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Chapter 592 Dark Family Secrets
"
Wayne picked up the phone on the third ring. He didn't want to appear too eager. He'd been thinking about this call the entire day weighing all the possibilities and he'd made his decision.
"Did you find out where Knowles is?" Namid demanded without bothering with any social niceties.
"Why do you want to know?"
"I want to send her a get well card," Namid said sarcastically.
"You can give it to me or drop it by the police station and Hale will make sure she gets it," Unser suggested.
"Funny. Where the hell is she?" Namid snapped.
"What the hell has she done? Were you behind the attempt on her life?"
"Of course not. I have nothing but good wishes for Dr. Knowles and I want to help her recover."
There were limits to how far Wayne would go. Sure, he looked the other way for SAMCRO, but it was gangster on gangster violence. At first he hadn't liked facilitating SAMCRO's crimes, but over time, he saw the need. The bitter truth was they did keep the town safe.
They could do things outside the law that needed to get done to keep people safe. No one wanted to hear that, but it was the unpleasant truth. There were crimes people hesitated to commit because SAMCRO would pay them a visit and he didn't have to worry about any excessive police force complaints when the Sons beat he shit out of the perps. The perps knew if they ratted on SAMCRO, they should make funeral arrangements.
All his cop instincts told him Namid was going to try to kill Tara if he knew where she was and he wasn't going to be part of the murder of an innocent woman. Especially not someone he knew. He'd known Tara since she was a kid and he'd gone to her second grade class to talk about bicycle safety. She'd been the only one who asked questions.
"I don't know where she is and if I did know, I'm not telling you. Take the pictures and shove them up your ass or send them to the mayor or newspaper. I don't give a shit," Wayne said slamming his phone down.
Carl Namid didn't know the most crucial part of Della's injuries. It wasn't Wayne that inflicted them; it was his son Michael. It started as minor hitting when he was a child. He wanted to punish his son, but Della insisted the hitting was her fault and she talked to him about it.
Each time, she would talk to him about it, but there were no real consequences. As he grew older, the violence decreased, but when it happened, he did more damage to Della. He came home late from work to find her rocking back and forth, whimpering, her arm wrapped in a towel. He wanted to call it in, but Della wasn't about to let her precious son get taken in for assault, so he'd called Namid in to fix Della's arm off the books. Michael had gone to a friend's house for the night.
When he returned the next day, he apologized and promised never to do it again. Wayne knew it was a lie. It's what all abusers say and Della refused to listen to him when he told her it was going to happen again. That's what began the crack in their marriage.
The final crack came when Michael went to Arizona to college, got drunk and beat another student into a coma. Della wanted to spend a fortune to hire the best attorneys to get him off. Michael was eighteen and he wasn't legally obligated to help him. Wayne refused. He felt it was time his son face real world consequences for his behavior. That was when they separated and he filed for divorce.
Della could use her half of their community property anyway she saw fit. She spent fifty thousand dollars to keep their abusive son out of jail. He was convicted and was serving three to five in Arizona's Tucson state prison. The student recovered but spent six months learning to walk, talk and feed himself.
Della moved to Arizona so she could visit her son. His other adult son and daughter blamed him for the divorce and not supporting their brother. All those years invested in fatherhood for nothing. He knew he should care, but all he felt now was relief. There would be no more fights over Michael.
If Namid exposed him, he would reveal the dark truth about his family life that his son was violent who regularly assaulted his wife who refused to let him do anything about it. He collected evidence to that end just in case the day ever came when someone tried to blame him for Della's injuries.
Wayne opened the freezer, pulled out his favorite Nashville hot chicken dinner served with mashed potatoes and corn and put it in the oven. He thought it tasted better heated in the microwave and went to take a shower.
By the time he got out of the shower, he was feeling optimistic. If Namid revealed Della's injuries, he'd reveal it was his son who caused them. Maybe it would even do some good—let other parents know that this happened even in a cop's family.
Yeah, there was a way to turn this to his advantage.
"
The whole idea in S4 that Della cleaned Unser out in a divorce was ridiculous. I know the point was to show Unser broken, but in California, community property is equally divided. He also would have received his police pension (Della would have been entitled to part of it but he would have been entitled to part of hers). With his police pension even less what he would have had to give Della, he would have been able to afford a better life than he had on the show. The way they broke Unser feeds into this unfair narrative that men are victims in divorce.
