Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

“Don’t I always?” he asked with a grin.

“If you know what’s good for you.”

The lightness of the conversation hid a darkness beneath it. Tara didn’t want him to go—not with just Chibs and Opie to back him up—but she wouldn’t tell him to stay, either. Jax had not shared the details with her, only that Trinity was in danger.

Tara had wrapped her arms around him, pressed her body against his to remind him what he would be missing while he was gone, and knitted her brows as she stared into his eyes.

You have to go, she’d said. I love you for that. But you never knew she existed until half a year ago. Don’t die for her .

He didn’t plan to, but they both knew the risk was there. For everyone, yeah… and moreso for the people in their world. The life they’d chosen meant he was sticking his head in the lion’s mouth on a regular basis. One of these days, the jaws were gonna chomp.

Jax went to the tub and splashed Abel, who kicked and splashed him back. He kissed Tara and Thomas again, then turned and left without looking back. He picked up a small bag by the door—just a change of clothes and a few things—and went out, closing the door behind him.

Chibs and Opie were little more than shadows in the driveway as Jax stepped outside. Their bikes were familiar silhouettes, comforting ghosts awaiting new life.

Opie lit a cigarette, the flame momentarily illuminating his face. Jax approached them as the moon slid out from behind a scrim of clouds.

“You set?” Opie asked.

Jax went to his bike. “She understands.”

Opie shook his head, reminding Jax of a bear. “Wish Lyla did. Maybe Tara can talk to her.”

“I’m sure she would if you want.”

Opie exhaled cigarette smoke. “She’s gonna have to get used to it. She thinks we’re going to end up in Vegas with a roomful of whores.”

Chibs stepped between them, threw an arm around each of them, and grinned the devil-may-care grin that always seemed to lift the spirits of his brethren.

“We get this sorted out, maybe we save that bit for the return trip,” he said.

Opie smiled, took another drag on his cigarette, then dropped it to the pavement to grind it out. At some unconscious signal, the three of them moved toward their bikes. Jax had the sack with his gear slung over his shoulder, and now he slipped the second strap over his other shoulder. He wore a leather vest similar to his cut, but this one had no markings—no patches or symbols of any kind. Chibs wore a threadbare old denim jacket with an olive drab T-shirt beneath it. Opie had a plain navy sweatshirt with its sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Without their cuts—with no link to the club—he thought they all looked naked.

“You sure this is the right move, Jackie?” Chibs asked, smoothing his goatee as he sat astride his Harley-Davidson Dyna Street Bob. “Traveling without showing our colors?”

Jax nodded. “We can’t pick sides till we know which side tried to kill us.”

“Clay seemed pretty unhappy about it,” Opie noted, reaching for the handlebars.

The plan had not pleased Clay—that was certain. He didn’t like the idea of the club being three men down for days, didn’t like them going out essentially undercover, and most of all, didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t control whatever unfolded in Nevada. If it had only been about Trinity, Jax figured Clay would have bitched even more, but he at least acknowledged that the trip ought to help give them a better idea of what the hell the Russians were up to.

“Clay knows it can’t be avoided,” Jax said.

Chibs kicked his bike to roaring life. Jax was about to follow suit when headlights washed the driveway in yellow gloom, and he turned to see his mother pull up in her black Cadillac XLR-V. She left the big vehicle idling at the edge of the property and climbed out, slamming the door before striding across the yard toward them.

“Boys,” she said, her voice almost lost beneath the growl of Chibs’s engine.

Opie and Chibs both nodded at her. Opie might have said her name, but Jax was barely paying attention. He sat on his Harley, one hand on the throttle.

“You didn’t have to come see us off,” he said.

Her lips pursed in something like a scowl. “I came to see my grandsons.”

Gemma Teller-Morrow looked damn good for her age. Her brown hair had blond highlights and auburn streaks. She had a hell of a figure and enough of the beauty of the girl she’d once been that much younger men would look at her twice—and maybe keep looking—until her eyes drew their attention. Once they looked her in the eye, most guys turned away, unprepared for a woman so in charge of every moment of her existence. She worked hard to keep hidden the never-healing wounds that life had given her. Jax had seen them, though. He knew them well.

He also knew that those wounds made her more formidable instead of less. Gemma had raised him by example. No one understood her as well as Jax did, not even Clay. She knew why he had to go to Nevada and wouldn’t stand in the way, as much as she hated it.

Gemma kissed him on the cheek, took his forearm, and squeezed once, not at all gently.

“Don’t take stupid risks for Maureen Ashby’s little bitch.”

Jax shook his head. “I’ll see you in a few days, Mom.”

Gemma walked off, her heels clicking on the driveway as she approached the front door. Tara would not be happy to see her, but Jax couldn’t run interference any longer. They had to get on the road. He kicked the Harley to life and felt immediately at ease. On the back of that bike, engine snarling, road unfurling beneath him… that was where he belonged.

Jax rode out of the driveway with Opie and Chibs in his wake.

Just one stop to make before they headed to Nevada.

Connor Malone had never liked his office. It was the place where he was most vulnerable. At his desk, he felt that at any minute law enforcement might break down the door and arrest him. He never answered the phone without his skin prickling with paranoia that his conversations were being overheard.

Instead, he took most meetings in pubs and diners, at dog parks and boxing clubs… even in a run-down barn on an Indian reservation. He’d read somewhere that a man who courted trouble couldn’t be surprised when it followed him home.

Ah, wee Connor… ye’re nervous by nature, his ma had always told him.

And yet somehow, as nervous as he was, Connor had worked his way up in the Irish Republican Army to become right-hand man to Gaalan O’Shay, who ran the RIRA’s operations on the west coast of the United States. Should have made him nervous as hell, but it was never the work itself that unsettled Connor—it was the knowledge of how quickly it could all go tits up, landing him in prison or with a bullet in his back.

Lately he’d been more anxious than ever. The illegal gun trade was enough risk, but now their arrangements with the Sons of Anarchy involved the Galindo cartel, which meant drugs. American culture’s love of guns was romantic, which meant many citizens would rather look the other way than worry about illegal guns. But Americans’ love for drugs was more like carnal lust, and they were ashamed of their addictions and more eager to point a finger.

The word had come from Belfast—the deal had gone through. Gaalan didn’t trust Jax Teller, thought of him as volatile—unpredictable—as much for his temper as for the streak of righteousness that went through the younger man. Connor liked Jax well enough, but Clay Morrow had always been easier to read. Clay’s motivations were clearer, not muddied up by doubt or moral hesitation.

Jax Teller had called an hour earlier, and Connor suggested they meet in a booth at the White Horse Diner, a spot just off the highway in Morada, not far from Charming. Connor liked the place because they served breakfast twenty-four hours a day and because the tired truckers and exhausted parents and manic children never gave him a second look, no matter whom he might be meeting.