Posted 2021-12-29; Beta'd by Eeyorefan12

Edward froze, almost crushing the phone in his hand as he tried to speak and suck in air at the same time. "When? How?" he finally blurted out.

Edward listened to Raoul's responses, each one sending ice water through his veins. He opened his laptop, his fingers jamming keys as he typed his message to Jasper and then opened the tracking programs. It was a faint hope—and one that was quickly dashed. The signal for Bella's phone was strong and still, sitting right outside the library. More devastatingly, her tracking bracelet had stopped transmitting less than two blocks away. Clearly it had been found and deactivated by someone who knew what to look for.

Fuck.

His heart pounded as he listened to Raoul describe how he'd been tackled by two men inside the library and Dale simultaneously so in the parking lot. The older man had never even reached his post at the outside door, where the lock had been picked.

Raoul and Dale's attackers had been unskilled and untrained in any kind of subterfuge—most likely hired to create a spectacle rather than actually subdue Bella's guards. Raoul had gathered everything he needed to know about them as they babbled to the police. Whoever had taken Bella had been smart enough to stage it so that local law enforcement would be called—their involvement potentially shining a spotlight on Edward and effectively hamstringing the much more efficient, if brutal, means of locating his wife. He'd already lost precious time, and the men with the answers he needed were currently in police custody and out of his reach—for now.

"Don't say anything about her to the police," he barked at Raoul, listening to the reply. Yes, his man had followed orders and had not given a statement. "It was just an unprovoked attack on you. They have nothing to go on without a missing person's report." Not that Raoul would say much at all, but the last thing Edward needed was Boston's finest at his or his family's door—and getting in the way of what needed to be done. "Jasper will take care of any camera footage."

His fingers slipped as he tried to enter the code to the safe. He swore, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder to enter the numbers again. When he heard Raoul's next words, he closed his eyes against the wave of despair he couldn't afford to indulge. Whoever had taken Bella had known exactly what they were doing. "Did you see how bad Dale was before they got him into the ambulance?" Hearing that he'd been conscious, there was another important question to ask: "Did you remind him of protocol?"

Raoul had. Thank God.

Edward visually indexed his emergency kit as he pulled it from the safe. The most important pieces were at the top: fake ID and passport, his pistols, ammunition, knife, and a thick wad of cash. He turned back to his laptop, Jasper's reply giving him a sliver of hope: On it. Teams deployed. The signal codes were listed beneath it.

"Radio silence," he said to Raoul. "I don't want any breadcrumbs on this. Get back to base when you're free."

Raoul's rapid speech shifted from report to apology, and Edward cut him off. It wasn't necessary. He'd served with the man in Iraq and knew who he was. Raoul's loyalty to Edward was absolute, as was the reverse. If Bella's abduction was on anyone, it was on Edward. He'd grossly underestimated the danger he'd put her in. If Aro was behind it—and it was still an if—he'd started a veritable war. And it was one Edward should have anticipated.

He hung up and ran for the door, snatching his coat, holster, and keys as he went.

It wasn't rush hour yet, and he made good time to the downtown parking garage, exchanging his car for the unregistered one there. There was no destination yet, but as he plugged his phone into the console, Jasper's messages flashed onto the screen: One woman, two men. Tracked to south on Madison at Charles. No sign beyond that.

He pulled over, swallowing hard as he picked up his phone again.

Bella's abductors had let themselves be seen—filmed even—via the security cameras in the area. The lack of discretion chilled him. If they hadn't cared to obscure their identities, they had no ties to the area and likely the country. Though the clothing and sunglasses partially disguised the two men's faces, the woman had done nothing to hide hers, beyond keeping her back to most of the cameras—not that the muddy surveillance images allowed him to see enough to identify her.

Jasper had sent the images in chronological order. Edward scrolled through them rapidly, seeing enough of the two men to know that he hadn't encountered them before. The woman's face remained hidden even as she had dragged his clearly unconscious wife out of the library bathroom, a male companion helping lift Bella into a waiting car. He swallowed, seeing that, refusing to consider what it might mean, and then he forced himself to keep moving through the grainy stills. It was the last image that made him choke on his breath. The female kidnapper's face was visible, and he knew exactly who—and what—she was.

- 0 -

"Bentornato," a woman's voice intoned in an Italian accent. "Welcome back."

Bella blinked, a dark and blurry ceiling coming into view. The room was humming with a soft and high-pitched whine, a low rumble beneath it. The curved ceiling was familiar, the large filigree M melting into the button-stitched satin.

She inhaled sharply, recognizing where she was, trying abruptly to sit upright.

"No, no," the voice said, a hand pressing down on her shoulder. "Stay still. You're going to feel weak and sick for a while."

In trying to move her hands, they caught, their range limited by . . .oh. Bella's breath caught too. She was in restraints and her ankles were similarly bound. She appeared to be lying on a gurney, her body angled to the left with some sort of wedge pillow keeping her from lying flat on her back.

Calm, she told herself. Stay calm.

There was a loud beeping behind her.

"I need you to take some deep breaths, Bella. That's your heart beating too fast. It's not good for your baby."

Isobel.

"Why does it matter?" she blurted out. "You're going to kill us."

Isobel moved into view, perching on the arm of the airplane seat nearby. "If I wanted to kill you, ragazza, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And as I've taken a great deal of care to get you and your baby here in good condition, I'd appreciate your cooperation. I require it, in fact." She leaned to the side and did something to the machine. The beeping stopped.

She wants me to stay calm for the baby. And then she's going to kill me after I deliver.

Bella closed her eyes, counting to ten.

What would Edward tell you to do? she asked herself, recalling the pained expression on his face when he'd first put guards on her and explained why she must work with them. He'd given her other instructions then as well, asking her to humor him as he ran down a list he'd never expected her to need: Stay calm. Pay attention to your surroundings. Cooperate.

And then the last one, more promise than edict, allowing her some slight hope: Wait for me.

"Good," Isobel said, watching the monitor.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Italy." That she answered so readily only confirmed Bella's fears. She wouldn't be alive long enough for her knowledge to matter.

Focus on the baby. Even if you don't live, your baby might.

Whatever she'd been injected with had left her woozy, nauseated, and disoriented. Patches of memory were piecing themselves together, reassembling into a crazy quilt of recollections. She thought of the commotion she'd heard as she'd lost consciousness. Raoul!

"Is Raoul okay?"

"Raoul?" Isobel asked. "Ah, your guard. I don't know, but I doubt the men I sent would be much of a match for him. Your driver, though, got a little, er, ferrito. Injured."

Oh, Dale. She thought of the gentle man, so anxious, but always so kind. Tears welled in her eyes.

"Not so bad, though." Isobel watched Bella closely as she said this.

Bella tried to wipe her face, but when her hand was stopped by the restraint, panic made her breathing rate pick up again. She laid her head back and tried to think of something else.

Edward.

The tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

Isobel did something with the restraint on Bella's arm and pressed a tissue into her hand. Startled, Bella jerked her arm away, realizing that she had the freedom to lift her hand to her face.

She almost said thank you.

"From your reaction, I would guess that you've heard a few things about me," Isobel said, leaning back and folding her arms.

Bella stared, anger quickly replacing her anguish. Was she looking for accolades?

Isobel chuckled. "Let's see. You've surmised that I'm an assassina?"

Bella nodded grimly.

"What else?"

Bella swallowed, remembering what she'd heard. Isobel killed women freshly parted from their children . . . or helped part them. What was it Patrick had told his friend that night at the party? Something about eggs cracking and "cargo". . .

She gave it to the father.

Oh God. Bella's throat was abruptly tight but Isobel was clearly expecting an answer.

"You . . . take contracts on women and maybe children. P-pregnant women, especially."

Isobel laughed. "Ah, I suppose you heard this from my associates the night we met. Men are so easy to manipulate. Give them a few gory details while you screw them and poof!" She snapped her fingers. "They believe anything. Still, it is true that I possess certain skills that make me well-suited for specialized situations. Like this one, in fact."

The shock was fading, and Bella was feeling very numb. "Did Aro hire you?" Her voice was hoarse.

"Well," Isobel said, looking around the airplane cabin. "it certainly wasn't his wife. Though she might be fun to sleep with, too."

She still worked for Aro.

Yes, Isobel was going to kill her.

"But you'll let me have my baby, right? You can't be that heartless." Her voice shook, despite her attempts to sound calm.

"Are you not listening?" Isobel asked.

"Will you give the baby to my husband? Please?" That's what that man had said she'd done before, wasn't it? "My husband, Edward Cullen. He's the father."

Isobel sighed. "I'm well aware."

Of course she knew who Edward was. Wasn't that why she'd kidnapped her? Bella gave up on the pretense of calm and let her fear-fueled anger spill over. "You've drugged me, abducted me, and are now taking me out of the country against my will . . on the orders of a man who's wanted me dead since he first knew I existed. I'm hearing you just fine, thanks. If you're going to kill me, don't screw around with me first."

Isobel's face registered confusion and then something that could have been pity. "You are young." She tilted her head. "I'm not going to kill you, Bella. Someone clearly wants you alive and well and I've been hired to keep you that way. Just . . . not where you'd like to be right now."

Of course. She would say this to keep her calm.

She closed her eyes briefly. "I'll be calmer if I know how and when."

"How and when, what?" Isobel asked.

"How and when you'll kill me."

Isobel gave a snort of impatience. She reached over and pulled a lever on the gurney, raising the back further up and angling it so that Bella could see the front and part of the back of the plane. "Do you know what these are?" she asked, gesturing around her.

Bella didn't, beyond the most basic description. "Hospital equipment."

"Yes. Some quite specialized hospital equipment, and a few less specialized things." Isobel tapped a clear plastic bin. "Look."

Bella did. She could see packages of sanitary and nursing pads inside, as well as what looked like a breast pump. The bin was sitting next to a warehouse-sized cardboard box of diapers. Why would they have all this, if—

"You're not planning to kill me right away after I have the baby."

Isobel rolled her eyes. "Well, I suppose your reaction shouldn't surprise me. I haven't done many jobs with targets who are aware of my talents."

Bella tried to remember what had happened at that bizarre party months prior. She'd been naive enough to ask what Isobel and her friends did, and Isobel had told her: acquisitions. She acquired things for Aro.

Bella was an acquisition.

If he didn't want to kill her, he wanted to keep her as . . . leverage? A hostage.

Like a seesaw, she felt the swing of relief for herself and then a plunging fear for Edward. What did Aro want from him? She tried to gather up the crumbs of information she'd heard from her husband. She knew that things were going badly with the Morandis, but beyond that, she had no details. She only knew that Edward had been afraid for her. She hadn't wanted or needed to know about any of the reasons for it.

Her gut fluttered with panic. What if Aro didn't know that? What if he thought, like he had before, that she had information that could damage him—or the Cullens? She'd seen enough of his brutality to know that he wouldn't be gentle in attempting to extract information from her.

The beeping sound returned.

"Tell me what you're thinking, Bella," Isobel said, reaching towards the machine again, silencing the alarm.

"Aro thought I was a risk before, because of what he thought I knew. I'm having a hard time believing that's changed, no matter how many props you show me." She glanced towards the back of the plane.

"And even if that were the case, could you do anything about that right now?" Isobel asked. She hung an IV bag on the hook by the gurney.

"What is that?"

"A nutrient solution." Isobel turned the bag so that she could read it. The label was mostly in Italian but Bella could see the words Ringer Lattate. "I don't want you to get dehydrated." Isobel sanitized her hands, snapping on gloves.

This was all so horrifically familiar. She thought of Edward and the time he'd done this—and how gentle he had been. This woman had no reason to be so. Bella tensed with panicked anticipation.

"Listen to me. Can you not understand that you might be much more . . . valuable alive right now?" Isobel asked, wiping down the crook of Bella's arm.

"No!" Bella said, not in answer to the question, but trying to yank her arm away. There was no way she was letting this woman put anything into her, even if the words on the label were reassuring.

Isobel sighed again, reaching down and doing something under the gurney. The give on the restraints disappeared. "I can do this forcibly, but it will hurt and distress you, which I would rather not do. You can control nothing that happens to you right now. Fighting me will not help you, but it might harm your baby. And since you've been confinato a letto—confined to your bed with placenta previa, I think you know how precarious your pregnancy is right now." She finished wiping down Bella's arm. "This,"—she tapped the bag—"will keep you and your baby hydrated. As you may or may not know, dehydration can bring on early labor, and I am not able to perform an unassisted C-section, especially on an airplane. So, this can hurt or it can not." She glanced again at Bella's arm and then looked tellingly at the IV needle she was holding.

Bella closed her eyes and relaxed her arm.

"Ragazza intelligente."

Was she being a smart girl? Bella wondered. Isobel inserted the needle quickly, the sting not beyond what Bella expected. She wasn't quite as gentle as Edward had been but Isobel obviously knew what she was doing.

Bella kept her eyes closed, trying to calm herself, trying to be calm for her baby's sake. She was less than ten days from thirty-seven weeks, when they were scheduled for the c-section. Her doctor had told her that her going into labor would be an obstetric emergency, since she and the baby might not survive a vaginal birth. Isobel seemed to understand this, but . . . how would that happen if Bella was being held hostage?

"Who will do the c-section?" she asked. Unhelpfully gruesome images of Aro's men, their hands bloodied, flittered through her consciousness.

"An obstetrician, obviously."

"Where?"

"In a hospital." Isobel stared intently at Bella's IV site, nodding after a moment. "I've been hired to keep and protect you, and I take my job seriously." She fiddled under the gurney again, clicking something. The give in the hand restraints returned. "I'll spare you any fantasies of escape, though. If I've done my research well enough—and I don't doubt that I have—your husband will not have filed a police report. You won't be listed as missing. So when you show up in an Italian hospital with a different name and a long history of psychosis and criminal mischief on your record, your claim of abduction will be easily dismissed."

It had been a brief hope, but feeling it flutter and fall was like a lead boot to the gut.

"I'm not trying to be cruel, Bella. You'll do better if you understand what will happen to you."

"And after I have the baby?"

"You and your child will continue to be Aro's guests in a very secure location."

She'd be Aro's prisoner for who knew how long. Her baby would be Aro's prisoner.

Aro wanted something from Edward and his family. She doubted it was anything they could give up easily, even with her being Aro's hostage. Hadn't they been trying to end their relationship with this man for months? No, she knew Edward would come for her when he could, but she might be in this for the long game—the supplies on the plane made that clear—and she needed to plan accordingly.

"I want you to eat something," Isobel said.

"Fine." She'd eat something. But she wasn't doing it for Isobel or the woman's even creepier boss. No, she was doing it to stay strong for her baby, for Edward, and for herself, because somehow, she was going to find a way to get away.

Author's post script: Only six chapters left to go, folks. Enjoy!

- Erin

DISCLAIMER: S. Meyer owns Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.