A/N: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm only borrowing her characters for a little while. The plot and original characters of Longing do belong to me, however. Jasper as the God of War and Peter "just knowing shit" are ideas that belong to Idreamofeddy.
Thank you to my lovely sister, Shelljayz, who pre-reads/betas for me and has a huge hand in so many aspects of this story, and thank you so much to Laurie Whitlock, my fabulous beta and friend. I love you both!
So, I know in the last chapter I said that I would sometimes have to post an outtake in place of an actual chapter to make sure I get to post continuously. I haven't yet reached that point, and I was gone for awhile, so I thought I would give you something extra to tide you over until the Halloween shenanigans. :)
Remember back in chapter 24, when Bella went to the masquerade ball?
oOo
Sunday, October 31st, 2080
BPOV
It was now nearly thirty-three minutes after nine, and I was home alone. Alice and Edward had been gone for forty minutes, leaving almost immediately after my exchange with Emmett ended. Peter and Charlotte left for wherever it was they were going eight minutes after that. Jasper and Esme left two minutes later, Carlisle following just thirty-seven seconds behind them, while Emmett and Rosalie took off twelve minutes after that and just fifteen seconds ago. I was grateful for the solitude. I liked living with the Cullens despite certain … irritations … but I was doing my best to avoid admitting just how much. Still, their presence became as stifling as it had just a week ago at times, and I needed another break. Also, I had something I needed to do, something that would be far better done in an empty house.
My computer was still running the search on Jane Doe, so my hands were tied in that regard, but they hadn't been idle. In spite of my evil history teacher's assignment that was specifically designed to torture me and the fact that I'd scored a job before I'd intentionally begun looking for one, those things hadn't filled up the nights and early mornings I didn't spend sleeping. I didn't feel I could start openly puttering around until at least six o'clock in the morning for the purpose of averting suspicion. I could tell every time I looked at him that Dr. Cullen was dying to get me back in an exam room to check over the injuries he'd treated so many weeks ago. I couldn't let him do that, and I was grateful to high heaven he couldn't force me to, but if he found out I rarely slept, he would ask questions I wouldn't be able to answer. Therefore, I cultivated a cover and nurtured it. It gave me plenty of time to work on Jane's case or it would once I figured out who she was. Since I was at a standstill with her, I had used those free hours to look into other things. Now I was tying up loose ends.
It was 12:33 pm in New York, and it was a good time to make the call. He wouldn't be expecting it so early. It was possible he wasn't expecting it at all, but I doubted that—he was more of a dumbass than I assumed if he wasn't. Either way, I didn't think many calls made for the purpose of blackmail took place during daylight hours. It made more sense that they would occur in the dead of night. That had a more skeezy and nefarious feel to it.
I dialed the number and waited. The phone rang once, twice, three times before he answered.
"Hello." He sounded tired and on edge. That was good. It would make my job easier.
"Hello, Connor," I purred.
Connor Jameson sighed on the other end of the line, clearly annoyed and impatient. "Look lass, I'm afraid I don't have time—"
He didn't recognize my voice. The drugs I'd given him had worked better than I ever could have dreamed.
"You'll want to send whichever chick you're screwing packing, tuck it back in your pants and make time." My words were a smartass snipe but they had a deadly, threatening quality to them as well. I was goading him, but it was necessary to get him riled up. That way it would be all the more effective when I yanked the rug out from underneath him. It worked.
"Look," Connor growled, his Irish accent coming out particularly strong even with that one word. It only got stronger. "I never make promises to the women I bring home, which means I didn't make any promises to you. If you were interesting enough to stick in my memory, I would have called you for a replay. From the tone of your voice, it's obvious I haven't, so do yourself a favor and get a fucking clue."
"You think I'm one of your conquests!" I forced myself to laugh. It really was funny, but it was also vomit-inducing so it was difficult to do that, keep my gag reflex under control, and stop the almost uncontrollable shudders. I remembered what his slimy hands felt like on my skin at the masquerade ball. Once I put those things out of my head, the laughter came easily. "That is hilarious!"
Connor huffed in agitation.
Oh! Did I hurt your ego, Connor? Poor douchey baby! It was on the tip of my tongue, but I managed not to say it.
"What do you want?" he snapped.
"You sound irritated, Connor ... distracted, paranoid, nervous," I observed. I knew for a fact that he was because I was watching him. I had planted a wireless camera with a signal so low it wouldn't register if he scanned for security breaches and that sort of thing. "Maybe you're not irritated because I interrupted your afternoon lay and maybe you're paranoid, nervous and distracted because you're missing something."
Connor's eyes widened to the size of saucers. He looked ridiculous, but I didn't laugh. Now was not the time. "I'm not missing anything. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even know who you are."
I smirked even though he couldn't see me. Before I left his house of forgery and debauchery, I'd swiped his client list. I had been impressed with his work before but the way he'd set up his books and kept the records of his customers amplified it. He was still a fucking dumbass in most respects, but that was rather ingenious. The whole thing was handwritten in three separate, thick ledgers, penned in a very complicated and unique code, one I could only assume he'd come up with himself. That code could only be deciphered if one was in possession of all three ledgers. I was in possession of all three and had cracked that code. I now knew every single one of Connor Jameson's clients, every identity he'd forged at their behest, and each sum he'd collected for them. I was also currently in the process of searching out each and every one of those aliases and all the crimes associated with them, storing it all in an encrypted file labeled "English Homework." If anyone ever managed to crack my security, "Da Vinci" was a potentially dead giveaway.
"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about," I said.
"I don't know anything, and neither do you," he responded, the slightest trickle of anxiety marring his tone.
"I know that names are important …" Thank you, Jasper Whitlock "... and that the name 'Da Vinci' is of vital importance to you."
All the blood drained from Connor's face, making his pale Irish skin look downright pasty. It was not attractive. There wasn't really anything about him that was. "'Da Vinci' is the name of an exquisite artist and Renaissance man. It has no significance to me beyond that."
But his voice was shaking the slightest bit. It was barely noticeable but definitely there. "Ah, ah, ah," I tsked. "I don't like liars, Mr. Jameson."
"I am not a liar! Who the hell are you?" he demanded, his fury temporarily taking over his trepidation. "How did you get this number? What the fuck do you want, and what's to keep me from hanging up on you right this instant? This is harassment, you know! I can trace this phone call in a heartbeat and file charges!"
"The first two things are unimportant," I replied calmly. "You won't hang up on me because you're too fucking terrified that I might actually know something to risk it. You can't trace this phone call because it's a burner phone, and you can't file charges for harassment if you can't prove there was harassment in the first place. You wouldn't risk it anyway. Honestly, what would you say? 'I'm the master forger 'Da Vinci,' and a woman called, claiming to have stolen my client list?' You're stupid, but you're not that stupid. Besides, harassment is such an ugly word. One could even go so far as to call it dirty. I prefer the term 'incentive'. It sounds so much prettier, so much cleaner, don't you think?"
Silence.
"We'll get to what I want in a minute," I said. "What we need to do now is get something straight."
More silence.
"This is the part where you ask, 'what would that be?'"
Silence still.
"Come on, Connor. It's impolite to keep a lady waiting. What would your mother say?" I chided. It was a low blow. Connor's mother was dead and had been since he was nine. They had been very close, and her death had devastated him. It stood to reason he was the man he was today because of his grief over it, if one bought into the nurture of the nature vs. nurture theory.
"Do not speak of my mother!" he spat.
"Ask the question, and I won't mention her again," I promised wholeheartedly. My purpose for this phone call was a serious one but that didn't mean I had to rub more salt in that wound than necessary.
"What would that be?" he growled.
"We need to establish that no matter how much you deny your alter ego, that denial won't change things," I answered. "I still know who you really are, you still know it, so we might as well save ourselves all the energy and trouble of arguing over that truth and just get down to things."
Connor's expression darkened. I rolled my eyes, impatient. I knew six of the seven Cullen teens would be gone until it came time to get ready for trick-or-treating. Dr. Cullen would be at the hospital for a few hours since it wasn't an official shift for him. He had some paperwork to catch up on, but he would be back in time to get gussied up for Halloween as well. What I didn't know was how long Jasper and Mrs. Cullen would be out. They hadn't specified if they were going to the hardware store in Forks, which was a poor excuse for one, or the one in Port Angeles, nor did I know exactly how long it would take them to find and buy all of the supplies they needed. Considering all of the Cullens drove like bats out of hell, I couldn't be sure how much time I had to put the fear of God into Connor Jameson. I was off to a good start, but this was a delicate process, and it had to stick.
I was already in front of my computer, so with a few clicks of the mouse, I had his balls in a vice grip. He just didn't know it yet, but he was about to. "Check your email."
"What?" he asked, my request clearly having thrown him for a loop.
"Check. Your. Email."
He clicked on the speakerphone option on his cell and trudged to his laptop, laying it beside the computer so he could do as I'd ordered. It took him several minutes to peruse the message I sent him but it only took a couple lines of reading for his already pale face to go even whiter. He looked like he was going to pass out.
"Please argue with me now," I dared him. I'd sent him photos of his ledgers, PDF files of their contents and my code-cracking as well as all the other evidence against him I'd compiled so far.
"What do you want?" he breathed, now sounding appropriately terrified.
"I'm glad you're coming around, Connor," I said, not hiding my smugness. He snorted weakly. "What I want is for you to spend a good long time in prison making good 'friends' with a bunch of White Supremacists, but I can't have what I want. See, if I turn over this evidence, which I'm not done collecting by the way, you won't go to prison. Under the statutes of the Safe Citizens Act, you'll get the death penalty," I elaborated, and Connor gulped. "As much as you might deserve that, I'm not real keen on having your death weighing my conscience down. You're a bastard with serious daddy issues, but I don't want your blood on my hands."
I already have too much.
"So what will you do?" he asked warily.
"It's called blackmail, lad," I quipped, mimicking his accent. "I'm going to make a deal with you … actually, that's not entirely true. I'm going to dictate the terms of a verbal contract, which is being recorded, and you are going to abide those terms. If you fail to do so, I don't have to consider your inevitable execution my fault because our contract will be null and void. I will have given you a warning, and you will not have heeded it. It's a 'you made your bed and now you have to lie in it' sort of thing. It absolves me of all guilt, and I can go to sleep at night not giving a fuck."
I couldn't just let Connor Jameson continue to get away with his crimes. He wasn't the one out there killing people, dealing drugs, promoting prostitution and human trafficking, gun running, or all that other glorious illegal shit, but he was facilitating it. That made him an accessory to all those crimes, and I couldn't just stand by and let it continue when I was in his house with access to his client list and the perfect opportunity to put a stop to it. It could've been one of the ways I was trying to make up for what I'd done to Jane or maybe it was just me being a good samaritan. I did that from time to time, stopping a mugging or a rape or whatever if I came across one in progress, but my shenanigans in Louisville and now this were much bigger and more complicated situations. Still, I had to do it.
"What are the terms of this verbal contract?" he asked stiffly.
"They're not terribly complicated," I began. "From your ledgers and my calculations, you've made a pretty penny in profit from your criminal endeavors and, according to your bank records, you haven't spent any of it. All of it is split up into six different accounts, each under the guise of a shell corporation, in the Caymans, is it not?"
Connor choked. "How the fuck do you know that?"
I smiled. "Because I'm brilliant, and I made it my job to know it, douchebag. Anyway, you're going to take that money, including its substantial interest and donate all of it to the list of charities I'm going to send you."
He let out a breath of relief as if he thought I was stopping there. Stupid fucker!
"Your family owns a business empire worth billions," I continued. "And from further probing into your financials, it seems that even though Daddy Seamus doesn't love you …" Connor hissed and flinched as though I'd slapped him at those words, "... he still gives you your fair share of the companies' profits, which amount to somewhere in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars a year. I will leave you a generous $450,000 dollars a year of that to live off of, which is just enough for you to keep up airs."
Connor balked.
"Hey now!" I admonished sternly. "I could have left you with nothing. Now, as I was saying, the rest of that money will go to programs that will help aid the families whose lives you've helped ruin—things like college scholarship programs, grief counseling and anything that might make their lives even a little better—as well as to fund investigations to put your clients behind bars …" He gasped. I might not be turning over the evidence against him, but, one by one, each alias he'd dreamed up would be dropped to some law enforcement agency via anonymous tip until there were no more aliases left to reveal. By process of elimination as to who could have given them up, his clients might eventually be gunning for him whether they were in prison or not. "Once your clients have been caught, that money will continue to fund the programs for the families of your clients' victims as well as to charities of my choosing. Lastly, you're going to give up 'Da Vinci,'" I said firmly, my tone deadly and brooking no argument. "You're going to leave that life and profession behind and do something more productive with yourself, maybe even worthwhile and in the service of others rather than yourself. You know, give back and all that jazz."
Connor scoffed. "Do you have any idea the people I work for? They won't just let me retire! They don't know who I am now, and they're okay with that because my anonymity means I'm more likely not to get caught and sent to prison, which keeps them stocked in false identities, but if I give them a reason to try to figure who I am? It would take awhile but some of them have the means to potentially do it, and if they ever did—"
"See? You just proved me right about your intelligence," I mocked. "That is not my problem," I said coldly. "You've managed to keep your true identity a secret for nearly a decade, and if you think some of those people wouldn't have wanted to know for the purpose of leverage, you're an idiot. Many of your clients have probably already tried to find out who you really are, and you would know if they were successful because they would have made sure you were aware they had your balls in a vice grip ... and yet here you are, balls vice free, from them at least. I don't see what you're bitching about."
He was shaking. From his expression, I could tell it was from a combination of fear and outrage.
"I'm giving you the opportunity to turn things around for yourself, Connor," I continued seriously. "People rarely get second chances, and it's certainly a chance you don't deserve. Don't fuck it up."
The only sound on the other end of the line was his labored breathing. He looked and sounded like he was going to hyperventilate.
"If you slip even once," I threatened, "all that evidence goes to the Feds, and we both know that's suicide. Do you understand?"
Silence.
"What did I say about keeping a lady waiting?" I asked sweetly. Connor growled, but his fear was evident. "Do you understand?"
"I-I understand," he stammered.
"If you try to trace the IP address of that email or attempt to figure out who I am, both of which you will fail at, I will turn over the evidence," I added. "Do you understand that?"
"Y-yes."
I smiled. "Good boy."
His breathing was still harsh and labored.
"Look on the bright side, Connor," I said cheerily. "Cleaning up your act may not be by your own choice, but who knows? Maybe once you're living on the straight and narrow and actually doing something worthwhile, daddy might even learn to love you. Hell, you might even enjoy the plain, old, boring vanilla life!"
A whoosh of air echoed in my ear.
"Do as I say," I told him, "and we'll never speak again. Fuck things up and we will. You don't want that, Connor."
I hung up after that. I'd made my point, and from the expression on his face, Connor Jameson had gotten it.
oOo
A/N: Yeah, so we all know that Bella isn't the kind of person to have let Connor Jameson get away with what he was doing since it was helping criminals. It was a loose end I felt the need to wrap up. I hope you don't mind. :)
I must thank ValkyrieNyght for providing me with a realistic number for Bella to leave Connor with as income in her blackmail scheme. I would also like to thank Christinarsls.
