Promising Young Women | Sons of Anarchy Fanfiction | Jax Teller x OC

Chapter Nineteen: Wildest Dreams - Part Two

Saturday, 3:48 pm

"I'm tellin' ya, brother," Bobby blew out a heavy sigh as he dropped a stack of paperwork onto the table. "This shit has been goin' on for years. Literal years."

And goddammit, that's what he'd been afraid of.

Jax knew Oswald had been running this game and pulling this kind of depraved shit in their town this way for longer than just when they'd signed off on the development deal three years ago, and now they had the proof, right at their fingertips. It didn't start with these apartments - Oswald had just seen a golden opportunity to be more organized and more efficient with his sex trafficking ring, and he'd had taken that opportunity and run with it.

"Do you think he knew?" Jax murmured, running a hand over his face because the longer this day went on, the worse it got.

Bobby shifted anxiously with his hands on his hips, and he shot Juice a quick glance from over the top of Jax's head. "Do I think who knew?"

Jax unearthed his face from his hands only so he could narrow his eyes at his club secretary. "You know exactly who I'm talking about. Do you think he knew, Bobby?"

"Hey, I don't know any more than you do," Bobby's hands flew up in the air defensively and he even shuffled back a few paces to put some space between them. "If he did, he sure as shit never said anything to me. Definitely never said anything to Tig either - I know he wasn't exactly doin' and sayin' the things he shoulda been with Dani, but I'd like to believe that if he'd known, Tig never woulda let her live in those apartments. If Clay knew, Jax, he kept it from the club."

He shook his head bitterly at the way this whole thing had shaken out. Oswald and the club's former president went way back - too far back. Between all the underhanded, dirty side wheeling and dealing Clay had done behind the club's back during his reign, there was just no goddamn way he'd never caught wind of it at some point. He'd obviously decided to use it as leverage against Oswald to keep that development deal from happening.

And that meant Clay had zero problems with Oswald using and abusing women around town and women in their clubhouse if it meant he got what he wanted in the end.

"You know, I always wondered what kinda pull he had over Oswald to keep a guy like that from breaking ground on all this shit up here in North Charming," Jax pushed out a rough sigh, scrubbing another hand over his face just because he couldn't take this anymore. "And maybe this was it. And then here I show up, stupid and naive, with no idea what the hell kinda shit Oswald and our former prez were up to, and I just sign everything away and give that sonuvabitch literally everything he wanted without asking the hard questions. All 'cuz I wanted the pay-out."

Opie dropped a hand on his shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. "Nobody knew, Jax. In the moment, it felt like the right call. We all voted, we all agreed, so we all signed that deal too, brother. It wasn't just you."

"I wish that made me feel better, bro, but it really doesn't."

Deep down, they all knew the truth: Clay had been very aware of what his buddy was up to, and he'd allowed it to continue just to have something to hold over Oswald's head when he needed it. And when push came to shove, the club had chosen money over decency. Their greed and their desperation had blinded them. There were plenty of other ways they could've gotten the cash they needed to get Red Woody off the ground, but those ways would've taken longer - so they'd taken the easy way out.