine tonight." He stated as he pulled away.

Sydney's chest heaved with an excitement that faded all too quickly as she looked into those beautiful blue eyes to see a hollowness - the one thing that she'd never seen when he looked at her. Her heart sank to her stomach as her face fell. She was able to physically see just how she was losing him, and she knew that she would only continue losing him as the secrets piled on.

"The hell you waitin' for?" He looked her up and down, ignoring his paranoia as she stood frozen before him. "Go." He nudged her towards the clubhouse.

"Um." She stalled, shaking her head while she came up with an excuse. "I just remembered I have to go get my car from the school." She didn't have the strength to play it off, she'd been playing things off all day.

"You can't get it tomorrow?" The angry, whirling storm cloud reappeared in Tig's head the second that she closed herself off, dimming the reflection of the sun that she had always been to him and his demons - who he now realized were more than just noise in his head.

"No. Gemma said the lot needs to be cleared out tonight, and I'll get towed with all my tickets." She gave a small smile.

"Okay." Tig nodded as he was forced to accept what he was now sure was yet another one of her lies. "You need a ride?" He asked even though he already knew what the answer would be.

"Nah, I'll catch one with Ope."

"Alright." He rubbed the back of his neck. "You comin' back?"

"Gemma will probably get me to help clean up, so..." She didn't even try to deliver the lie sincerely as she looked to the pavement, it hurt too much to have to come up with it in the first place.

"Yeah, okay." Tig clenched his jaw. He couldn't make her stay, or be truthful with him, he could only prepare himself for what he wished he hadn't known was coming all along; for her to leave him. He nodded slowly as she avoided his eyes, heading into the clubhouse for the one thing that would never leave him: whiskey.

"You good?" Sydney looked up to see Opie standing outside of his truck in the empty parking lot, realizing that she had zoned out as she watched him disappear behind the door.

"Yeah." She shook her head, blinking a few times as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. "Can I grab a ride with you back to the school?"

"Sure." He nodded.

"You seen Jax?" She decided, knowing that this was what she needed to do if she wanted to salvage the club's safety, and her relationship.

"I think he's in the apartment." He nodded to the clubhouse.

"Okay, I'll be right back." She nodded.

"Don't take too long, I can hear Gemma swearing from here."

Sydney shared a laugh with the bearded man before hurrying into the clubhouse, stalking past everybody who had resumed their celebratory drinking before she barged straight into Jax's room.

The blonde man jumped up from the bed when the door flew open, scrambling to hide the manuscript that he'd hoped to find some solace in after the gruesome and morally questioning day.

"I have to tell you something." She announced before he could start yelling at her from where he shot up from the edge of the bed, fumbling with some old manual. "Love letters?" She quirked an eyebrow at the stack of worn parchment.

"What the hell do you want?" He snarled impatiently. "Upset that you didn't get to carry it out?"

"Well, seeing that your pussy ass couldn't do it, I would've been doing you a favor." She sneered back. "What exactly do you think my angle is here, Jackson? Undermine you the way that you undermine Clay?"

"I think that you're using that tight pussy and pretty face to try and take over this town." He spit out under her low blow.

Sydney's lips curled up, slowly dragging her feet along the carpet as she walked up to him. "You jealous that I'm not using them on you? Or are you jealous that it's working?" She taunted close to his face with a rasp.

His hateful blue eyes fell to the bruising that he'd left on her chest - which was almost touching his - quickly looking away before he could allow even more guilt to seep in tonight than he already had. "What do you want?" He reiterated coldly.

"You need to talk to Tara about Kohn." She took a step back, creating a less threatening distance between them.

"What? Why?" He scowled, Tara didn't even know who Kohn was, let alone what he had to do with the club.

"It's not my beef." She re-stated with a sarcastic smile before turning out the door and heading out to meet back up with Opie.

Just when Jax felt like he was starting to make some headway, everything began to blur together again. He and Tara may have been making progress in their painfully slow reconnection, but it hadn't been nearly enough progress to even consider starting to trust her with club business - she hadn't been able to handle that even when they weretogether. He shook his head, scooping up the manuscript and heading up to the roof where he hoped to find even a shred of clarity on what to do next.

Sydney felt some of the pressure in her chest beginning to ease as she felt her purposeful stride morphing into a confident strut as she emerged from the hallway, but her entire body froze when she came face to face with none other than Cheryl practically sitting on Tig's lap at the bar. So much for trying to salvage things.

She tried to shake off the shock as they turned to look at her when she entered the room, lifting her leg to take a step, but her foot stayed firmly planted on the ground. She took a deep breath as she tried again, successfully taking one step, then another, then another, until she was forcing herself to smugly raise a brow as she walked past them, and out the door.

"So... What do you say?" Cheryl asked the distraught man, sliding her hand over his thigh compassionately as he longingly watched his girlfriend walk away from him.

Tig looked down at her hand on his leg before he looked up into her eyes that he'd never bothered to note the colour of, taking one last look out the door where he locked eyes with Sydney who stared back at him with a deep hate that he knew he would never be able to bring her back from.

"Everything okay?" Opie asked as Sydney finally climbed into the truck, slamming the door and wordlessly settling into the corner of the bench beside him.

"I'm fine." She stared straight ahead, willing herself to control her emotions as the frustration of her ongoing issues with Tig, and ongoing feud with Jax as he refused to take her - or her efforts - seriously, parked itself behind her pinching eyes. But she refused to cry over this - something that was her fault, something that she let happen. She should've known that this was what would happen when she so stupidly left her old man hanging when he needed to blow off steam - forgetting everything that she'd always known about what it meant to be a good old lady.

"He's just jealous, you know." The quiet man nodded after a few moments of stony silence.

"What?" She shook her head, coming back to earth.

"You tryin' to earn your way in." He nodded. "Reminds him that he didn't do shit to get his patch."

"I don't think that's any way to talk about your best friend." She scoffed. She didn't know a lot about Opie, but what she did know was that he was incredibly loyal to his loved ones - which made his words all the more surprising.

"It's the only way." He looked over to her with a small smile. "Don't let him get to you." He turned his eyes back to the road. "As for Tig? I don't got any advice for that crazy prick." She gave a watery laugh as he closed out his pep talk.

Opie smiled when he got her to laugh, finding a tight spot in the crowded lot to squeeze in his old truck - hoping that Donna wouldn't see him with Sydney. He'd had a trying enough day, he didn't need more invasive questions from his wife.

"Thanks, Ope." Sydney smiled before parting with the family man, heading over to a tall tree where she sat down on the lush grass, pulling out a joint as she waited for the fireworks to start in a desperate hope that the combination would distract her from what she knew Tig was doing right now.

"There you are!" Opie heard almost the second that he returned to the boxes of fireworks that he was now scrambling to get ready in time, looking up to see Gemma with her hands on her hips.

"Okay everybody, listen up here." Sydney's attention was turned away from Opie and Gemma where her scold quickly turned to a scowl, before her expression fell altogether as the avenged man delivered the news, blinking through what she only wished was a peaceful haze as Unser took the stage. "Let's dig into those pockets and purses, okay? Get those tickets out, see if we can give away a few prizes here." He nodded to Kyle's son, the band taking their cue to begin playing as the old man spun the raffle box.

"Got anyone to watch them with?" The raspy voice stole her spotty attention away from yet another fleeting source.

"You, I hope." A grin spread across her face when she turned to see Happy standing behind her with a smile. "Where you been hidin'?" She hadn't seen him since the Fourth of July party, and she'd needed him more than ever, but she knew that if she told him that, then she would have to tell him why she needed him - and that wasn't an option.

"You don't wanna know." The Tacoma Killer smirked as he sat next to her, resting his back against the rigid bark of the thick tree trunk.

"With your secret girlfriend?" She raised a brow. Happy was staying somewhere if he wasn't staying at the clubhouse while he was in town, and her guess was the tight little blonde that he'd met at the fair.

"I don't got no girlfriend." He scowled as his lip turned up.

"Okay." She laughed with her hands out in surrender, too emotionally exhausted to grill him about why he'd been keeping it from her.

"How you holdin' up?" He asked after minutes of silence, knowing that she was never silent for this long unless something was heavy on her mind.

"Stop talking to me like I'm some fucking charity case." She spit out.

"You got anger." He pointed out with a smirk.

"Yeah." She backed down, chuckling humourlessly. "I guess so."

"For real." He urged. "I ain't gonna ask again."

"I'm ruining him, Hap..." She looked away, shaking her head shamefully.

"Thought you liked having that power." He nudged her with a playful smirk.

"Nah." She couldn't even let herself smile at that one. "Not when I'm blowing it this bad."

"You're overthinking it, you just don't know him well enough."

"How am I overthinking it?" She scoffed. "He doesn't sleep, and he's drowned himself in whiskey every night since he's realized that I'm not what he needs."

"Ain't you been listening?" Happy had spent enough time in Charming over the years to know that Tig was not an easy man to tame - hence why he hadn't been thus far. Women learned not to bother looking past a one night stand because it wasn't worth it to deal with all of the baggage that accompanied the troubled Sergeant. He was a man who only knew how to act on impulse - and usually with violence and little logic, at that. He was loud, obnoxious, unreasonable, stubborn, and he drank heavily on a good day - let alone on a bad one. "He ain't drinking because of you."

"What the fuck do you mean he's not drinking because of me?" She whipped around in frustration where her widened eyes landed on the stone-faced man incredulously. "He grabs the fucking bottle everytime I-"

"He's drinking because he can't face all that shit in his head tellin' him that he'll lose you - that he don't deserve you." He cut off her tantrum. "You really think he wants a perfect old lady?" Happy knew that even after their talk the week prior, the thought was still present in her mind by the way that she tremendously downplayed the position that she'd quickly taken in his life - humble was never something that he'd taught her to be.

Sydney didn't say anything. She didn't necessarily think that Tig needed a picture perfect housewife, but lately she felt like maybe he needed someone safer - someone who would listen, someone who wasn't reckless, someone who wouldn't worry him more than his own life already did, someone who wasn't her.

"Of all the things that could trip you up... It ain't blood, it ain't bullets, it's romance." Happy chuckled.

"Yeah, well... I get it from you." She rolled her eyes with a smile, leaning over and resting her head on his shoulder. "This is why I didn't want things to change, it was easier when we were just-"

"You've never liked easy, don't forget who you are." He reminded her, his bicep flexing around her shoulders as he became painfully aware of how the unstable Sergeant was twisting up his princess in a way that he'd told himself he would never allow a man to do.

"Easy." She calmed him playfully, grabbing his hand that hung from her shoulder.

"He fell for you for a reason." He checked himself, resorting to combating the situation with his words instead of his fists - a relatively uncomfortable and foreign concept for Happy Lowman, but he knew that it was effective with her, which was all that he cared about. "There's plenty of pussy around here that would make a good old lady - always has been. So quit thinkin' about being what you think he needs, and be yourself - cause that's want he wants."

"He'll get tired of it." She sighed, completely ignoring the painfully true words that he rarely cared to let her hear.

"What?" He recoiled, looking down at her with a deep scowl.

"If I be myself." She peered up through her eyelashes and into his dark eyes, the low light making them barely distinguishable in the deep crevasses of his face. "He'll get tired of having to chase after me, or worry that I'm crossing the wrong line, or pissing off the wrong person-"

"He'll get over it." He cut her off with a reassuring nod, he knew that this was just a temporary flare up of Tig's infamous self-doubt - it never lasted long for the egotistical man.

"If it's not that, then it'll be the boring domestic shit that sends you guys riding for the hills." She gave a weak smile.

Happy chuckled at her paraphrasing as she resumed her position snuggled against his side, brushing off the frustration as she reminded him just how stubborn she could be, as well. "Are you bored?" He asked simply.

"No. But-"

"Would you stay if you were?" He raised a brow.

"No..." Sydney trailed off, knowing where he was heading with this.

"He's the same. If you ain't bored, then he ain't either. If he was, he wouldn't stick around. It's what he wants, so stop fighting it."

"Guess this really is why he came with so many warnings." She sighed.

"I don't know anyone else who could handle him." He nodded.

Sydney nodded, absently staring at the grass beside them - not bothering to tell him that he was wrong, because if he had been right, then maybe Tig wouldn't be balls deep in a croweater right now.

"What about everything else?" He recognized the lack of sincerity in her agreement, deciding that maybe a positive subject change would distract her from the doubts.

"It's been a perfect distraction." She sighed wistfully.

"That all it's been?" He was surprised by her answer, expecting something much more chipper over the leaps and bounds that she'd been making towards achieving her lifelong goal.

"I don't feel like talking, Hap." She shook her head sadly.

"Aight." He nodded, squeezing her shoulder before he felt her tense up, looking down to see her wincing in pain. He lifted his palm, his eyes taking a minute to adjust in the darkness before the bruise on her shoulder came into focus, his eyes trailing down her collarbone where there was another. "What happened?" She could see his expression darkening even in the low light.

"You don't wanna know." She repeated his own words back to him, laughing convincingly this time before laying back against his chest to watch the display of exploding lights in the sky.

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April nodded along to the beat of her son's band with a proud smile as the crowd cheered them on. Today had gone as well as she could've hoped - aside from her ex-husband's arm candy that she knew he'd only brought as insult to injury. But she willed herself not to focus on that, all she cared about was that her kids were happy.

"April..." She turned to see Gemma standing next to her in the thickening crowd, the yellow hue of the fireworks bouncing off of the sorrow in her amber coloured eyes.

After years as a SAMCRO old lady, April knew that look anywhere. "What?" She groaned. "Where is he?"

Gemma rarely felt remorse - especially for people who deserved it - but April was not one of those people, she never had been. "You should head over to St. Thomas... I'll bring your kids home."

"Jesus..." April hadn't seen that kind of sincerity on Gemma's face since the day that Opie had been taken to prison. "What did they do?"

"I don't know anything else." Gemma shook her head. "I'm sorry." She turned away, heading to take care of the fallout - because that was what a good old lady did.

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"Daddy!" Opie looked up from the canons to see Kenny running towards him, Donna and Ellie hand in hand not too far behind - a moniker that he almost didn't recognize as being his own.

A rush of emotion propelled him to his feet as his daughter jumped into his arms, a grin painting his face as he swung her around in a circle before placing her back to the ground where Donna immediately took her place.

"We missed you." The short woman grinned as she wound her hands around his neck and tiptoed to reach his lips. "I love you, baby." She nodded slowly. Jax was right, SAMCRO wasn't the glue, she was.

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David Hale made his way across the school yard after having served his civic duty - and a shit load of sausages - for the annual fundraiser, but his attention was stolen from the ground beneath his boots as he caught that same glimpse of white-blonde hair; the glimpse that made his heart skip a beat. But just as it had earlier, the exciting palpitation came to a screeching halt when somehow , for the second time today, he laid his eyes on Sydney with another man - only this time it wasn't Tig.

His brows furrowed in confusion as he watched her cuddle up to Happy Lowman under a tree as they watched the fireworks. Maybe she was just a patch chaser like he'd expected her to be in the first place, but since when were patch chasers allowed to be so involved with the club's business?

He stalked out to his Bronco, flipping open his phone and dialling the number of the one person who he knew would truly help him get to the bottom of things, once and for all; Josh Kohn.

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Jax tapped his ringed fingers against the hard exterior of the black binder that his father's words sat between, his white-sneakered foot that had been soaked with alcohol matching the rhythm as he contemplated what he knew was a bad decision. He took a deep breath, once again attempting to make the conscious choice not to let the doubt seep in and taint the progress that he'd been making as he placed the binder down onto the pavement, and made his way over to the ledge where he peered down into the garage as Half-Sack scrubbed the floors.

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Maya sat on the edge of the old leather couch that she'd found at a garage sale when she'd first moved to the small town, anxiously awaiting the rumble of the motorcycle that she had gotten a little too used to over the past couple of weeks. She had finally gotten past the point where she'd expected him to blow her off, but the tremble in her nerves while she waited for him sill hadn't settled yet.

She took a shaky breath as she got to her feet and smoothed her dark grey Harley Davidson muscle tee that she'd tucked into a pair of black ripped jeans, wondering if maybe he would think that the branded shirt was trying too hard - even if it was a piece of clothing that she'd been wearing far before she met him.

"Fuck." She shook her head, making the decision to change for the fourth time as she set her glass of whiskey down onto the counter and took off down the hall. She rifled through the countless dark-coloured items that inhabited her closet, holding up various tanks and tees as she peered into the full sized mirror that was leant up against the wall by her bedroom door.

"Get a fucking grip." She muttered to herself as she realized what she was doing for a man that she wasn't even dating - that she wasn't even sure was going to show up, rolling her eyes as she threw the clothing down onto her bed.

But as she made to exit the room, she felt herself turning on the heels of her combat boots, ripping off the casual garment and sliding on a tighter, more revealing tank top that squeezed her tits together, perfectly. She didn't usually care for sex appeal - she got by just fine without it, but he had made good on his promise by spending the previous night at her house, and she was confident that he would be spending tonight, too

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How are we feeling (apart from crushed)? Do we think Tig went through with it? What do we think Sydney is going to do?

Song for this chapter

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