A/N: Bella's point of view! Let me know what you're thinking. :)
As always - thanks so much for reading!
Chapter 7
The manner in which the three guys had left the conference room had kept the three of us in stunned silence. We weren't even sure what had set them all off.
After Alice ignorantly waived her right to a fucking attorney, Rose and I had little choice but to follow suit so we had started telling them what they wanted to know.
Apparently something they had thought they wanted to know turned out to be something they didn't want to know at all. We had told them everything from the point of arriving in New York City up until the club – just like they wanted us to tell them. But as soon as I had mentioned the job offer, they all immediately freaked out.
They started pacing the room, or in Edward's case, pulling at his gorgeous hair, and then Emmett stopped suddenly and in a harsh voice that scared the shit out of me, ordered the other two to follow him. They left the room, shutting the door behind them, and walked across the office.
We couldn't hear a damn thing but we could see them and it didn't look like they were discussing sports.
It was definitely an argument of sorts because hand gestures that demonstrate frustration and anger were rapidly being thrown around from all directions.
"It's too fucking late for this bullshit." Rose sighed as the three of us continued to stare out the windows of the conference room to the three fuckhot DEA agents.
"I just want to go to sleep. It's 4 in the damn morning." Alice said.
"What do you think they're talking about?" I asked looking towards my friends for the first time since the boys had left the room.
"No idea but I know that if they don't hurry up and end their bickering, I'm just going to get up and leave. See if they stop me." Rose snorted.
"Oh they can stop you and they will stop you. I promise you that. We have warrants out…"
"But they've questioned us and we've told them everything we know." Alice interrupted.
"Well yeah but until they decide we're no longer persons of interest, they can hold us." I said turning my attention back to the three men who were still arguing.
We turned quiet again and focused back on the men in the hallway. It was another 10 or so minutes before the silence was broken again, this time by Alice.
"You know what I don't understand?"
"How someone could wear white after Labor Day and think it truly is okay." I sarcastically said earning a chuckled from Rose and a death glare from Alice.
"You know that's a sensitive subject to me." She huffed. "No what I don't understand is that the murder happened in New York City, right? So why did a New York DEA agent transfer out to LA? Surly not just for us? They could have had the LA guys pick us up and send us back to New York, but no. Edward came to LA and now we're being questioned here instead of the state where the murder happened."
The pixie had made an interesting point. Why hadn't they just had Emmett and Jasper pick us up? Why had they sent Edward out after us? We weren't good suspects. It didn't make sense for us to be the murders and I'm pretty sure at least Edward knew we hadn't killed anyone. In that mindset, we were only witnesses and just under questioning so why send a New York agent across the country for us?
There was something deeper going on that we weren't privy to. Something that somehow involved us.
"Something's going on and I'm gonna find out what it is." I said as I stood up from my seat.
"Where are you going?" Rose asked as she stood up too.
"Talk to the assholes and find out what's really going on here."
As I headed out of the conference room towards the boys, I wasn't at all surprised to find Rose and Alice behind me. I was surprised that I was the one actually willing to confront them.
As we approached the boys, they were so engrossed in their argument that they had no clue we were even approaching. The closer we got the more evident it became that the conversation was definitely a heated discussion.
And from the half of a sentence we heard, it was about us.
"…not going in…they're not trained!" Edward growled.
"What other choice do we have?" Emmett responded, obviously frustrated.
"What about the fact that everyone who goes against him ends up…" Jasper said but cut off as soon as he saw the three of us.
"Ends up what?" Alice asked.
None of them responded. In fact they all instantly looked like little boys who were caught by their mothers doing something they weren't supposed to be. They dropped their heads and began fiddling with their fingers, and absolutely refused to look us in the eyes. Any of us.
"Who ends up what?" Rose said through clenched teeth.
"Alright…so we told you our story…I believe it is time that the three of you start talking. Clearly something is going on and it involves us somehow. I believe we have the right to know." Alice said.
Edward looked to his left towards Jasper and then to his right at Emmett before nodding his head and taking a deep breath.
"Maybe we should all go back into the conference room and discuss the situation we seem to have found ourselves in."
"Ya think?" The three of us said before turning around and heading back to the conference room.
As we walked backed, I tried to come up with an explanation for everything. I tried to figure out what we were going to be faced with next.
The problem was I couldn't get the look on Edward's face out of my head. I would probably never be able to forget it. He looked so torn. He looked absolutely miserable.
The green of eyes was dimmer than it had been just hours earlier in the SUV. He was waging a war internally and for some fucking crazy reason, it made me feel absolutely useless not being able to help him.
I knew the second I saw him in the hallway outside of our apartment, I was going to have a problem on my hands. Edward was going to cause me some sort of pain. I just could tell it.
And when he and the others began regaling us with the details of James Denali and the drug scene that we had somehow found ourselves in the middle of, it was confirmed that I was right.
I…we were in a huge amount of trouble.
We not only witnessed the murder of Peter and five others in New York, we had witnessed the murder allegedly committed by James Denali. We then managed to aligned ourselves with the same guy on the opposite side of the country and get him to offer us jobs in his club.
A club which is a legal front to his drug operations. A club which the guys seem to think is where he moves some of his product.
We had some shitty luck that's for sure.
Inadvertently we had put ourselves in the perfect position to work as assets for the DEA.
"We have a leak." Jasper said.
"A leak?" Rose asked.
"Someone within the agency is on Denali's payroll. I had flipped Wilcox less than 24 hours before Denali gunned him down. We hadn't even had time to setup surveillance on his apartment." Edward said.
"And then here, we had a tip that Denali had moved back to LA and was no longer in NYC. A day later, the guy who tipped us and his girlfriend disappeared." Emmett said.
"Did they work at Noir?" I asked.
"I would have to pull the file on the tip, but I believe after they disappeared, we dug deeper and found that he was a bartender and she was a waitress."
"And that would be why they're now short staffed." I mumbled.
"So a leak? Basically if we go undercover for you guys, we'll be dead as soon as the paperwork is filed for the undercover operation." Alice said.
"Pretty much. Which is why I think it is absolutely out of the question." Jasper said looking only at Alice.
"But I think we have no choice but to put you three in place inside Denali's operations. Let you get close to him. We have to take him down. No matter what…" Emmett stupidly said.
"So us dying would just be par for the course then." Rose said narrowing her eyes at Emmett.
"Yes…no! No! Not par for the course. We have a job to do…we have to take him down by any means necessary. I'm not happy about the route we have to take, trust me…not happy about it all…" He said as he eyed Rose then winked at her.
"And Agent Cullen…what seems to be the battle going on inside of your brain?" I asked.
"Um well…I agree with Emmett that we really need to get you in undercover, but I'm refusing to ask you to do it. And I'm definitely not in agreement on putting the operation on the books."
"I'm confused." The three of us said.
"I don't want you to go in and therefore I'm not going to ask you to do it. If this operation somehow happens…" he said as he eyed Emmett evilly, "I'm on the side of the argument that we don't actually report it to our bosses and we do the whole thing ourselves. We run it completely under the table."
"But if we do that and something happens, you'll just be three more victims of Denali. We won't be able to acknowledge your work on the case. You'll be nameless victims." Jasper said.
"You're doing a shitty job convincing us to do this for you." I said.
"I'm not trying to." Edward said.
"I am. Look…here's the cold hard truth. If we do what we're supposed to do, you're going to be held for a while. After that, you're going to be given a choice…either go in undercover or be put in the witness protection program. If this happens, you'll be in our system. The guy or girl on Denali's payroll will hand over your information and you'll be dead." Emmett said while pacing nervously. "I don't want you guys to go in either, but…and as ass backwards as it sounds…you going in undercover with only the three of us knowing, is your best chance in the situation you've somehow managed to get yourselves in."
I hated it, but if Emmett was telling the truth he was right. I knew that if they truly did have a leak in the agency then us being put in witness protection by them was the last thing we needed. If James ever found out that three of us were in that apartment in New York, we were going to end up just like Peter.
Our luck just seemed to be getting worse.
Pretty much no matter what we did, we were taking a chance with our lives.
"Just how dangerous is James?" Rose asked.
"He's nasty. He is the biggest distributer of cocaine on the west coast…and making a pretty decent bid for the title on the east coast." Jasper said.
"He's south of the boarder too. He's a smart person and business man unfortunately. He covers his tracks well and it has made it impossible for us to tie him directly to anything illegal. He's killed more than just the three we've told you about and we're sure if given the chance, he do anything that served his ultimate goal." Edward said.
"I told you his eyes were evil." Alice whispered.
"We really don't have a choice." Rose said looking at me.
"It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like we might be the only solution." I said back to her before looking at Edward. "It's pretty sad that with all your training and all your resources, you have to rely on three girls."
"So we're going this?" Alice asked.
"Yeah we'll do this." Rose and I answered.
"We're not asking you to…" Jasper said.
"Yes you are, you're just not saying the actual words. We don't have a choice. We either die on his terms or we give ourselves a slight advantage." Alice said.
"We have to give him our response by Friday night. Is it too optimistic to hope for some sort of plan by then?" I asked.
"No. Let's all head home and then we'll meet up later to form a plan of some sort." Emmett said as the three of them began to walk out of the conference room.
It was like us girls all thought the same thing at the same time. We turned to each other with raised eyebrows before turning back to the retreating forms of the boys.
"We need a ride home." Alice said putting her hands on her hips. "Remember? You arrested us outside of our apartment door at 3 o'clock this morning."
They stopped walking and turned around to face us.
"We know. Just figured you'd follow us out." Edward shrugged. "Come on ladies."
Apparently when not working, Emmett is a chatterbox. He talked non-stop the whole way back to our apartment but not about anything we cared about. He just went on and on about nothing. It was like he was purposely avoiding talking about the only thing the six of us had to talk about.
James Denali.
By the time we got back to our apartment building it was almost 6 in the morning. We directed Jasper to pull into the garage and towards the elevator so we could just go straight up and to our door.
The boys insisted on walking with us though, which seemed stupid but it was pointless to argue with them. That much was made evident when Edward threw an absolute fit and started all but yelling at us when we tried to say goodbye at the car. He was spouting bullshit about making sure we made inside the apartment safe.
We still hadn't made a definite plan on when to get together so when we got upstairs to our door, we invited them.
Not that we had much to offer them there. No place to sit. Nothing to drink, but it was 6 in the morning and we just wanted to get an idea of what they were thinking for later in the day.
"Where the hell is all your stuff?" Emmett boomed.
"In a truck waiting for delivery sometime tomorrow afternoon." Rose said.
"We just moved here, remember? You've been tracking us so I know you know that." I said eyeing Edward. "By the way, we have a ton of questions there."
"Can't really talk about." Edward said.
"But you're gonna." Alice grinned.
"You guys can't sleep here tonight." Jasper said.
"And where do you suggest we sleep then?" Alice said seductively causing the boy poor to stutter and start fiddling with his hand.
"We're fine here. We just need to know when and where you want to meet us to go over a plan…or form a plan." I said.
"We'll call you tomorrow. Since you're expecting deliveries we'll come back to you." Edward said as the three of them headed back towards the door.
"Don't you need our number?" Rose asked.
"Oh we have it already…well Edward has Isabella's number anyways." Emmett dismissively said. "Probably memorized." He mumbled but not very quietly.
"It's my job." Edward quickly added but with the smirks from Jasper and Emmett it was obvious something else was going on.
"Okay so Rosalie, Alice, Isabella…" Edward said as they inched closer to the door.
"Okay we gotta stop that bullshit right there." Rose laughed.
"Huh?" All three of them said.
"Rosalie and Isabella? Too formal." She laughed.
"Must have been reading our files." I smiled. "Call us Rose and Bella. Alice is Ali usually…or Pixie Bitch or Fashion Nazi…or…"
"Ha…ha…ha. Very funny." Alice said rolling her eyes at me as I opened the door for the boys and they walked through it.
"Good night." Rose, Alice, and I said to them.
"Good morning." Jasper grinned before the three of them took off back towards the elevators.
As soon as they disappeared from our sight, Rose closed the door and then sighed dreamily.
"Oh no." Alice said.
"I know that they're risking our lives for their careers, but Emmett is so fucking sexy. Those tattoos and those muscles…and the dimples…"
"We get it. You think he's hot." Alice laughed.
"You have no room to talk missy. You were drooling all over that southern gentleman." I said as I pulled a blanket and pillow from one of our shopping bags. "I thought you were gonna just jump him when he first put those handcuffs on you."
"I wanted to. Mental note that Jasper Whitlock and handcuffs is a must after we settle this whole drug dealer murderer thing."
"Slut!" I laughed.
"Oh yeah? What about Copper Top?" Rose asked wiggling her eyebrows at me. "Can't tell me you didn't have dirty thoughts about Agent Cullen."
"The man shouldn't be allowed to leave his house. He's just indecent."
That got a few chuckles from the girls, but ultimately we passed out within minutes of laying down in the living room.
It wasn't an easy sleep though. We all tossed and turned the whole night. My dreams were dark and scary and I woke multiple times with a start, trying to catch my breath. I knew it was only the beginning of what was to be expected for the foreseeable future.
From the moment we agreed to go undercover, we waived our right to a stress free life.
I really wanted to call my father and get his opinion, but I knew I couldn't do that. I knew that pretty much all contact with my parents was done until this whole situation cleared itself up.
There was a bunch of aspects and things that I'm sure we hadn't thought of at that point and none of it was good I was sure of it.
Part of me was extremely pissed at Rose for making us leave New York City and eventually putting us in the position we were in, but the other part of me knew that if it hadn't been for Rose we probably would have been dead already due to the leak in the DEA. Instead we were now basically under the protection of three men who seemed like they'd protect us to the death if need be – which they'd probably have to do at some point during this operation.
