Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephanie Myer does. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

"Fuck, Jacob, a little help please I have to open the shop today. Can you get Nessa to Charlie's since you can't seem to keep your own daughter on your day off? Hell, its Sunday I'm only down at Ink & Steel for four hours, what the hell is so goddamn important?"

"Damn it Bella, I told you I have shit to do. You're her mother you take care of her, that's what mothers do. Why not just take her with you? I'm going to be out all night so get off it, I'm out. Bye!"

"God you're impossible."

Grrr… I hate Jacob sometimes, sorry; make that most times as of late, something is going on and I can't quite figure it out. I know he's hiding shit, but haven't figured out what yet. Oh well, doesn't matter; right now I'm running late, Laurent is going to kill me. We have an expo to prepare for next weekend, and I still have to drop Nessa off. Normally, I wouldn't mind taking her into the shop with me, but not today I have too many clients and a tattoo shop really isn't any place for a 6-year-old child to be hanging out all day, so we resort to plan B, call Papa Swan on the way and have him meet me at the shop.

Charlie is my dad, he's chief of police here in the birth place of grunge and I having been a product of the 80s raised in the 90s definitely gave him a run for his money, but it also has it's perks, being the chief's kid and all. One; I usually get out of speeding tickets and two; they hardly ever pull me over in the first place. They all know my car; it's not hard to miss. I mean not everyone drives a 2012 Boss 302 Mustang with a black gun metal paint job and a custom phoenix airbrushed across the hood, which is an exact replica to the phoenix on my back. For instance this morning I was pushing a buck twenty down the highway to downtown and not one officer pulled me over, I know I shouldn't being a target and all with my car, but what the hell you only live once right. Even if they were to chase me they wouldn't catch me, not with my supped up 5.0 engine and Pirelli racing tires, plus I don't usually speed I save it for the local drag strip under the proper supervision of professionals and medical personnel.

Like I said Laurent was going to kill me, but luckily, Papa Swan beat me there to get Nessa. Laurent ended up having to open for me, which didn't make him all too happy and I already had a client at my station. I said my thanks and goodbye's to Nessa and Charlie. Charlie had decided to keep Nessa overnight and take her to school in the morning to give me some chill time. With Jacob being gone tonight it'll give me a chance to hit the strip and open my baby up, it's a good release fast cars and big engines. I took care of all my appointments and managed to get done early so Laurent let me go home. I got home only to find Jacob home after saying he couldn't keep Nessa because he was going to be out all day, so me being me, I confronted Jacob.

"Hey babe, I thought you were out all day."

"Yeah, well things changed; and I thought you worked until four, it's only three."

"Yeah well things changed, I finished early and I have a lot to do here to get ready. Laurent and I are leaving on Wednesday to drive to Los Angeles and Charlie's keeping Nessa tonight so I can go down and hit the strip."

Jacob doesn't like me going to the strip; he always thinks I'm cheating on him if I'm not at home. His theory is that woman have no place around cars, but I do all my own work, and that I only do it to gain the attention of other men, that's how he claims I roped him in back in high school, but that's another story. Hell, Jacob even hates the fact that I work, but someone has to do it, because if I left provisions up to him we'd be homeless in a week.

"Bella, you know how I feel about you going out, your place is here tending to me and Nessa"

"What the FUCK, you have got to be kidding me, what the hell has gotten into you. I swear ever since Nessa started school and I've gone back to the shop working fulltime; your brain has been seriously fucked up. You only work three days at the garage doing fucking oil changes, even I get more face time under the hood of a car than you do, on top of that you're never home. You know I'm beginning to wonder if it weren't for the fact that Nessa looks so much like you I swear you'd forget what your daughter even looked like, because God knows you've got nothing to do with her anymore, Jesus Christ Jacob, what has gotten into you, that little girl needs her daddy, she misses you, she is daddy's little girl and she thinks that her daddy has forgotten all about her."

"Yeah well if her mommy would be the wife and mother she's supposed to be I'd be home more often, geez Bella, give me a reason to come home."

"Wow Jacob, you're for real aren't you. I work six days a week to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, while still here to get Nessa off to school in the morning and put her to bed at night. I even have dinner waiting for you when you decide to come home. I do everything. I'm that little girl's mother and father, if it weren't for what I do you'd have nothing. I do everything you need a wife to do and I'm not even your wife, for which I'm all too ecstatic about."

"Whatever Bella, you don't do shit. I'm out of here"

With that, Jake left. Had I known he wasn't going to come back before I left for L.A., I would have broken his jaw. I called Charlie to let him know what was going on with Jake and he offered, no more like demanded, that I let Nessa stay with him until I get back next week. I agreed because who can argue with a screaming kid who insists on staying with Papa.

Laurent and I loaded up and drove my mustang down to L.A. for the expo. When we got there, things were calmer than I thought they'd be for an L.A. expo, so I took off to look around and see who all was here this year. I talked shop with a few other artists I was acquainted with and got a new piercing, I decided on my septum because I don't have much room left in my face after my snake bites, labret, nose, Monroe, and three in my eyebrow, plus Jakey poo hates facial piercing so what the hell? I had a few shop owners come up to the booth offering me spots for a month or two, but of course being loyal to Laurent I turned them down. Laurent gave me my break, he found me broken and dejected after my mom Renee died, I had just been rejected from the art schools I had applied to due to no finances, plus I had just found out I was pregnant with Nessa. He took me in and taught me the trade and gave me a shot, that was seven years ago and I've never thought of leaving. Laurent has done a lot for me; I couldn't betray him like that. I had a lot of clients that weekend and did a lot of ink, but I hadn't realized how big my name really was both as a tattoo artist and an airbrush artist, it was an eye opening experience to say the least, it was then that I realized I wouldn't be stuck in Seattle for the rest of my life.

As all things often go when you're at your best something will always bring you down and that it did. Two days before the expo was over Laurent received a phone call from Charlie saying that the shop was broken into and vandalized and that our presence was needed immediately, so Laurent booked a flight and I took him to LAX while I drove back, he owned the shop he needed to take care of it, I really shouldn't need to be there. I called Laurent when I got back to Seattle and told him that I was going to go home to get a shower and change and then I'd be over to the shop, he agreed and I hung up just as I was pulling onto my street and noticed that Jacob was home, I hadn't seen him in over a week so I thought it was odd that he was here, but as I grew nearer to the house, I noticed another car that looked oddly familiar, but very out of place, it was the car of his best friend Sam's girlfriend and they usually take Sam's car, but Sam has been banned from the house after the last incident involving alcohol and Charlie being called. I pulled into the driveway and walked up the walkway pulling my keys out on the way, but when I went to unlock the door I noticed it was already unlocked, huh, that's strange, Jacob is too paranoid to leave the house unlocked no matter if someone is home or not. I didn't hear anything going on in the house so I called out for Jacob, still no answer, so I headed up the room to see if he was sleeping or in the shower or something, but I couldn't find Leah either, so maybe they just met up here and went out with Sam in his car, it's happened before. As I came up the stairs to my bedroom door I heard rustling in the room so I figured Jacob was sleeping. I slipped in quietly so not to wake him, but he wasn't sleeping at all and I received the biggest surprise of my life, Jacob was fucking Leah in MY bed, not the guest bed or his bed, but MY bed, the bed that I purchased for US. Apparently they were deep in the troughs of passion because they didn't even notice that I had entered the room until I pulled Leah out from under Jake and started to beat the shit out of her. I didn't do it for sleeping with my boyfriend, but for being my supposed best friend and sleeping with my boyfriend. Jacob was too stunned to do anything. He just sat back on his heels gaping at me while I beat her into unconsciousness and as if someone turned on the light switch in his brain he started to say something, which I noticed out of the corner of my eye, but before he could say anything I punched him so hard I think I broke his jaw. I then kicked them both out of the room and threw their clothes out of the bedroom window so they'd have to go out naked to retrieve them. To say I was surprised he was cheating on me would be a lie, the real surprise is that my best friend Leah was telling me about how amazing her new boyfriend is in bed knowing that said boyfriend was my boyfriend and father of my child, now that hurt.

An hour later I was on my way back to the shop, but was surprised to find Charlie sitting there waiting and the shop still closed, but upon walking in I understood why, across the back wall Bella Swan is a slut was spray painted in big red letters. To me that was odd because I don't have enemies at least not until today but this happened two days ago. I told Charlie what I found when I got home and what I did so that my dad could work his magic and do clean up like he usually does when I overreact in these types of situations, but what I wasn't prepared for was Charlie saying that Jacob did it. Jacob trashed the shop because he thought I was running off with my boss. Well now, we know why he always thought I was cheating. Charlie and Laurent did the best they could to calm me down and to stop me from hunting him down and killing him, they both convinced me to move in with Charlie and sell the house that I had bought. Charlie went to the house to get mine and Nessa's stuff while Laurent and I headed to the court house to file and emergency custody hearing to get full custody of Nessa after Jacob's violent outburst and infidelity, which luckily was granted for first thing tomorrow morning. When we got back to Charlie's he told me that he picked Jacob up and he has court tomorrow morning after the custody hearing that he will be attending.

The custody hearing went just as I thought it would I was awarded full custody with no visitation as he would be incarcerated for the breaking and entering and criminal mischief charges. I decided that since I was there I might as well go to the criminal hearing to see what his sentencing would be. Jacob received 18 months in county lock up, one year of probation following his stint in lock up, 180 hours of community service, and anger management. Because Leah was an accomplice to the crime, a no contact order was issued for her. Nessa's not too happy, she misses Jacob, but it had to be done, he'd only destroy her later.

Things had settled and Nessa and I were staying with Charlie. I'd already gotten a bid on the house and Laurent was able to get the shop fixed in only a weekend, so we were back in business. Nessa was adjusting better than I thought she would and she stopped crying as much, things were looking up. A week after everything happened I got a phone call from Emmett Cullen the owner of Cullen Ink, Los Angeles' hottest, busiest, most in demand tattoo shop offering me a permanent station at his shop, I would have a private room, 75% commission, and housing until I find a place which shouldn't be too hard. It was a good offer, a damn good offer, an offer worth considering, I felt bad for even considering it because I felt like I was betraying Laurent, but I told Emmett I'd think about it and talk to my shop owner and see what we can come up with because we'd need to find a replacement for me. Emmett agreed and I told him I'd know before the end of the week. I spoke to Laurent the next day when I went in and told him about the offer. Laurent surprised me when he said he was okay with it, but he said it was time to fly free,

"Bella, baby you given me seven great years here and I've got James coming to town, I can always talk to him and see if he'd want to take over your station. Honey, with everything you've just been through, change is good. This is an opportunity at a fresh start, a reset button of sorts."

"Thanks, that means so much to me coming from you"

"Yeah no problem, plus I'm ok with losing you to Cullen, he's a good man, and he'll treat you right, and take good care of you."

"God, you act like I'm going to be moving in with my boyfriend or getting married."

"Well, my baby's leaving home to go out on her own in the big bad world with another man; it breaks daddy's heart,"

Laurent, at this point was faking a sob, but I think he really was getting teary-eyed.

"Awe… Laurent you know I'll be home for the holidays."

With that, we exchanged a few more laughs before I left to go home, call Emmett, and start packing. It's time to say good-bye to Seattle and hello to Los Angeles. This is a good thing a good ending to such a tumultuous chapter of my life and now I'm starting over.