Chapter 36.

The plan to take out Weston and Zobelle didn't go as planned and it made Jax pretty pissed off all night when they finally arrived back at TM. I knew enough from Tara to put bandages and clean wounds on the injured Sons, and thankfully no one needed stitches because I didn't think I could handle that after so many revelations earlier.

But at least Jax was there that night beside me in the bed I swore I'd never touch again. I just wanted all of this to be over, I wanted it to go back to how it was in the summer when I first met Jax; how we met at the store and later that night danced to Bad Company. I didn't know how this club house was still standing; they were all so incredibly strong.

"So he told you" Jax mumbled against the skin on my shoulder as his face stopped nuzzling into my neck.

"He did" I whispered back, keeping my eyes closed so I wouldn't be reminded where I was.

"You're not pissed at me?"

"No, I know why you kept it from me. There was so much going on; you were trying to protect me" He nodded and kissed my shoulder, "I think I needed it and I think I knew somewhere in the back of my head that he was really my dad, I guess knowing now it sort of puts my mind at ease." His fingers moved up over my waist under my tank top and I turned around to face him, brushing away hair from his face once I was comfortable. "Thank you for always protecting me; I've never had someone in my life quite like you."

"I love you darlin'" I smiled and leaned into him, kissing his lips softly and then pressed my forehead against him to take a deep breath.

"I wanted to tell you something and this is actually the first time we've been alone all day and I think you need some good news, hell; I think everyone needs some good news right about now" He raised his brows as his fingertips tickled my side and then wound around my lower back to pull me against him snugger.

"What is it?" He asked

"It's really early on still so I don't know what good it will do if all of this turns out badly, and I love you so much and just want us to be happy"

"Abs" He whispered with a smile, "Just tell me what it is."

"I'm pregnant" I whispered back, almost waiting for a bad reaction from him but all he did was pause for a quick second before the smile spread over his face.

"You are?" He asked and I nodded. Then his lips pressed against mine and his hand that was on my lower back moved to my stomach between us. "When did you find out?"

"Just a few weeks ago, I'm only a month and a half along but Tara says everything looks good; it's just a high risk pregnancy because of all of the stress going on right now so I've been trying to take it easy. It's why I took the job at the hospital" He pressed his lips against mine again and I wrapped my arm around the back of his neck when he rolled over between my legs so I was flat on my back and he sat up and pulled my shirt up.

"You're taking it easy from here on out, I'll give a call to Tara in the morning saying I need her here at the clubhouse in case any guys get injured" I shook my head

"I can handle some cuts and bloody noses, Jax" He pressed his hand against my lower stomach as his lips pressed against mine once again, he was so giddy; I hadn't seen him act this way in months. "God, you're going to be an amazing father" I whispered against his lips, "I really did get lucky when I bumped into you at the market."

"I love you" He whispered "We'll wait to tell people, alright?" I nodded

"That's fine by me; I just wanted you to finally know. I think you needed something like this right now" He nodded and rolled out from between my legs and hugged me to his chest.

Sleep was much easier for the both of us after I told him the good news, and it really felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I absolutely adored that he loved that I was pregnant with his child, and he was totally going to be the best dad. Holding off on telling the club was going to be easy, we planned on telling everyone after Zobelle and Weston were eliminated as a threat; whether that was imprisoning them where they'd be killed in jail, or if the Sons had to kill both of them and unfortunately I had a feeling that Jax and Clay had to be the two men to kill both as a vengeances for Gemma.

"That looks ripe enough" Gemma said, distracting me from my thoughts as I picked up a batch of strawberries and then I put them in my arm basket. "Anything else you can think of that we'll need?" She asked.

"Other than the paper towels nothing. I think we covered the whole field of what we need." We were out picking up a few items for the club house, we were running low on paper towels for one because one of the kids that was staying there in lockdown knocked over a few of the liquor bottles this morning creating a complete mess.

"Here, take this and pay for it; I'm going to check the fruits out front" I nodded as I took the cash from her hand and waited in line with the groceries. After paying and collecting the plastic bags from the counter, I walked outside and tossed the bags into the trunk of the truck. "Where are the keys?" Gemma asked as I pulled them from my belt loop and she took them from my hand instantly. "I'm driving" I nodded slowly.

"Okay?" I asked confused and then glanced over at Half-Sack who was waiting on his bike, being our escort and protector for the day. Gemma was waiting, keeping the keys in the ignition but not turning the truck on yet as she pulled her sunglasses up and stared a hole at the short haired blonde woman in front of us. "Gem, who is that?" I asked

"Zobelle's daughter. She's the one who told me her baby was choking. Hit me over the head." I glanced between Gemma and the blonde as she hopped into her car and then Gemma turned on the engine.

"Where are we going?" I asked her, dread seeping into my gut as she pulled away from the curb following the blonde.

"Forward sweetheart" Gemma said and I took in a deep breath and rolled down the window to get some air. I understood what she wanted to do, I did. I was in the same situation before and I had killed my abuser, but it had changed me in so many ways that sometimes when I looked in the mirror I didn't recognize myself.

It only took us fifteen minutes to slow to a stop and we watched the blonde get out of her car and then grab flowers from her backseat and pull on a jacket. "What are we doing here, Gemma?" I asked her, "Because whatever you think you have to do, you're past it."

"My son. My husband. Their brothers. They're out there risking their lives, their freedom for me. This is how I do my part. God's put her in my path, so I can fix that part of me that they ripped open. I'm supposed to do this."

"Do you even hear what you're saying?" I asked her, keeping my eyes trained on the older woman's face. She was so deadest on killing Zobelle's daughter; I wasn't even sure what I could say to sway her mind.

"I love you Abigail" She said, turning towards me, looking me over with a smile and I knew what she was doing. If this was going to be the last time she saw me, she was going to speak to me as if she was going in there guns blazing. "I'm glad you're with my boy."

"Gemma, please don't do this" I said as I took her hand.

"I'll be okay" She said, leaning over the center console to kiss my cheek gently. "I'll be okay" She said as she looked me dead in the eyes. I watched her get out of the car in shock and then I took in a deep breath to shake myself out of it, and got out of the car myself and walked around the truck to Half-Sack who was getting off of his bike.

"Hey, where's she going?" He asked

"I need you to stay here; she may need to get out fast."

"Oh, shit" He said as he raked his fingers back through the curls on the top of his head. "I should go in there" I shook my head and turned towards him.

"No, stay out here alright? She needs to do this for the club and for herself" He hesitated as he looked back at the house where Gemma just entered, "I shouldn't be here, I'll go back to my house. After Gemma is done, come back there and we'll figure it out."

"Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Yeah, I have my own form of protection if anything should happen. Make sure she's alright, got it?"

"Yeah" He said as he nodded and I gave him a tight smile before turning around and hopping back into the truck. I pulled a U-turn and headed back to my house, knowing full-well that I'll be safer there than going back to the club house with the Sons asking questions of where Gemma was.

I tossed the groceries onto the kitchen table after making sure the house was cleared and then I put the deadbolt on the front door and waited. I made good use of my time by grabbing some bowls and plates from the cabinets and putting them into bags, knowing we were going to run out of this stuff as well.

It wasn't even twenty minutes later when there was knocking on the front door and I grabbed the gun from the counter and kept it behind my back as I walked to it and looked out the peephole at a very alone Half-Sack. I let out a breath and opened up the locks and let him in, walking back into the kitchen and putting the gun down where it had been.

"Where's Gemma? Please tell me she's back at TM."

"I don't know, FEDS raided the house; I had to leave" said Half-Sack

"Oh, shit" I said, fuck. If she was caught in the house shit was really going to hit the fan.

"You should probably call Jax" He said and I glanced back at him and nodded with a sigh. I picked up the house phone and dialed his cell number quickly and he picked up on the third ring.

"Hey

"Um, I didn't want to bother you with this…" I trailed off, glancing at Half-Sack.

"What's the matter?" He asked, concern bleeding through his words.

"It's Gemma. She followed Zobelle's daughter into the…" I said while turning around and then jumped, a scream flying past my lips as the barrel of a nine millimeter was pointed at me. I gasped, staring at Dominic's face as I heard Jax on the phone calling my name, and then yelling it in a panic. Dominic put his hand out and motioned for the phone and I slowly handed it over and he clicked it off and tossed it behind him.

"Sit down" He said calmly to me, his southern voice making the bile in my stomach rise. "I said sit down or he's a dead man!" He yelled at me as he pointed the gun at Half-Sack who was holding his hands up.

"O-Okay" I stuttered as I walked backwards and sat down on the edge of the chair at the table.

"Weapon" Dominic said to him as he handed the gun over, Dominic pushed it into the back of his blue jeans. "You were supposed to stay in the car" He said over at me, "Funny, did you make it seem like you were dead or was that just my mind playing tricks on me?" He asked and I was still in shock that he was actually here that I couldn't answer him.

"Look, you don't have to do this" Half-Sack said, "Just let us go, you can go back into hiding… we won't say anything."

"Are you fucking stupid?" He asked and then he looked over at me, "Is he fucking stupid?" He asked me then and I shook my head. "You're motorcycle gang has been looking for me everywhere, you think I can just go back into hiding after this? I was in plain sight the whole fucking time and you didn't even see it. You didn't answer my question beautiful, where you in hiding or faking your own death?"

"Hiding" I whispered

"What was that?"

"Hiding. I was in hiding" I said louder and he nodded.

"That's what I thought, you see; I went back home for a few weeks after I couldn't find you and then I came back once your name popped up in a hospital database. St. Thomas Hospital right here in Charming, what a fucking coincidence, huh? Having a little baby? Playing house with Jackson Teller?" He asked me and then pointed the gun at Half-Sack's head. "Answer me when I fucking ask you a question!"

"I'm sorry, please don't hurt him; please don't. He's innocent in all of this; you came back for me, right? You said you wanted to be with me" A distraction, that's what I needed. I needed to distract Dominic long enough for Half-Sack to get the knife behind him on the counter.

"Are you pregnant?" He asked and I wiped my face and stood up, he glanced over at me quickly.

"Yes, I am" I told him honestly, "Please don't hurt him. This is about you and me. This has nothing to do with Kip."

"He's a son, this has everything to do with him" The gun went off before I could even form a word. The bullet sliced into Half-Sack's chest and he instantly went down, holding his hand to the wound that was bleeding rapidly and I gasped, holding my own hand to my mouth and then dropped down to my knees beside him to help.

The hot steel of the gun pressed against the side of my head and I closed my eyes to stop the tears. "It's okay" I whispered down to my friend, "It's okay, you're going to be okay." But he wasn't, he was dead seconds later and his blood was all over my hands.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked Dominic who leaned down and wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me tightly against the front of him. "You know Jax is going to be here at any minute."

"Well my sweet princess, we won't be here. Come on" He said as he dragged me along with him, his gun still pressed to the side of my head as we slipped out the back door and into a red beat up ford focus. He made me sit in the driver's seat and he quickly scrambled into the seat behind me; keeping the gun pressed against the seat at my back while I started up the car.

"Where are we going, Dominic?" I asked him as my hands shook on the steering wheel as I tried to stay calm while my stomach turned over and over.

"Just keep driving sweetheart, we have a full tank of gas to waste," He said to me as he leaned against the seat and moved the gun to press against my side, "And don't even think about trying to crash and ditch me; you'll be dead just like your best friend."

"If you wanted me dead, you would have killed me by now," I managed out and then he pressed the end of the gun into my ribs roughly and I jerked the steering wheel from the pain.

"Do you wanna test that theory of yours, Abigail?" I pulled behind a car at a red light, and glanced over at the driver beside us. If only I could grab someone's attention…

Once we were out of Charming and in Stockton, he made me pull over near the docks of the Pacific Ocean. We sat in the car for nine minutes before finally he got out of the car with a loud huff of breath and then tugged the driver's seat door open. "Get out," Dominic said down at me as he shoved his gun into the pocket of the hoodie he was wearing. He tugged up the hood once again to cover his tanned and bearded face. Once I stood up, he wrapped his hand around my upper arm and shoved the car door closed while dragging me alongside him down the steps of the docks.

"Dom-"

"Shut up," He grumbled out as his fingers tightened around my arm. Where the hell was he taking me? Was he just going to kill me and toss my body into the ocean? I looked down at where the gun was in his hoodie pocket and took in a deep breath as he walked down the last set of stairs. If he was planning on killing me, then he'd have to kill me while I put up a fight for my life.

I reached over with my free hand quickly grabbed the butt-end of the gun and pulled the trigger four times once I got the gun out of his pocket. I pulled the trigger again at his chest but nothing, there was no ammo and he had set up the whole thing. It was so clear and I had fallen for it.

"You really think I'm that stupid?" He asked with a shake of his head. When he hand let my arm go, I bolted off into a run down the long set of wooden docks. The gun that he had killed Kip with only had one bullet in it for a reason; but I knew the gun that he had tucked away in the back of his blue jeans was fully loaded.

He was running after me; his boots thumped against the wood at a quicker pace and I knew the only way that I could probably escape was to jump into the water so that's exactly what I did. The water was bone chilling as I came up to the surface and started to swim as fast as my body would allow. "The fact that you think I'm not two steps ahead of you is ridiculous, Abigail!" He called as I continued to swim, not looking back in fear of him being there.

The sound of a boat starting up made my heart sink because I knew that escaping him wasn't an option at all. He thought of everything. He pulled the small boat up next to me and reached over and grabbed a fistful of my hair to make me stop and he started to pull me up by my roots until I finally gave him my arm. Once I was securely in the boat, he pushed me down onto the floor with my gun that Jax had given to me, trained right at my head. He crouched down to eye level and turned my face up to look at him.

"You do one more thing to try and escape, a bullet is going through your leg; you got it?" He asked me and then pressed the end of the gun against my thigh roughly and I cringed while nodding. "Use your words, Abigail."

"Yes… Yes I get it," I bit out as I shivered. He pulled the gun away from me and shoved it back into the back of his jeans, then grabbed a blanket from under one of the seat covers and tossed it to me.

"Now stay there and keep quiet," I nodded as I quickly wrapped the thermal blanket around my cold body.

"I'm…" I stuttered out after ten minutes of him driving. I was so cold that my teeth couldn't stop chattering and what was making it worse was the harsh wind whipping at my exposed skin because the blanket wasn't big enough.

We finally arrived at our destination a few minutes later and he tied the boat to the new set of docks and then grabbed my hand to pull me to my feet. "Do you need help there, sir?" A man asked from the other side of the boat.

"We're good, the wife decided to take a dip. But you're alright, sweetheart; aren't you?" Dominic asked me as he wrapped his arm around my waist while rubbing roughly at my soaked back.

"F-Fine," I stuttered out and then Dominic slouched down and picked me up bridal style to get over the edge of the boat and onto solid ground.

"We'll get you all toasty warm back at the house, thanks again" He called back to the stranger. Dominic didn't let me go until we were in the parking lot and he leaned me up against a car so he could break into it. I could feel my body going into shutdown mode which just meant that I was getting a case of hypothermia, "No, no, you're fine," Dominic said to me as he got the car unlocked and slid me into the backseat.

"I'm… so…. cold…" I chattered out between my shaking jaw as he wrapped the blanket around me a big tighter and then pulled a bandana from his pack pocket and started to put it around my head to cover my vision. "Stop," I whimpered.

"I'm doing this for your own good, getting you away from the Sons is going to be the best thing someone has ever done for you, princess. You'll be thanking me once we get home, you will," He said to me and then pressed his lips against my frozen mouth.

He pushed my legs into the backseat more before slamming the door shut and getting into the driver's seat. It took him a few times to hotwire the car but eventually he got it and pulled out of the parking lot. He was saying words like 'Home' and 'Wife' as if it was true. This sick and twisted fantasy that he had come up with in his head was playing out in front of him and he was enjoying it immensely.

He drove for a couple minutes and then shut the car off and slowly started to pull me out of the backseat. I was picked up off of my feet once again and when the air changed, I knew we were inside of a building. "You're going to love it here, Abigail. I made everything how you would have imagined it…" He said as he put me down onto a soft surface that was a bed and finally took the blindfold off of me. As my eyes adjusted to the bright room around me, I noticed how similar it looked to my room back in Mississippi.

"Dom…" I started to say

"I know, I know… I couldn't find the exact color of the walls but this was the closest thing to sky blue that they had at the store. It doesn't look bad, you like it right?" Dominic asked as he looked around at the bedroom and pressed a hand to the wall.

"Why are you…? What is going on?" I asked him. I was so confused at everything that was going on.

"You don't like it, do you? God fucking dammit! I knew I should have grabbed the lighter shade," He went off on himself and I shied back on the bed. "No, no baby I wasn't yelling at you," He said as he turned towards me while calming himself down. "I just want you to like it here and I thought maybe making this room like the one you grew up in would help you adjust."

"How did you know what it looked like?" Dominic opened up a drawer on the dresser and pulled out a folder and handed it to me. Inside were photos of me as a child inside of my old room, photos I didn't think I would ever see again.

"I'll let you look through those and get some rest, alright? We have a long day tomorrow and maybe if you're up for it, you can have a visitor," I looked up at him from the photographs.

"A visitor?" I asked him and he nodded while pulling his hoodie off.

"She's been dying to see you for a while now and when I told her that I was finally going to get you, she was excited beyond words. But you two can only see each other tomorrow if you're good, no more of that running away from me shit, alright?" I nodded slowly, trying to figure out what he was getting on about a girl who wanted to see me. "Goodnight my sweet princess," He said as he closed the door and I heard the lock flip into place.

I quickly got up from the bed, shoving the folder of photos to the side to scatter along the red carpet floor. Getting to the window, I looked outside and tried to pull it up but it was completely jammed. Looking back at the door, I took in a deep breath and then looked back outside of the window. He had gone through so much trouble to make up this room exactly how I remembered it, there was no way he was going to kill me right away… at least that's what I hoped. But I couldn't risk it, I thought as I pressed a hand to my lower stomach, for my unborn babies sake, I had to survive by following Dominic's rules.