Alice looks up and down the fleet of taxis and walks to the first one that waves them over. "Ciao! Parla Inglese?"

"Yes," the taxi driver answers. "Where do you want to go?"

"We need to get to Volterra."

"Volterra? It's too far!" he scoffs.

Of course, it is. The drive is over an hour away.

"Please? I'll tip well! We need to get there as soon as possible. We're meeting a friend," Alice begs, making her voice sound as sweet as she possibly can.

"No, no...there's a big festival there right now and it's too far, sorry," he says. "Your friend, she looks sad. I can drive you downtown here in Florence instead. It's much more fun. Lots of beautiful places to see and lots of good food to eat."

"No, that's okay. Thanks." Alice pouts shamelessly, horribly disappointed that her overabundance of charm couldn't swing them a ride this time.

If she knew this was going to be an issue, she would have worn heels and a skirt. It's harder for people to say no to her when she's dressed to the nines. Her sneakers are doing her no justice.

She continues walking to the car rental area, where a collection of unassuming sedans wait.

"We're not old enough to rent a car here, are we?" Bella frets.

"It's fine. Don't worry about that. Our main issue is that these are all hideously awful..." Alice comments disapprovingly, her eyes scanning over the boxy grey vehicles lined up on the concrete. "And there's no way they'll go over a hundred."

Out of the corner of her eye, something bright yellow catches her attention. She walks toward it to get a better look, entranced by the beautiful curves and lines of the brand new, shiny Porsche 911 Turbo S parked carefully in the back.

Perfection.

She skips up to the service booth immediately. "Mi scusi, I'd like to rent the yellow Porsche, please."

"Of course, Miss," the car rental agent says with a nod. "As that is one of our luxury models, the daily cost to rent is 1100 euros."

Bella grabs the sleeve of her jacket, practically hyperventilating. "Not that one!"

"We need to get to Volterra fast, Bella, and that's a fast car."

"It's too fast and too expensive!"

"Shh, this is more for me than it is for you," Alice shushes, signing some paperwork and handing over her new driver's license—falsely stating she's twenty-five, but this time with a much more accurate height of four-feet-ten—for the agent.

Easy peasy. Now they just have to drive as fast as they can to Edward and stop him from jumping.

Sliding into the coupe and sinking into the buttery leather seats, Alice smiles. "Wow. Just wow. This is even better than the Vanquish."

Her hands slide over the steering wheel as she admires how it feels to sit in the driver's side. The car comes to life with a purr when she starts the engine.

"Can you pull up the GPS, Bella?" she requests, fastening her seatbelt and putting the car into drive. She rolls out of the garage feeling like a kid in a candy store.

Other cars honk at her as soon as she hits the street.

"You're on the wrong side of the road!" Bella shouts, cringing backward.

"Oops, my mistake," Alice says with a swerve over to the right.

"Should I drive?" Bella asks.

"No, I've got this. It's fine. Are you pulling up the GPS?" Her foot steadily presses down on the accelerator more as they make their way out of the city and onto the highway.

She's only ever driven in the States, but she's certain she'll be able to manage if she stays focused.

As long as Edward's alive, she shouldn't have any reason for new, overwhelming visions distracting her.

"Starting route to Palazzo Volturi. Estimated time of arrival: 73 minutes," the robotic voice of the GPS announces.

Alice's eyes flit to the clock on the dash reading 11:27.

"We can make it," Alice states confidently, flooring the gas. "We'll arrive before noon."

She didn't have much success sleeping on the plane, but in the few minutes she did, she saw a brief blip of the time on a large stone clock tower. Edward will be on the rooftop waiting for midday.

They don't have the luxury of conforming to sensible speed limits right now.

As they pull closer to the city center, the streets become grid-locked in bumper-to-bumper traffic, preventing them from driving any further.

"You're kidding me," Alice grumbles, laying on the horn. "I severely underestimated the crowd that the art festival would bring in. I didn't see the extent of it."

Bella's brows knit together. "Art festival?"

"Every year the Volturi sponsors a big art walk. All proceeds go toward charity," she explains briefly. "I think you're going to have to run. There are only ten minutes left and this traffic isn't moving. Run toward that clocktower. You'll see a fountain out front, okay? He'll be around there on a rooftop. I'll come find you after I find a place to park."

"Right. Okay," Bella unbuckles her seatbelt and hurries out of the car. She stands, her sneakers wobbling on the cobblestone pavement from having sat on a plane and then in a car for so many consecutive hours. "What if I don't see him?"

"He'll be there. You can see him from the street. Hurry, though! Run!"

Bella nods and disappears into the crowd.

...

Edward sits on the ledge of the roof, looking down on the masses of people unaware of the impending chaos.

Families with children, couples on dates, and groups of friends all congregate around the booths of food and art on display.

All night he tried to think of a way to continue on without her to no avail. He spent hours contemplating ways that he could finish his degree, get a job, and someday find someone else to fall in love with.

But there is no one else. There will never be anyone else.

He's never in his twenty years of life ever met a woman who made him feel even a sliver of what he feels for Bella. He needs her like the Earth needs the Sun. Like lungs need air.

The part that hurts the most is knowing for certain that she has no trouble finding another person to replace him.

If he was stronger, cleverer, and tried harder, he might have been able to stay in Seattle and be with her.

None of that matters now, though. There are just a few more seconds.

"Edward. Edward."

He can almost hear her calling out his name now in the distance. It must be because he's finally lost it.

Bon. Bon. Bon

The clocktower starts to toll.

Bon. Bon. Bon

He stands, closing his eyes and letting the cool breeze ruffle his hair.

Bon. Bon. Bon

He hears the door to the roof slam open. It seems someone's noticed him up here. He doesn't bother turning because it doesn't matter who it is. No one can change his mind now.

Bon. Bon. Bon

"Edward! Stop!" Bella's voice shouts.

He looks down at the pale hand grabbing his wrist, the nails on it bitten down to stubs.

He's dead. There's no possible way that she can be here if he isn't.

It was quicker and easier than he imagined it would be.

He steps back toward the hand that's pulling him away from the ledge and turns to see the face that he's missed for so long.

She's exactly as he remembers her.

Long, messy, dark waves falling past her shoulders, slightly chapped lips, and rosy cheeks.

A Shakespeare quote comes to mind.

"Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty," he says. The death of Romeo. He's reunited with his Juliet in death. "You smell just like her."

Sweet, floral...and a bit like the recycled air on a plane. He wonders if his change in mortality is the reason for that oddity.

"I am her!"

"You sound like her, too. Incredible. A glooming peace this morning with it brings—"

"Stop quoting Romeo and Juliet!" Bella says, sobbing. "Edward, please, can you move away from the side of the building?!"

"If I'm dead, why am I remembering you crying of all things?" he thinks to himself out loud.

"You're not dead! Edward, please!"

He looks down at her clinging to his chest now and realizes she's soaked. "I have to be. What other explanation would there be for you being here?"

"You're making no sense. Why would you see me if you were dead and I wasn't? Alice and I came to get you," she cries. "She saw you die."

"Bella, you're—" He hugs her roughly, unable to comprehend yet that she's real and she's in his arms. "—Here? You're here?

"Yes! I'm here. You're alive. I'm alive. I missed you so much."

"I missed you too."

He's kissing her before he can even process the situation.

Bella, his one and only, is once again in his arms. She cares about him still. She loves him still.

His relief is short-lived when he realizes what this means.

"You need to leave," he says abruptly, pulling away. "Is Alice nearby?"

"She said she would find us, so I think so."

The door leading out to the roof opens once more. He expects to see Alice, but two very different faces stare back at him.

"Demitri. Felix," he says, acknowledging their presence.

"Edward, a moment? Aro wishes to speak with you," Felix requests smoothly.

His stomach sinks. He already knows why Aro is asking for him.

It's about the email.

...

Bella follows Edward and the two men accompanying them, Demitri and Felix, back into the old stone building.

Both of the men are very tall—possibly taller than Edward—and have short, dark hair, but Felix is significantly more muscular.

They're joined by Alice in the hallway, her face obscured by oversized sunglasses and a bright designer hair scarf. She looks like a time-traveling nineteen-sixties celebrity dodging the paparazzi.

"Oh, Bella..." Alice sighs sympathetically when she sees her.

Another girl with silky, light brown hair waits in the hallway as well looking very unpleasant.

"Of course you're here, too, Jane," Edward says tensely. "Bella, why don't you go and Alice back out to the festiva—"

"Bring your friends, too, he said," Jane demands, her pretty features and high-pitched voice mismatched with her intimidating glower. Though she's a smidge shorter than Alice and quite a bit younger than them all, Bella finds her terrifying.

She didn't notice the decor of the atelier on the way in, but everything's very lavishly decorated. The floors have intricately woven runners in deep jewel tones, the walls are ornately wallpapered with crown molding, and every light fixture is either a sparkling chandelier or beautifully detailed sconce.

Alice nudges Edward in the arm. "The motorcycle was hers. I was at her apartment when you called. He's a childhood friend."

He shakes his head and sighs. "I should have talked to you first."

"Yeah, that would have been nice."

Bella shivers, the chill from her waterlogged clothes finally setting in. She's certain that she's leaving a trailing puddle behind her as she walks.

Edward looks down with concern, reaching to take her arm, but hesitating and leaving his hand hanging in the air uncertainly. "Why are you wet?"

"I ran through the fountain because there were too many people in the street," she explains, her sneakers soggily trudging over the floor. She is careful to mind her footing so she doesn't trip again. "It's slippery."

She's lucky she didn't hit her head when she slid face-first into the cold water.

Jane leads them back to the elevator and presses the button for the ground floor.

Edward shoots Alice a sideways glance and she shifts uncomfortably. She gives Bella a tight smile, her brows raised.

Jane leads the group down a series of winding, dark hallways until they reach a sitting room filled with a few meticulously dressed men and another child, a boy with a similarly angelic face and brunette hair to Jane.

"Master Aro will be in shortly," a brunette woman says with a nervous smile. She hands Bella a towel. "Feel free to take a seat. Can I get you something to drink?"

"We're fine," Edward says irritably.

"You're dismissed for the day, Gianna," a man with shoulder-length black hair says to her. "Don't bother coming back tomorrow."

The woman smiles wider, nods, and quickly walks out of the room. Bella thinks she hears a sob from the hallways and wonders if she actually just witnessed someone get fired.

Alice sits in a chair nearby, unaffectedly scrolling through her phone while she waits.

Bella remains standing at Edward's side, taking in the room of expensive-looking, hand-carved sofas upholstered in what looks like silk. She doesn't want to ruin anything.

Edward's holding her hand, his thumb grazing her knuckles in steady motions. It feels like they've never even been apart.

She wonders if this means he wants to get back together and that he's realized maybe that he does love her. Maybe he's changed his mind.

He could be pitying her, though. She isn't certain if Alice read all the texts she sent over the quarter, but if she did, she could have told Edward how miserable Bella was without him.

That has to be it. He feels guilty that she's coping so poorly on her own.

It doesn't explain why hearing Jacob answer her phone would upset him so much, though.

She tries to make sense of it, her brain running in a thousand directions trying to sort out what's happening.

His thumb's still doing the thing, and their kiss on the rooftop felt as good as she remembers it being before.

He looks down at her with beautiful, emerald eyes and her heart skips a beat.

She always hated how green Washington is, but she would gladly get lost in his gaze for the rest of her life if she could.

...

"Edward, it's so nice to finally meet your friends! Please introduce me," Aro says as he enters the room, an exaggerated flourish to his voice making him sound like he's performing on stage.

Edward clears his throat. "This is Bella, my girlfriend." He gestures to her, and she's already chewing her lip to pieces. It's very concerning. "And this is Alice. She's a student who also lives at Carlisle and Esme's house."

Alice is reclining in one of the armchairs looking like an international super spy who models haute couture on the weekends with her large sunglasses, chunky gold jewelry, and ivory wool duster. Though she is dressed very stylishly, she's anything but inconspicuous.

"I've seen you on Tiktok," Aro says to Alice with a grin, proving Edward's line of thought.

"Tiktok? I don't have a Tiktok. I think you must be thinking of someone else," Alice unabashedly lies with a shake of her head, her arms crossed over her chest.

"I don't think so. You have a very unique look. You design gowns...sing, dance, make monthly style guides...correct? I have to say, your astrology forecasts are surprisingly accurate." he says, rattling off a well-researched list of her social media presence.

Edward wonders what else he knows. Has he been researching all of his friends this in-depth? Or is Alice an exception?

Alice removes her sunglasses and slides her scarf down off her head, revealing her choppy black hair and smiling back just as brightly. "Oh that. Right. My mistake."

"I was disappointed you didn't come visit us here sooner. I would love for you to spend more time in Italy. We haven't had a resident couture designer in quite some time, and there's a lovely ballet program in town. My wife Sulpicia is friends with some of the board members. I'm sure we could pull some strings and—"

"Could this conversation wait until another time?" Edward asks, cutting him off.

"Is there some sort of rush?" Demitri asks.

"Thank you for the offer, but I'm busy finishing up my degree in Seattle right now," Alice says, glossing over Edward's prickly tone and combative response. "Maybe some other time."

Caius comes in with a stack of freshly printed papers and hands them to Aro before taking a seat on his right. "Marcus is working on a follow-up response now."

"Perfect." Aro glances down at the papers, smiles, and looks back up at Edward. "It seems you were working on a bit more than music while you were here. If you suspected financial reporting mistakes of some kind, you could have simply told me. There's no need to go through twenty years worth of tax statements and expenditure reports, Edward. This must have taken you a great deal of time."

Edward shifts in his seat, racking his brain for an excuse or a way out of the conversation. "I apologize, I hadn't meant to send it out as a mass email. My...phone must have been acting up. It fell out my window this morning and broke on impact."

"Of course. Jane mentioned finding a phone outside this morning," he says, motioning to the small girl. Edward spots his phone in her hands, the screen shattered so badly that parts of the interior show. "It must have fallen and emailed everyone here, along with my dear friend Carlisle, and...some other names I don't recognize."

"One's a private investigator, and another's a licensed tax professional," Caius says, cutting in.

"Mhmm," Aro hums. "I could tell you were quite troubled while you were here, but I hadn't imagined it was because of all of us."

"It wasn't. I was...drunk..." Edward lies.

"The documentation reads as coherent, and you look completely sober," Felix comments.

"Because he is. He doesn't drink," Jane adds.

Edward never intended on being present this afternoon, so he never thought through a way to talk himself out of an inevitable interrogation.

"He's a lightweight. It doesn't take much. If he even smells alcohol, he starts running around shouting and causing a ruckus," Alice says with a good-humored laugh.

"Can you please explain more, Edward?" Aro asks. "It seems to me that accessing and leaking information from unauthorized documents is a conflict of interest for a law student."

"I...have been into accounting and bookkeeping recently. I read an article for one of my classes that said improper record keeping is more common than people think," Edward bullshits. "I was...curious if that was true. A lot of the computers here are running on older software, so it could be a potential...liability. As I said, I didn't intend to send that out in an email. Those just so happened to be my top contacts."

Caius laughs. "We're supposed to believe that?"

"Now, now, Caius. Edward is studying criminal law and he must stay in touch with his tax agent regularly, considering how complicated his inheritance and everything must be. He's an American, after all," Aro defends. Edward gets the impression that he doesn't fully believe that, though. "Now, Isabella, tell me about yourself. How did you and Edward meet? I had no idea he had a girlfriend."

Bella looks around nervously. "We had a literature class together."

"Are you an English major then? Or perhaps you're studying teaching?"

"Journalism. I write. Well, I'm trying to."

"Is any of your work published? I'd like to read it. Any woman who's captured the heart of Edward must be wonderfully talented."

Bella looks uncomfortable, so Edward speaks up. "When she has something published, we'll be sure to send it to you. She's only just started her first year of undergrad, so it may be a while."

Aro smiles. "But of course. Understandable. It takes some time to build up a portfolio. Well...the girl should go get changed into something dry. She'll catch a cold. Will you all be staying the night here?"

"No, we have other plans, thank you," Edward replies. "We'll be leaving within the hour."

"A shame. I would love to speak with you all more," Aro laments. "It can't be helped. Another time, then."

Edward pulls Bella's hand with him as he leaves, heading toward the exit. He hears Alice saying goodbye and a chorus of departing comments but doesn't stop to spare them a second.

It's better to leave now than hang around waiting for some sort of retaliation for his stupid mistake.