A/N: A quick thank you to everyone who added this story in their alerts and/or added it to their favorite list. It truly means a lot to me.

Chapter 23-

Bella's POV-

"Bella."

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"Bella, please wake up. It is urgent."

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.

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"Come on, Kiddo. I have just got you back. Don't do this to me."

.

.

.

Hmm, kiddo?

That was such an unfamiliar term of endearment. No one ever called me kiddo. Sure, there had been the occasional baby, sweetheart, honey, or love.

But never kiddo.

Renee preferred to call me by my chosen nickname- Bella, adhering to my wishes.

And Charlie…he…

Oh, yes.

He was the one to call me kiddo. At times.

It wasn't used very frequently. Majorly, he called me Bells, at home or in front of visitors. Kiddo was only reserved for the days when his guilt for abandoning me as a kid threatened to overpower him; the days when he realized what a terrible father he had been while I was growing up; for the moments when he remembered how he had let his innocent daughter down, over and over again.

Kiddo was for those moments, fewer since he met Tanya.

Tanya had somehow managed to convince him that the past was irrelevant; that his behavior towards me while I was growing up was long forgotten, and that if he pretended to be a good father in the present, it would become a reality!

Like that could actually happen!

You cannot erase the past; no matter how much you wish to do so.

Anyhow, coming back to the point, what was Charlie doing here?

Why was he in my house?

How did he even locate me?

Not even Renee had my actual address; she never bothered to ask, the few times that we spoke being all about her 'interesting' life. And no one from my old life had details of my current life.

Then, how had he traced me?

And how did he even get into my house?

Had he broken the lock and entered?

Jeez, did he not know that that was a crime?

He was an ex-cop for heaven's sake!

I needed to show him that this was not okay. He may be my father, but I wasn't willing to tolerate such undesired behavior. He could have rung the bell; I would have opened the door. Maybe we could have even had a decent conversation…

Oh, no. Wait.

I wasn't at home.

I was…

The memories came flooding through, the past few days my dreaded tsunami, my eyes blinking open as the last and final memory of a cloth covering my eyes appeared in the forefront of my mind.

"Careful."

I was warned right before the white shiny light barged into my sleep-filled eyes, the warning appearing a tad second too late to be appreciated.

"Ouch." I cried out, wincing as I shut my eyes tight.

"Slowly, Bells." Charlie sighed in annoyance. "These lights are torturous. You want to go slow, believe me on that."

This time, I took his advice, nodding my head briefly, pushing open my eyes, slowly and as gently as could be, the white light still equally painful, but thankfully offering my eyes the opportunity to adjust to it.

"Dad?" I stared at him in question, the man kneeling over my sleeping form, a tired frown on his face as he tirelessly attempted to get me back to normal.

"Look around you, Bella."

He did not need to tell me twice; my eyes searched through the small shabby room, the walls dark and dirt stained, a small single bed- its' legs thin and exposed- the only furniture visible in the room. Apart from that, there was nothing. Not even a single dresser, or an attached washroom, the only door in the room tightly locked from the outside, refusing to barge and give way for us to head towards our freedom.

"Where are we, dad?" I mumbled in a scared whisper.

This place, wherever I was, was eerily similar to the tower, and yet at the same time, worse. Much, much worse.

That seemed like a five-star resort in comparison to this!

More so, due to the dark interiors and death sentence type vibe that this place generated.

"I don't know, Bells." Charlie expressionlessly mumbled. "I woke up some time back. Strange, considering I don't sleep. Or rather, I couldn't before today. Anyhow, the last thing I remember is being introduced to a vampire named Alec…"

"That's his power!" I let out a gasp. "He can numb your senses."

"Oh." Charlie frowned. "That would explain how I could sleep."

"Why are we here, dad?" I seemed like a terrified child, afraid that the invisible monsters would gobble me up. "Where are we?"

"I…I don't have any answer to that." Charlie gulped. "I can't sense anything. I…my senses are so dull; I feel like a human again. I can't hear anything out of the ordinary, or sense anything that would clue me in as to where we are. Whoever has done this…they know what they were doing…"

"I know who has done this." I let out a breath. "It is Stefan and Vladimir, of the Romanian coven. They have an old vengeance against the Volturi…"

"No, Bella." Charlie cut me off. "It is not them."

How was he so sure of that?

"Dad, you don't understand…"

"Bella, hear me clearly, it is not the Romanian coven that is responsible for this. Stefan is a good friend of Tanya's. I know him personally. He is someone I can trust wholeheartedly. He would never do something of this sort."

"But he did!" I waved my hands in the air, trying to convince him that he was misguided. "I was talking to him, dad. He conned me into following him out of the throne room. How else do you explain that?"

"I…" Charlie seemed out of words. "I don't know why he did this, but I am sure he had a reason for it. Anyhow, think logically, had Stefan been involved, why would I be here with you? I am not a part of the Volturi."

He did have a point, I hated to admit!

"He's right."

I turned, Stefan and Vladimir exiting the shadows, their faces equally exhausted and confused, an unanswered question in their eyes.

"We have nothing to do with this." Vladimir spoke up, waving a hand between him and Stefan. "Just like Charlie admitted, we 'woke' up some time back, too. We don't know how we landed here or…"

"You were talking to me when I was kidnapped!" I accused him, desperate to bring his crime out to light.

I refused to believe his sorry tale. Not for a second time in a row.

"Yes." Stefan admitted. "But that is the last thing we can remember, too. Our senses were cut off, just like Charlie mentioned. We have nothing to do with this. Please believe us. We genuinely wanted to be friends with the brothers. Our intentions are good."

"Why would Alec do this?" I took my head in my hands, this one question swirling through my mind on repeat. "What could he have against us? Why us four? It makes no sense!"

"Yes, because he is not the one to do this." Charlie mumbled to himself, an unfamiliar realization shining in his eyes.

"Excuse me?" I stared at him in question.

"What I mean is," he instantly clarified, "yes, Alec did numb our senses and bring us here, but it wasn't his decision to do so. He was just following orders. The mastermind is someone else."

"Aro."

There was no other explanation required, that one word coming to mind almost instantly and effortlessly.

He had done this.

Aro had taken his revenge.

I had tried to escape his clutches; he had locked me up with the one person I was placing my hopes on. This being his ultimate master plan!

Sulpicia and Athenadora had warned me that Aro could go to any extent to prove himself superior and almighty, and he had crossed all lines today, proving them correct.

"Why us, but?" Stefan questioned. "We have hardly spoken to the brothers in the past millennia. Why hold us a captive here in this locked room, the door made of a material not even we can break? What would he achieve from that?"

"Because I needed an innocent little guinea pig to take the burden of my mistakes on their head!" A familiar voice appeared out of nowhere, my eyes soon locating the sole loudspeaker in the room, Aro's displeasing voice muttered through the microphone. "You, my dear, are my guinea pig! History will repeat itself once again, with the death of the vulnerable human and her dearest- selfless- father falling on your dirty, bloodstained hands. And then, I will prove victorious, by killing the two of you, and showing the world that nobody messes with Aro. If you do, you die a slow, painful death. Just like Didyme did. That idiot had decided to go against me!" he scoffed in disgust. "She was locked here, in this very room, for three hundred years of her existence. What did she achieve? Nothing. Finally, she begged me to end her sorry existence."

"You killed her." I whispered in shock and disbelief.

He was responsible for Didyme's death.

Not the Romanian coven.

Marcus. Poor Marcus. He had been lied to for all these years!

"And I will kill you too."

It wasn't a warning or a threat.

It was a promise.