A/N: This story hit 1000 reviews. I truly can't believe it! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate every single one of you:)

Special thank you to Mel Cee-she's incredible. I can't say it enough!

Song suggestions:

Somebody to Die For by Hurts

Apologize by One Republic

I don't own anything aside from my plot;)

"You always did look handsome in a suit. You wear it well." Bella giggled, straightening his tie, giving him a once over.

Edward leaned into her, giving her a peck on the lips. He was so appreciative of her support. These last few days had been troubling with the new information coming to light, and she hadn't gloated by saying "I told you so." No, instead, Bella jumped in to help in any way she could. Tonight would mark new beginnings and the end of another chapter in Edward's life.

During his meeting with Felix, they discussed strategies to ensure their plan to take down Ted was ironclad. With everything ready, Edward knew the final pieces he needed to put into motion.

"Thank you for not asking me to join you tonight," Bella blurted, brushing the dog hair off Edward's suit collar.

"If everything goes as planned, it'll be better if you're not there tonight," Edward assured her, caressing her cheek.

Bella knew the plan, and while she was nervous about how it was all going to unravel, she needed to trust Edward and the seemingly good team of people around him.

Bella walked Edward to the elevator. He insisted on her staying the night, stating how much Embry would miss her after this past week together. She smiled when he said it, knowing that Embry probably wasn't the only one who would miss her.

Alice was on her way over to keep Bella company, and Edward ordered takeout to be delivered for their girls' night in.

They had a lot to catch up on since Bella had been staying at Edward's, and Alice was talking to Maria every free chance she got. Their lives appeared to be going in the direction they'd always dreamed of. Now only if Charlie came around…

"Wish me luck," Edward said with a cocky grin. It was takedown time.

"Good luck, but please be careful. I worry about you. I just got you back." Bella sighed, tenderly.

Edward pulled her into a bear hug reminiscent of the ones he used to give her when they were kids.

"I love you. Please don't worry. You have me." Edward lifted her chin to give her a kiss.

Bella leaned into the kiss, trying to place her fears in the back of her mind. She tore herself away and nodded. "Okay," she muttered as he got into the elevator.

She watched as the doors closed and the elevator started to descend, taking her heart with it.

Edward climbed the stairs carefully, wanting to take care of the next part sans interruptions.

He knocked at the door, waiting a moment before he heard a soft "come in." He entered the room and quickly closed the door behind him.

Standing in the doorway, he took a moment to really look at Liz. She was frail—the thinnest she'd ever been—the dark circles under her indicated her lack of sleep, and the biggest giveaway of her decline was the oxygen tube threaded in her nose.

"Hello, honey, could you be a dear and help me clasp this?" she asked, her hand shaking with a bracelet in it.

Edward nodded solemnly. While he was angry at Ted for his illegal business dealings, he didn't know Liz's part in any of this. Until he found out her involvement, and maybe even after, she held a special spot in his heart.

Taking the bracelet from his adopted mother, he wrapped it around her wrist and fastened the clasp.

"Ma, I have something I'd like to talk to you about," Edward started. He just wanted to know the truth.

Now it was Liz's turn to nod solemnly. "I figured this time would come soon. It was inevitable," she muttered, tears filling her eyes.

"You know?" Edward gasped, dumbfounded. He crouched down to be eye level with where she sat in her wheelchair.

"Know?" Liz admonished, fiddling with her cashmere cardigan. "It was my idea. An insurance policy. What a joke that was." Liz laughed, bitterly. She wouldn't live to see a cent of the money she helped accumulate.

Edward's eyes widened, his jaw hanging slack. Her idea. These people were ruthless. Just when he thought he had one redeemable "parent." He furrowed his eyebrows, trying to make sense of it all.

Liz took a deep breath and started, "You have to understand, when the company had its first dip in stocks, not long after its inception, investors started pulling out. It almost crippled us. We weren't sure if we would be able to pay the rent, let alone the employees and take a salary as well."

She wheeled herself to the opposite side of the room to grab her evening bag. "I told your father how we needed a safety net. This was right around the time Matthew passed away." She looked away wistfully as she thought of her forever seventeen-year-old son. "That's when we created Cullen Industries. After skimming money off the top, we created quite the nest egg. We let it rest for a while as we attempted IVF. You know how well that went."

Edward couldn't believe his ears—Liz was the mastermind behind all of the illegal business dealings.

"Before we secured the IPO for Masen Point, we were audited. At that time, Carlisle decided to ask more questions because he had some concerns about the direction the company was going. In business, loose ends can unravel the whole plan, so we knew we needed a way to ensure his silence. Alistair knew someone in the tax department, and he reached out to them to help us quickly make any discrepancies go away, but we needed a fall guy. Who better than the disgruntled CFO." Liz paused, struggling to maintain her breathing. She looked around for her inhaler.

Edward passed it to her from the vanity and gestured for her to continue explaining this convoluted web of lies. Blackmailing her brother-in-law because he actually had a moral code was a new low.

"We became a little bit paranoid after the audit, even though Alistair assured us everything would be fine. So we decided to adopt, figuring that was a positive thing we could show the public in case of a crisis. On top of the fact, your father needed a protege since Carlisle could potentially go to jail. So we adopted you." Liz wheeled herself closer to Edward, grabbing his hand, looking a shell-shocked Edward in the eyes.

"What I wasn't anticipating was how much I would grow to love you or how I would want to protect you. Or ultimately how scared I was to lose you too…This leads me to my last indiscretion." She dug around in her evening bag, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. It was tattered and discolored. Even a little shabby, he could make out his name written in Bella's familiar scrawl on the front—Bella's letter. "I only did what I thought was right. It turned out to be for nothing. Look at me." She waved her arm feebly along her broken body.

"How could you—" Edward started as he yanked his hand away from hers and plucked the letter from her hands. Disgust didn't cover the magnitude of Edward's emotion at the moment.

The door flew open with bang. "What the hell is going on in here?" Ted bellowed, tapping on the face of his watch. "Nice of you to join us." He turned to his adopted son, rolling his eyes.

"Lizzie, do you need anything before we leave? Renata has your bag packed with all your meds." Ted went behind Liz to start pushing her wheelchair toward the door.

Liz shook her head, giving Edward a pointed look to put the letter he was clutching away.

Edward tucked the paper into his suit pocket. Reading it would have to wait until later. Now he had a bastard to take down.

The trip to the Denalis' mansion was a short car ride. In the limo, you could hear a pin drop. Nobody conversed, and Edward had an eerie feeling about it all.

The driveway was filled with spotlights and trapeze artists doing some kind of performance. Edward rolled his eyes. These parties really were ridiculous.

As they entered the opulent home, they were greeted with a mime doing tricks. Edward snorted and muttered to Renata, who had accompanied Liz as a caretaker, "I guess this really is the circus."

"Don't forget that you have to introduce me on the podium," Ted spat into Edward's ear and rolled Liz off into the crowd of people chatting in the ballroom area.

Edward was on a mission to find Carlisle. He had called him all week, without any response. Not even a text which was very unlike him. Even Esme sounded nervous when he phoned their house. She couldn't get off the phone fast enough.

He found Carlisle speaking to Esme in a corner of the informal dining room.

"Well you know, Carlisle—"

Edward tapped him on the shoulder to alert him of his presence.

"Oh, Edward, hey." Carlisle stammered and fiddled with the cell phone in his hand.

"Hi, Edward," Esme said meekly from behind Carlisle. Edward nodded a hello to his pseudo aunt.

Edward didn't know how much he should include Esme in this conversation, so he asked Carlisle, "Can I speak to you for a second outside?" Liz was her dying sister after all.

"Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of Es," Carlisle said, narrowing his eyes at Edward. He was acting out of sorts. Did he know he was the fall guy?

Edward pursed his lips, looking between Carlisle and Esme. It didn't appear that either one of them was going to budge, so he sighed and resigned himself to having to talk to the both of them. "Fine, but it still needs to be outside."

Edward peeked around the ballroom before exiting the door. Ted was having an intense hushed conversation with Alistair and an older gentleman Edward didn't recognize. Liz was speaking to her society ladies. At least they were both distracted for the time being.

The three of them slipped out of the party, gathering around the fountains at the end of the driveway.

"What is it, Edward?" Carlisle asked dumbly, taking a deep breath. Esme looked at her husband wide eyed and slightly shook her head.

"Ted defrauded the company. Masen Point is in shambles. All the profits are going into a shell corporation called Cullen Industries, which if the name doesn't tip you off, makes you the CEO. He's framing you by embezzling any and all profits to smaller offshore accounts which then get funneled into Cullen Industries," Edward rambled, his hands shaking, and he looked around nervously. He wouldn't have been worried about himself if it weren't for the fact that he had something to lose waiting for him at home. Bella.

Edward turned to Esme and started again, "Apparently, it was your sister's idea. They were so worried about not being rich that they needed a fallback plan." He spat in disgust. "I mean, who does that? This is crazy." He paced in front of the fountain, his mind reeling.

"Edward," Esme said lightly, touching his shoulder.

Edward shook his head and threaded his fingers through his hair, feeling like he was losing it. This must have been how Bella felt all those times in this world. In over her head. He needed to tell Carlisle what he was up against. "I do have an attorney who is helping me, and we gathered enough information. All he's waiting on is for me to give him the green light to call his friends at the SEC. You might want to get your lawyer on standby, since I'm sure the SEC will want to ask you a lot of questions during the investigation, but the evidence we've found is damning to Ted and all his wrongdoings. We've got him." Edward finally breathed out in relief.

"Edward." Now it was Carlisle who spoke his name.

Edward looked at his uncle, waited for him to speak. This was overwhelming information to take in when it wasn't your freedom on the line. He could only imagine how difficult it was to be in Carlisle's position.

"We've known about the shell corp for some time," he muttered so softly Edward almost missed what he said.

"What? How? Then why is that bastard still running free?" Edward blurted, his eyes widened, and then his eyebrows furrowed not understanding why they didn't expose Ted and Liz for who they really were.

Esme took Edward's hands in hers. "You have to understand. We only tried to do what's right." She sobbed, biting her bottom lip.

Edward snatched his hands away. "Do what? What did you both do?" he demanded, looking between them with wild eyes.

Carlisle hung his head. "We tried, Edward. We really did. When Ted and Liz adopted you, we thought it was a good thing for them. Maybe it would humanize them a little. They had changed so much after coming into money and the loss of Matthew. We wished for you to be the change they so desperately needed," Esme explained, wiping her eyes, mascara running down her face.

Carlisle resumed speaking. "It gave us the idea that we would have liked to adopt and help a child. We tried conceiving years ago, and it didn't work out." He trailed off, looking at Esme and making sure she was okay with him bringing up a sensitive topic. After he was assured that his wife was okay, he spoke again. " When we met Bella, we fell in love with her. She was lovely, a breath of fresh air. Clearly she didn't belong in this world, but we decided we wanted to adopt her anyway."

"What?" Edward's jaw went slack, and he felt like he was punched in the gut. They wanted to adopt Bella all those years ago? She could have had a family. A good one. Her life could have been so much different. Everything could have been different.

Carlisle looked at Esme nervously, taking in the way her body trembled, and he shrugged himself out of his suit jacket and wrapped his wife in it. "I made the mistake of telling my sister about our plans, and I'm sure you know how that went. She told Ted, and that was when we found out about the shell corp." Esme tried to continue, but Edward interrupted her.

Edward held his hand up. "Wait! How does the shell corp have anything to do with Bella?" His head was spinning. This was even more complex than Felix presumed.

Carlisle chanced a glance back at the Denali house, and once satisfied that no one was coming, he explained, "After Liz went to Ted, we still tried to file paperwork to adopt Bella. There was no reason she shouldn't have a home. A few days after completing the application, Ted called me into his office and presented me with the shell corp, stating if we went through with adopting Bella, he would frame me as CEO of all these defaulted companies and the embezzlement of Masen Point. When I wasn't scared enough at his threat about myself, he presented me with his backup plan." Carlisle gulped, rubbing the hairs on his chin.

"Tell me. No more secrets," Edward demanded, practically shouting in the open space.

"You. He would frame you too," Carlisle whispered into the darkness, sickened that he even had to have this conversation. "If I didn't comply, he was waiting for you to join the company, and years down the line, he would frame you as the greedy adopted son," he admitted. He pulled Esme, who was still sobbing, into a hug.

Edward's fists balled at his sides. This was sick even for Ted and Liz. He couldn't believe how he chose them and thought their intentions were pure. He felt like such a fool.

"So you stayed," Edward concluded, "To keep me safe."

Carlisle nodded, hoping Edward could see they only did what they thought was best.

"Edward, you must tread very lightly. I know you think you know what you're doing, trying to bring all this into the light, but I don't think you understand the lengths these people will go to protect their secrets," Esme warned, and she motioned behind Edward.

Edward brushed her off, thinking how different his life would have been if Carlisle and Esme were successful in their attempts to adopt Bella.

Before he could say anything further, he noticed they had company, coming toward peered around the fountain to see Carmen, the Denali's housekeeper, running down the drive. "Mr. Edward, your father is looking for you. He needs you to introduce him to the crowd," she said, out of breath.

Edward huffed out a breath and turned to head toward the house. Carmen called out behind him, "Your mother went home, Edward. She wasn't feeling good." He didn't even bother acknowledging any of those comments.

Edward was fuming. He didn't want to even look at the man, let alone announce him and his bullshit company. Ted had ruined so many lives. Edward was determined not to let him ruin any others.

He stalked up the drive, his arms waving to Carlisle and Esme to follow him. As he motioned to them, Edward's eyes were fixated on his watch. The watch Ted gave him when he agreed to join the fucking company. The watch he gave him after ruining Bella's life. The watch he gave him after making Carlisle a fucking slave to his company. The watch that represented all of the lies and bullshit he listened to throughout the years.

Edward quickly sent a text to Felix, alerting him it was go time. Now or never. Ted's time had run out.

Edward walked through the Denali house in silence. Everything around him was a blur. He couldn't spot a single soul until he placed Ted, who was standing on the platform stage waiting for Edward to join him beside the podium. He eyed Ted's smug face. He wouldn't get away with this. He couldn't. All Edward saw was red. He saw visions of Bella happy, content with family. He saw her going to college, getting her first car, birthday parties, and holidays. Not misery and fear and constant worrying and taking care of others. He saw them going the distance and not breaking up, having no time apart. He saw the life that Ted had ripped away from him. From her. And now Ted was going to pay.

Edward climbed the stairs and sucked his teeth, without a glance at his audience. He wordlessly stomped over to Ted and punched him square in the jaw. Bang. The sound of Ted's body hitting the stage echoed in the large banquet hall as Edward's hand pulled away.

Crack. The watch face splintered into a million tiny shards of glass as it hit the floor. Everything it once symbolized was as meaningless as it was now. It was ruined and so was any semblance of a relationship Edward would have with his so-called adopted parents. This was the final nail in Ted and Liz's coffin.

Edward crouched down next to Ted. He was trying to scramble off the floor and salvage part of his night as Edward grabbed his lapels, pulling him impossibly close. "You son of bitch! Bella could've had a family. A family. She deserved people who loved her, who stood by her, and you cheated her of that chance. The SEC has everything. All of your little games are finished. Done." Edward barked into Ted's ear. He pulled away, resisting the urge to clock him again. Edward stretched his fingers, his hand sore from the jab. The bastard had a hard face.

Edward stood up and walked through the crowd of whispering people, calling out behind him, "Consider this my resignation."

Freedom felt so good.

A/N: Let me know what you think...a long time coming right?! The next few chapters are a whirlwind btw;)