So here we will find the truth! *Don't I sound all dramatic? Hehe*

There will be a big author's not at the bottom, it's sort of important.

Chapter 10 - Truth Behind the Lies

The Pentagon - Washington D.C.

4:48PM EST

EPOV

"Dad?" Bella asked.

I felt like some kind of old cartoon character right now, whipping my head back and forth between Charlie and Bella. If I didn't watch it I would give myself whiplash. Then where would I be?

Charlie somehow managed to look both commanding and sheepish at the same time. I hadn't even realized that was possible. I was pretty sure I saw relief mixed in there as well. Bella's expression seemed to keep jumping between confusion, joy, anger, and pure shock.

I rose from my chair, because even though I had known Charlie for next to forever, he was still a general and that was what I was supposed to do.

I glanced around the rest of the table and saw that Alice, and Jacob were also surprised, while the rest just looked confused. For awhile, no one seemed to want to break the still silence. I scratched the back of my neck hoping that some movement in the room might break the tension. It worked.

Charlie's eyes flickered to mine and then back to Bella. In a move not common for him, he walked forward and pulled his daughter into his arms. He closed his eyes and let out a shaky sigh, obviously thankful to have Bella there and safe.

Bella was stiff for a moment, then she wrapped her arms around her father's waist. They stayed that way until Caius cleared his throat to get their attention.

"General, Sir, we should probably debrief," he said. I looked up front and realized that Eleazar had moved from the head of the table to take a seat by Jasper. I deduced that Charlie wasn't here just to see Bella. He was here to tell us what the hell was going on. Thank whoever that great deity in the sky was.

"Just a moment," Charlie said as he released Bella and turned to face me.

"Thank you, Edward. I knew that if you were the one to go in after Bella, there would be no way that you come back out without her. You always did protect her."

I felt tears that wanted to fall at the fact that after all this time, Charlie still trusted me with her. I held them back and cleared my throat to speak.

"Always will, Sir."

Charlie grasped my hand with one hand a clapped me on the shoulder with the other. "Still Charlie, Edward. Still Charlie."

Charlie stepped back and continued to make his way around the table. When he got close to Alice, the little sprite jumped up and practically launched herself at him. "It's so good to see you, Charlie," she exclaimed.

"You too, bit." He reached past Alice to shake hands with Jasper. "You must be Jasper Whitlock."

Jasper nodded sharply. "Yes, Sir."

"It's good to meet you, and thank you for all that you've done."

"You too, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

Charlie smile slightly at Jasper's strict formality. He had military bearing down to a tee. I guessed that Charlie wasn't all for the sir's and salutes, but he wasn't going to correct him on it either.

He released Jasper's hand and moved along. He clapped Eleazar on the back as he walked past. "Good to see you again, Denali."

"You too, Swan." I guess they didn't need anymore fanfare than that.

After saying hello to Jacob and introducing himself to Garrett, Charlie went to the head of the table and sat, indicating with his hand that any of us that remained standing were welcome to sit as well. Caius remained standing up against the back wall. I idly wondered if the guy ever sat down. Probably not.

Charlie placed his hands on the table and looked at them for a moment, seemingly gathering his thoughts. Bella watched him closely, anxious for answers while worried about her father.

Charlie finally looked up and locked his eyes on Bella. There was guilt written all over his face. "I'm so sorry, Bells. What happened in the Congo is my fault. I should have told you about my military career when I found out about you joining the USTSC, but I was afraid you would look at me differently. I'm a strong man, Bella, but I could stand to see you look at me with disappointment in your eyes. But maybe if I had told you, things could have been dif…" Charlie closed his eyes for a moment before continuing. "Actually, no. I don't really think it would have changed things, but I still feel like you should have known."

Bella rose from her seat and walked over to Charlie. As she kneeled by his side and placed her small, capable hand on his, I saw the tears swimming in the depths of her large chocolate eyes. "I've done things I'm not proud of that I never wanted you to know about. Things that haunt me at night when I'm alone and invade my dreams. I'm now sure you already know about them. Do you love me any different?"

Charlie shook his head as he placed his other hand over where hers had rested, closing in between his larger ones. "I couldn't love you more. Having the strength to do what it is you do is a rare. Having the kindness and compassion to not let it corrupt you is even rarer. It makes me incredible proud to call you my daughter. I should have know better that to question your heart."

Bella smiled at him as she stood up to retake her seat by me. I reached out to take her hand in mine as I noticed the tear resting on the curve of her cheek. I would have brushed it away, but she seemed proud to have it there so I let it be and turned my attention back to Charlie. In the short time I had had my focus on Bella, he had fully gathered himself from the rare emotional moment and was ready to continue. The Swans just kept continuing to astound me with their strength.

"I know about the Coalition because I was one of the generals that came up with the idea. As such, I am kept in the loop about what goes on inside. When I heard Bella and Rose had been taken by Angelis twins, I immediately knew why. This had nothing to do with you and your team and everything to do with me. This whole thing was an elaborate set up to draw Bella into the Congo."

Bella gasped sharply next to me and I was pretty sure my own jaw was somewhere just slightly above the carpet below me. I tried my best to figure out how someone like small-town Charlie would have anything to do with these people.

But that was how things worked in this business. Look at Bella. Small, curvy, stunning, and apparently very deadly in right situations. The whole idea was to be able to kill someone with your thumb and index finger, but never look like you could. Honestly, people should be less afraid of the guy with tattoos, facial piercing, and the electric green Mohawk, than they should be of the guy with the Armani business suit and manicure.

"How, Dad?" Bella asked, taking me back to the here and now. I diverted my attention back to Charlie.

Charlie looked at Bella. "Do you remember about fifteen years ago when I asked Edward's parents if you could stay with them for a couple of weeks? You were about fourteen at the time."

Bella left eyebrow arched upward and she answered with a drown out, "Ye..ah."

"I told you I was going to Phoenix to deal with some things of Renee's that had turned up. In actuality, I went to Italy. We had intel that Aro Volutri's safe house was in Tuscany and he was currently on site. I led a team of twenty men to the safe house. Well, it turned out that the intel was incomplete. That house was bobby trapped worse than an Egyptian tomb and there were more guards than at Guantanamo. I tried to get everyone out, but eight of my men died that night. Two more suffered significant bullet wounds and one more in now paraplegic from an explosion that launched shrapnel into his spinal column. To top it all off, Aro's completely innocent wife, Sulpicia, was killed in the crossfire."

I leaned forward in my seat slightly. "Is that why Aro has it out for you so bad?" I asked. Charlie looked like he was about to speak up, but it was Caius that answered.

"Aro was pissed off about being attacked, but not about his wife. Sulpicia was barely more than a slave. Aro picked her up on what is basically the black market. She was a strong, beautiful woman and Aro most likely figured she could provide him heirs, without him having to deal with the inconvenience of an actual wife. From what we could gather in the aftermath, it seemed like Sulpicia took the chance of escaping during the chaos of the fight. Sadly, she didn't make it out."

I could almost feel the pain for the poor woman that everyone else in the room was feeling.

"That's not the whole story," Charlie said. "After that mission I went into a sort of semi-retirement. I consulted, but never went active. It was about six years later that we were told we had a shot at Aro's business partner and brother Christopher. The brother's had always been rumored to be very close and the possible blowback from Aro could be catastrophic. The job required one sniper to take him out as he left the home of one of his mistresses. I couldn't bring myself to risk someone else, so I volunteered to do it myself. It wasn't until after I killed him that we learned he was also running a side business of blood diamonds. We had hoped that that side of the business would dissolve, but his teenage twins took over. Hated to admit it, but we never saw it coming. We also never figured that they would be twice as cold blooded as their father was."

Charlie finished talking and the room was completely silent for a good solid two minutes. I think we all just needed a few minutes to process the events of the past and their implications on the present and future.

Charlie stood up and announced that he should be heading back to his office to track down anything he could about Aro and the twins. He kissed Bella on the top of her head as he walked by and the door clicked behind him as he left the conference room.

Eleazar and Caius returned to the front of the room and we all looked to them to see what it was that were supposed to do next. With no information as to the current location of our own personal bad guys, I didn't think it would be much.

They conferred with each other briefly before facing us. "We think it would be best you all laid low for right now. We don't know were these guys are or whether or not you guys are targets. So for now just stay down and stay armed," Eleazar said.

Caius nodded in agreement. "My team, I want you to stay in D.C. for the time being. I don't want you traveling at the moment unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't care if you stay in your current teams or not, but it would be best if none of you went anywhere alone. You should stay together and watch each other's backs.

A chorus of "Yes, Sir's" went around the room and we all rose from our seats. It wasn't even discussed and yet we all knew we would be staying in our current teams.

We were almost back to the car when I pulled Bella to a stop. She looked up at me and I found myself suddenly very nervous about the question I wanted to ask her.

"Bella, since we are staying in D.C. for now, I want to take you to meet someone very important to me," I said.

"Who?"

"My son."

So my muse has been clobbering me over the head with a nine iron lately and I decided to do a set of outtakes. Unfortunately, I have about a billion ideas and don't know which ones to do. So, I'm going to let you fine people decide. I have decided I will only do ten total…so…I am going to give you a list here and another later. Five from here, five from there. So if and/or when you review, give me your votes from here. You can pick up to five. Next week I will tally them up and post the first one.

Here they are:

Edward POV- The night before the talk with Bella in the meadow.

Edward POV- Edward's thoughts when he's walking away from Bella.

Jasper POV- Jasper and Humphrey the Humping Dog

Emmett POV- Emmett and the Gecko

Edward POV- Vanquishing of the Vanquish

Bella POV- Sniper training

Felix POV- How he got injured and stuck with the elevator job.

Jake POV- From when the mission went bad.

Mike POV- From when the mission went bad.

Tanya POV- The phone call from Edward.

Anthony POV- the phone call from Edward.

Alice & Jasper POV- Sydney

Jake & Garrett POV- Rio

Emmett & Rosalie POV- Paris

James POV- The Athens chase scene

Some trucker guy POV - This guys just drivin' along when he spots a car on the side a certain Greek highway.