Fly By Night | Sons of Anarchy Fanfiction | Jax Teller x OC

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Based on the concerning business practices outlined in this report, I cannot recommend that Samcro move forward with this business partnership. It is in Samcro's best interest to end negotiations, and revoke any preconceived and accepted verbal agreements between the two parties, effective immediately. As Samcro's end goal is to expand its interests within the community, continuing negotiations with Dominic King and The Crown Jewel, LLC will have a significantly negative business and interpersonal impact on those efforts."

Well, if that wasn't lawyer-ing, then he didn't know what was.

Jax flipped the report closed with a smirk and set his pen down. He'd already read through it three times already, just to make sure he had a full grasp of the main findings, and then, on the fourth read, he'd started circling and underlining those points so he didn't forget them later.

The club's lawyer had been clear, direct, and efficiently blunt about her findings, as well as her analysis of those findings. To him, at least, this seemed like a no-brainer. However, he knew who else was sitting at that table, and he had a pretty good idea where some of them were already going to land on this - with or without Allie's detailed reporting. He needed to have his arguments ready, and he was almost there.

Having combed through Allie's report on her audit of Cara Cara months ago, he'd known she was efficient and painstakingly thorough, but he kinda got the feeling she'd gone the extra mile, taking more time than she normally would have to really make sure it was clear. He couldn't have been more grateful for that because he was going to need all the help he was going to get.

And, he had a sinking feeling that even if the old lady conversation wasn't brought up at the table today by someone else, he was going to have to do it himself.

Jax just didn't see a way out of it. Not with the nature of this particular deal and the type of things Allie had dug up. He had to make sure the club was clear that while Allie was his old lady now, he was taking her advice because she was their lawyer and the advice she was giving them was the right advice. Because it was good advice they'd be stupid not to heed. Not because she was his old lady and didn't want him anywhere near that strip club and what went on inside it. He had to be absolutely clear about that, and the only way to do that was to give them all the facts.

If he didn't, and it got out after the fact, regardless of where the vote landed, he was going to find himself in some pretty deep shit with them for a long time. Allie would too - and that was the last thing he wanted. He was already going to be in the shit with them the way it was when they found out and keeping it close to his chest during this particular vote would only make it worse.

He gave everyone another half hour - they'd already been sitting with Allie's report for three hours, and he figured they'd had just about long enough. What they needed to do was talk all this through, to see where everyone landed, and he had a bad feeling he might not be able to swing the votes to get this off the table once and for all.

After that half hour, everyone shuffled inside the chapel with Allie's report in hand. A few of them, he noted, like Chibs and Juice had practically worn the pages down, with the report rolled up in their hands. And for others, like Piney and Tig, their reports looked like they'd barely been opened. Which did not bode well for the conversation that was to come.

He figured he already knew where Opie and Bobby would land. Piney and Tig, too. It was everyone else, though, that he just wasn't so sure about.

And as he gripped the gavel in his hand and raised it up to call church to start, Jax braced himself. He'd mentally prepared himself for this moment all weekend. In fact, part of him was kinda surprised it hadn't come up before now. Piney had certainly thrown enough dirty looks his way. Juice, too. And given what Allie had said about Juice before she left T-M's lot earlier today, he might have to do a little more digging to find out what, exactly, Juice had said to her to make her that uncomfortable - if he had to have a conversation with Juice about that, he would.