30

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Bella exclaimed. "That's your plan?"

"Got a better idea?" Marcus asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Bella, Marcus, and Edward were standing in the living room, where they had just spent the last hour listening to his plan, if that's what you could call it. For three days, they had poured over the data Bella had managed to get off Peter Davis's computer, the information she had gotten from Carlisle Cullen's computer, and put it together with information Marcus already had, and now, he thought he had a plan that would make her garner sympathy, while completely justifying her actions.

The more time she spent around Marcus the less she understood how he could have willingly put himself in the position to torment women, hurt them, or rape them. Destroy them. He was smart and caring, spoke of with passion and love when talking about his work with victims of severe trauma. How could he be so cruel, yet so caring at the same time? It was something Bella was sure she would never understand, just like nobody would ever understand how she could willingly walk into Hell and let the devil break her soul.

"I don't understand," Bella groused. "You think I can just march into the F.B.I. and they're just going to thank me for killing six people?"

"Basically, yeah," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "With the people we have dirt on, it wouldn't take much to make them see that you were working as an extension of the F.B.I."

"But I wasn't," she argued.

"But the paper trail I'm creating will say otherwise," he countered.

"That won't work," she argued. "In order to be undercover like that, I would have needed a handler, someone on the outside. We can't use Edward, either, so don't go there."

"Why not?" Edward asked, tilting his head to the side. "I am part of the F.B.I., even if I am on leave."

"Because you're my husband, so unless you're ready to explain that away, you can't be linked to my case other than as an agent who got too emotionally involved and needed to take a break."

"That's fair," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "But Marcus is right. There are others we can trust."

"Like who?" she countered.

"Caius," Edward and Marcus said together.

Bella looked between them. "Who is Caius?"

"Caius Ferrari is a senior agent out of the D.C. burrow. He leads a pretty obscure task force that has been focusing on human traffickers for the better part of the last twenty years. He was my boss when I went in undercover, helped keep me out of jail when I came out."

"And you trust him?"

"As much as I trust anyone," he quipped.

Bella pressed her lips together, turning and looking out the window. How could putting herself out there like that be the way to keep her from going down? Hell, she deserved to go to jail, to pay for her crimes, but her heart ached at the thought of leaving Edward, of never getting to be free from the pain she had caused herself.

Then she thought of Alice and Elizabeth, Kate and Garrett, all the men and woman, young boys and little girls who suffered at the hands of people like Peter Davis, Carlisle Cullen, Esme Platt, and even Marcus. Could she be strong enough to walk into the lion's den again? For them? For one last hope at freedom?

"What do we do?" she asked, looking over at Marcus.

"I'll handle it," Marcus said. "You just be ready to leave."

"And you're sure this will work?"

"I can't give you a guarantee, Bella," he admitted. "But if Caius can keep me out of jail, he can do the same for you. After all, you're the hero I'll never be."

Bella opened her mouth to defend him, but clamped her lips shut. Instead, she turned and walked out of the room, down the hallway to the bedroom she and Edward had been using, and curled up on the bed with her laptop. She wanted to trust him, trust that he would be able to help, but how could she when she couldn't even trust herself?

—BR—

"Are you going to hide in here all day?"

Shifting her eyes from her laptop to where Edward stood in the doorway of their bedroom, she shrugged her shoulders. "Don't really know where else to go. It's colder than balls outside."

Edward laughed and walked over to the bed, climbing on next to her. "What are you looking at?"

"You know what I'm looking at," she chirped.

Edward sighed.

"There's got to be something I'm missing."

"That you missed, that I missed, and Marcus missed?" he asked.

Bella pressed her lips together.

"You don't like his plan," Edward said.

"Do you?"

"Not particularly, but I don't know that we have any other options, either."

"That's what scares me," she whispered, looking at him. "The unknown variables."

"I know, sweetheart," he murmured, bringing his hand up and brushing away her tears. "But no matter what, I'm going to be right by your side."

"But you can't be," she argued, shaking her head.

"Yes, I can," he said, sitting up. "The bureau already knows that I've worked with Caius before. It won't be hard to leave a paper trail saying I was on the outside of your mission."

"You really trust him that much?"

Edward sighed. "After I got the video of Cullen hurting Elizabeth, I had never felt so fucking useless, Bella. My parents were . . . checked out, I guess. They were still convinced that she had run off with some boy, ruined the Mason name." He paused. "Neither of us were good enough for them, always too messy, too loud, in the way, but they were harder on her. Called her a slut if they caught her kissing a boy. When she disappeared, I think they thought they were better off without her. But not me. I needed my sister, needed her to keep me from being lost in their world, so I rebelled and . . ." Edward sat up, sitting with his knees bent in front of him. "I'd only been with the F.B.I. a few months when I meet Marcus and Caius. They had heard of my abilities on the computer and asked me to help them track Marcus's movements while he went undercover."

"You were hoping he would find Elizabeth, weren't you?" Bella asked.

Edward nodded.

"So you knew what he was doing?" she asked. "To those girls."

"I didn't know details, but we all knew," he admitted. "After he killed Alistair, after he came back, he was different. Angry, bitter, harsh. Caius knew they wanted him to fry for what he had done to Alistair, but he fought for him, saved him I guess. Marcus was cleared of charges, but relieved of his duty."

"You said he helped you start Eclipse?"

"He told me the F.B.I. was never going to find my sister, that they were bound by laws that prevented them from being able to do what was necessary to do what had to be done."

"I want to trust him," Bella said, softly. "But I just don't."

"You don't trust anyone."

"I trust you."

Edward smiled. "Just me." He brought his hand up to her face. "I'm not ready to lose you, Bella, and this is our only chance of saving you."

Biting the inside of her bottom lip, she closed her eyes. "Okay."

"Okay?" he asked, and she opened her eyes.

"What other choice do I have?"

"You can let me love you."

Bella smiled. "I can do that, as long as you let me love you, too."

"Done," he growled, and leaned in and pressed his lips against hers.

—BR—

Bella had just pulled the pot of homemade chicken and dumplings off the stove and Edward was sitting at the table, his laptop open when Marcus rushed into the kitchen, his cell phone pressed against his ear. He had been locked away in his office most of the day, according to Edward, laying out the paper trail that would place Bella as an employee of the F.B.I.

His eyes matched hers as he said, "Yes, sir . . . Three days . . . Yes, sir . . . She's invaluable, sir. . . Yes, sir. Thank you."

Marcus ended the call, placing his phone on the dining room table. "That was Caius," he said, clearing his throat. "He's in."

"Just like that?" Bella asked, placing the pot on the table.

Marcus nodded. "We need to be in D.C. in three days."

"This is insane," she murmured, pulling a chair out and sitting down.

"Yeah, maybe," Marcus admitted, sitting across from her.

Bella dragged her hand through her hair, the urge to lash out was strong and she struggled to keep from hitting someone. Bile filled her throat as she looked from Marcus to Edward. "Okay. I guess we're going to D.C."

"I don't like it, either, Bella," Marcus groused, leaning back in his chair. "We'll leave first thing in the morning."

Bella nodded and stood up, grabbing some bowls out of the cabinet. "Do you regret killing him?"

"No," Marcus admitted. "Do you?"

"No," she also admitted.

"Not even Leah?"

Bella frowned, setting the bowls on the table. "No, they had already killed her soul. I just killed her body."

"You don't think she was capable of being saved?"

Grabbing some spoons, Bella filled their bowls before making one for herself. She sat back down at the table, but didn't start eating. "When I was little, after my mom died, I spent most of my time down at La Push, a small reservation just outside of Forks. Leah was older than me, but she never treated me like I was a kid. She, Jake, Sam, Emily— they knew what my dad was like, and they took me in. They were my family. The only real family I had. When Cullen got to her, when she broke up with Jake, told the rest of us to go to hell, I knew something was wrong. Jake was everything to her, her family, her mom . . ." Tears filled Bella's eyes. "I wanted to save her. I wanted my best friend back. But after what my father had done to her, I knew that while I could save her, I could never see her again. He turned her into his whore, called her by my name, made her his substitution for me. I had failed her. But when she arrived at the ranch, I saw it in her eyes."

"Saw what?" Marcus asked.

"The thrill she got when she taunted me, when she saw how much I hurt just to breathe. See, I thought I had saved her, but I didn't. She wanted that life back, wanted someone to hurt her. She started to enjoy the pain and humiliation. And if she couldn't have that again, then she would hurt me because I was the one who took her away from him. So, no, I don't regret killing her. I should have killed her when the rest of them."

Leaving her bowl sitting on the table, Bella stood up and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Marcus and Edward behind. They thought of her as a hero, but she knew the truth. She wasn't any better than Carlisle Cullen.