In the land of Gods and monsters, I was an angel living in the garden of evil. Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed. Shining like a fiery beacon. You got that medicine I need; fame, liquor, love, give it to me slowly. Put your hands on my waist, do it softly. Me and God we don't get along so now I sing. ~ Lana Del Rey, Gods & Monsters
BPOV
"This tab goes here…" I mumbled to myself, concentrating on the baby in front of me like it was a ticking time bomb. Gasping when everything was in place, I realized I had done it all right. I carefully lifted Delilah up and the diaper didn't go anywhere. "I did it!"
I had spent a lot of time with Alice the past few weeks since Edward and I had returned from our little vacation. Just thinking about our week in Colorado made me practically swoon over my husband. How he managed to pull off such extravagant surprises was beyond me.
Time started moving too fast after that though. I was now pushing past six months in my pregnancy and still felt entirely too unprepared for what was coming. So, I decided to latch onto Alice who had become somewhat of a Parenting 101 instructor for me.
It worked out well, because I would have gone stir-crazy if I couldn't leave our house for four months. My abdomen was entirely too big to cover up now, and I was adamant about keeping this private for now. So, I spent three or four afternoons a week with Alice, who seemed completely grateful for the company and help.
It made me feel a little better when she admitted she wasn't really sure what she was doing either. We made a pretty good team. Today was my first time changing a diaper on my own, and I had passed with flying colors in my book.
I walked down the stairs with Delilah, still admiring my handiwork. The kitchen was full when I walked in, the men having joined Alice as she cooked our Saturday dinner.
"You're here early," I said, handing the baby off to Jasper.
The look on the men's faces wasn't what I would have expected. Everyone looked tense, uneasy. Not good. "Is everything okay?"
Edward sighed, walking over and grabbing my hand. "Can I talk to you for a minute."
"No," I said defensively. I didn't want to know whatever it was. I knew it wasn't good, and that was enough. "I don't want to know. Whatever it is –"
Edward silenced me with a quick kiss and then pulled me along behind him. I begrudgingly followed him up to Jasper's office. He sat behind the desk, and I took a seat across from him.
"Zafrina Senna is dead."
"W-what?"
"She was found yesterday, dead in her home. The police have ruled it a homicide."
"Oh, my God," I muttered to myself. I hadn't thought about her in years. Obviously, I stopped going to her after what she said during the trial, but I never would have wished anything like this to happen to her. She had been my confidant for years and now she was just… gone.
"An agent from the FBI is coming to our house tomorrow morning to talk to you." My eyes, which had fallen to a scratch on Jasper's desk as I thought, snapped to Edward. He didn't look nervous, he seemed more tired than anything else.
"They think I had something to do with it?" My heart started working overtime as the words came out of my mouth.
"After what she said during the trial, it isn't surprising." Edward kept his tone very business-like, very monotone, which I didn't like. It wasn't him.
"Do you know who did it?"
He shook his head. "No. But I'll find out. It's probably the same person who took out King and the others around town. I thought…"
"What?"
"I thought they were trying to frame me. They hadn't left any physical leads back to me, but they seemed to be hinting it was me at their victims. But with Zafrina –"
Shit. "You think they're trying to frame me."
"Yes."
Fuck. It was one thing for my mind to go to the worst-case scenario. Edward was much more logical than me in moments of crisis, so for him to confirm my suspicions was a little unnerving. "What do we do?"
"We do nothing. I'll find out who is doing it and why, and you'll stay as relaxed as possible about the whole thing. The agent will ask similar questions Ateara asked you about King. It'll be fine."
My right hand started to shake, a tremor left over from the bullet to my shoulder. Edward walked over and knelt in front of me, taking my hand in his and giving it a firm squeeze.
"Hey," he said, pulling my chin up to look him in the eyes. "Do you trust me?"
Stupid question. "Yes."
"You don't have anything to worry about. I'll take care of you. Both of you."
…Dark…
The days following my questioning by the FBI were tense. Edward was gone a lot, working through the night like he used to. He had made sure to be home every night by at least ten from the day we found out I was pregnant. I wasn't mad he was working more, but it did make me more nervous.
We hadn't really talked about the situation since the questioning. Edward told me he thought it went as well as it could have, and that was that. I had only seen him for an hour or two at a time since.
Tonight, I had stayed at Alice's a little later than usual because she seemed especially overwhelmed. It was nearing nine by the time I walked in. Not necessarily late by most people's standards, but when you're in your third trimester it feels like two in the morning.
I stood in the living room, contemplating whether I should just sleep on the couch or make the trek upstairs when Edward came down the stairs, smile on his face.
"You're home?" I asked, confused.
He didn't answer, instead walked straight to me and planted a kiss to my lips. The kind that completely took my breath away, even when I was about three minutes from falling asleep. "You're as beautiful as ever, Mrs. Cullen."
I frowned. "Why are you so happy?"
Again, he ignored my question and simply grabbed my hand to pull me upstairs. I obliged, despite my exhaustion, because I hadn't seen him really smile in days. I missed it.
When we were at the top, he told me to close my eyes. I did, because it was Edward and the last thing he would do is let me trip or fall. He guided me a few steps and then stopped. I vaguely heard the click of a door handle.
Soft lips pressed into my cheek before he whispered "Open."
I only managed to last a few seconds before tears blurred my vision. Not only had he painted the room we were turning into a nursery, he had put every piece of furniture I had bought over the last few months together and decorated the entire room. Perfectly.
The walls were a neutral blue-green. The crib we had picked out while we were on vacation was set up against the far wall, all of the bedding in place. There was a changing station to the left, piled with everything we could possibly need. I didn't need to open the cabinets under it to know they would be stocked as well. There were shelves with books lining the walls, some artwork the girls had helped me pick out hanging around, and a comfortable chair in the far-right corner.
"Edward…" I choked on my words.
"Do you like it? I painted a week ago, so all of the fumes should be gone. Alice told me where to put everything, but I can rearrange whatever you'd like."
I walked around the room, running my fingers over the soft blankets and the piles of clothes all around me. All things mothers used for their children. My mind was flooded with everything Renee had ever said to me. Every backhanded compliment, every insult, every time she tried to subtly tell me she didn't care about me and never wanted me around in the first place.
She had a child forced on her and lived to resent me for it for twenty-one years until I walked out on them. What if I wasn't fit for being a mother, what if I was every bit as selfish and vain as she had always told me I was?
Not once had I ever had a positive motherly figure. I didn't know how moms were supposed to react in certain situations. I could play house with Alice all I wanted, but that would never be the real thing.
"Oh, my God," I muttered, stumbling over to the chair to sit down. "Please don't let fuck all of this up." It was inevitable that parents messed up, but I was great at messing up at epic proportions. "I've spent time with Alice and Delilah, but I always hand her off to someone else eventually. All I know how to do is change a diaper and hold a bottle.
"And this is a room for someone who knows what they're doing, Edward, and I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. Every parental figure in my life has either abandoned me or tried to…" Tried to kill me. "We should've been more careful. We shouldn't have brought a baby into this world with my genes, I'm a fucking wreck."
"Hey." Edward stood above me, forcing my chin up so I looked at him. "You are not your parents, any of them. Do you think I'm going to turn out to be like Carlisle?"
"No," I said vehemently. There was no doubt in my mind Edward wouldn't be anything like his father; he cared about family above all else. Carlisle may have tried to make up for everything the tumor caused him to do, but it would always linger over the family.
"Then why would you turn out to be like yours?"
"Because you're stronger than me," I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Edward huffed out a breath, staring at me with wide eyes. "That is… absurd. Bella, you're you. I'm constantly blown away by everything you do, everything you've accomplished. I can assure you, I'm not stronger than you." I rolled my eyes at him, so he continued. "I was trained from a very young age to do what I do. I went to college to know how to run my businesses. You built yourself and your career out of nothing. You saw an opportunity at sixteen and took it, and made yourself one of the most awarded entertainers in the industry.
"You've put up with shit from my life for years, you've had guns pointed at your head and never blinked once. You were on trial for murder and came out on the other side. Christ, Bella, you're stronger than anyone else in this family.
"I know Renee and Charlie gave you a skewed view on what parents should be, and then Aro and Elena fucked that up even more. But, we'll figure it out together. I promise."
There was on part of my brain that believed him, and another that was still in complete panic mode. It seemed like part of me was always panicking these days, and only Edward could calm it down. I was a mess on every level, all the time.
"I'm sorry I'm constantly up and down all of the time. And that I cry every day. And that I keep kicking you in the middle of the night."
Edward smiled down at me, leaning forward to press a kiss right to the corner of my lips. "I love you, kicking legs and all."
…Dark…
In the days following my minor freak out, Edward had taken his sweetness to a whole new level. Every morning the house had new notes scattered around it with little reminders for me. Some simply said I love you while others said things like You're going to make an excellent mother, or I can't wait to meet our son.
I think it was a combination of pregnancy brain and my own personal issues that had me going all over the place. Some days I was fine, and others I was a wreck. It was exhausting.
For most of today I had been with Rosalie. We had talked a lot about the actual giving birth part of this whole situation, which was becoming too real as the days went on. I still hadn't been able to force myself to watch the video of a live birth Alice gave me. By noon I was exhausted so I decided to head home even though I knew the house would be empty.
I worked my way upstairs, a workout in itself because of the belly in front of me, and heard shuffling from Edward's office. Smiling to myself, I knocked quietly before walking inside. Edward wasn't the one shuffling through his desk, though. It was Carlisle.
"Oh, hi, Carlisle," I said, unsure what to do now. I didn't spend much time around him.
"Isabella," he sighed, looking uncomfortable.
I stuffed my hands in the pocket of the sweatshirt I was wearing. Where my phone was resting. Because the look on his face and the body language of him hovering over Edward's desk didn't sit well with me. I pressed the button on the side of my phone five times, knowing it would immediately call Edward. Thank you, Jasper.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, as politely as I could. It was obvious what he was doing. Snooping. Spying. Eavesdropping.
"You're supposed to be at Rosalie's."
Keeping my face as neutral as possible I asked, "How do you know that?"
"I'm not someone from off of the streets, Bella. I'm your father-in-law."
Hearing him say that, the way he sounded as if it was a threat, made my stomach churn. "You of all people know how bad I am with fathers."
Line drawn.
"Why are you going through my husband's desk?"
"I needed to know what he knew."
"Why not ask him?"
"Because he doesn't trust me."
I pointed to the desk, covered in papers that Carlisle was snooping through. "For good reason, obviously."
Carlisle's face twitched. I hit a nerve. I didn't know what to do now, though. Obviously, I couldn't just leave him here, and there was part of me that knew he wouldn't let me leave him here either. There was no doubt in my mind that he had a gun on him somewhere.
My suspicious were confirmed when he slowly raised one from behind his back. "Well, we've been here before, haven't we?"
"If I had known how big of a hassle you were going to be, I would have gotten rid of you then."
Well, shit.
"I've never understood why you and Esme hated me so much. I make your son happy, that should make you happy." Right now, it was the least of my worries why they hated me but I wanted him to do more talking and less shooting.
"You glued my family together when I was in the process of tearing them apart. Edward and Emmett were always fighting, Edward too high to give a damn about anything. Alice and Jasper were thinking about moving away. Then, you came along and somehow everyone started getting along. Edward got clean, became a better leader. All because of you."
I wanted to snort at the ridiculousness, but I held it in. "Why were you trying to tear them apart?"
"Drop the gun, Carlisle," Ben said, appearing in the doorway. I wanted to relax, knowing that Edward probably sent him in because of my phone call, but there was still a loaded weapon aimed right at me.
"This isn't your fight, Benjamin. Leave."
My eyes stayed glued to Carlisle but I could feel Ben inching closer to me. It was nerve-wracking, just waiting for one of them to shoot first. Knowing I could be on the receiving end of one of them. Shit, the suspense right now is probably more excruciating than an actual bullet would be.
Except I didn't have to worry about the pain I would feel. I had another little one to worry about too.
"You know I can't do that."
"Why would you want to tear apart your family?" I asked again.
Two shots rang out. I think I screamed, I wasn't sure. Ben was on the ground though. I couldn't bring myself to look at him.
"If you would be so kind as to kick his gun to the side, Isabella."
There was no choice for me to make. I couldn't bend down fast enough to get it for myself, so I softly kicked the gun away from Ben despite every fiber of my being protesting against it.
"I've hated what this family stood for since my father brought me here. He dictated everything about my life; who I could be, who my friends were, who I had to marry. I never had a choice."
"So, you decided to ruin the Cullen name. Something I'm sure your father would have hated."
"It was working fine until you got involved. Edward started caring more and caught on."
"You never had a tumor. It was all a cover up because you got caught." Jesus, and I thought my family was fucked up. Carlisle has been out for his own flesh and blood for years.
"You're much smarter than I ever gave you credit for," he said, scowling at me. I saw his fingers twitch as he held his weapon.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Edward sneered, walking in with his own weapon raised.
"It's time for all of this to end, Edward!" Carlisle shouted, but I didn't really understand what he was talking about. This entire thing was a giant cluster fuck of confusion.
"Don't hurt her. Please." The second the last word was out of Edward's mouth I dropped as carefully and quickly as I could to the floor, covering my ears as shots rang out around me.
I was there for a minute, maybe two, with my eyes squeezed shut, too scared to see what happened around me. I jumped when a hand gripped my shoulder.
"It's okay. Come on," Edward said, helping me up and pulling me out of the room. He kept my head pressed into his chest so I couldn't look around. He took me to our room, but only for a minute. I stood in the middle of it, unsure what to do with myself. My head was spinning and I was pretty sure there was a dead body in Edward's office. It was an all too familiar realization.
Edward threw a bag over his shoulder and was next to me again. We were walking out the front door before I could even ask a question.
"Are we running away again?" I questioned, panic rising in my chest.
"No, you're going to Alice and Jasper's. Rosalie will be there with Alec as well."
I breathed a sigh of relief, but there were still so many things I wanted, needed, to know. Opening my mouth to ask them, Edward interrupted me.
"I don't have any answers yet. I need some time."
"Um, is Ben –"
"He's fine. I'll take care of it."
Ben was alive. Edward was alive. I was fine. Everything would be fine.
I watched Edward as he drove. He was more tense, more concentrated than I had ever seen him. I wanted to grab his hand or do something to make him feel better, but I couldn't move. Carlisle's words kept repeating in my head, over and over.
When we got to Alice and Jasper's, Edward rushed me inside, dropping my bag on the floor. Everyone else was already here, all of them wearing similar looks of concern as we entered.
Edward nodded his head toward the front door and Jasper and Emmett left. When he looked at Alice and Rosalie they both retreated to the kitchen. When we were alone he pulled me into his arms, as close as we could get with my stomach in the way. For just a second, my Edward was here. Not the one who was about to leave this house and face unimaginable horrors.
"Are you okay?" he whispered in my ear.
"Yes." Mostly.
"Fuck, Bella, I –" he sighed, pressing a strong kiss to my forehead. "I'll be back as soon as I can." Then, a second later, he tensed again and dropped his arms. With that, he was gone.
Alice and Rosalie asked a lot of questions for a while, and I answered them all honestly. Carlisle was Alice's father and she deserved to know the truth about what happened. Even though we didn't really know anything. Everything he said was cryptic and could be interpreted a million different ways.
It wasn't until a few hours later, when I was finally alone in the guestroom, that I was able to really think. I was exhausted but I paced the room for hours, trying to piece everything together.
Carlisle wanted me gone, that much was obvious. He said he should have gotten rid of me before, that morning we talked in New York. Then, there was everything about tearing apart his family. It was obvious, now, that he didn't care for them much, if at all. But, why?
The closest thing I had to an answer was what he said about his father. He resented him, I guessed. Ronan must have forced the life on Carlisle, forced him to be the prodigal son he needed to build an empire. Carlisle must have spent decades burning with hatred toward everything he had become.
Then, he got caught and had to fabricate the brain tumor to explain his actions. Fuck, Edward would be furious that got past him, that he believed the lie. The one thing that infuriated him to no end was people deceiving him.
I still couldn't understand my role in all of it. It made no sense to me how I became the one Carlisle wanted to take his anger out on. He said I glued the family together, but I had always thought I had torn them apart.
…Dark…
Three days.
It had been three days of replaying every word Carlisle had ever said to me over and over in my head. Three days of wondering what the full story was, though I knew I would probably never know everything. Three days being sequestered with Alice and Rosalie without a word from my husband.
Emmett and Jasper made appearances every once in a while, and it infuriated me every time they said "He'll be back soon," or "He's sorry." I didn't want apologies. I wanted him here.
"How do you always handle things like this, Bella?" Rosalie asked out of the blue as we were all in the kitchen cooking one night. Well, they were cooking and I was sitting at the counter chopping vegetables.
"What?"
"We know you… work with the men sometimes. You know a lot more about their work lives than we do. You went to jail for Christ's sake. I don't know how you keep it together all of the time," she admitted.
I shrugged. "This is a lot different than anything I've dealt with before. I don't know where he is or what he's doing and it's slowly driving me insane."
"I prefer not knowing," Alice added. "When they're working late and they come home with bloody clothes, I don't want to know what they were doing. The second I know what an average night is like for them I know I'll start worrying a hundred times more than I already do."
Rose nodded. I understood their perspective, but I didn't necessarily agree with it myself. I didn't need to know everything Edward did, but I liked knowing the gist of what was going on. If he was having issues with a certain family, I liked to know what name to keep an ear out for. I didn't like admitting to myself I liked having the names in case something happened and I had to take matters into my own hands again. It wasn't part of myself that I enjoyed.
The front door opened and I didn't bother getting my hopes up. It would be Emmett or Jasper, not Edward.
"Are you ready to go?" Ben's deep voice asked from the doorway.
I gasped, looking up and seeing him for the first time in days. All I knew was that he was alive, but that was it. My eyes scanned over him, thankful that there were no noticeable injuries to him. I wasn't even sure where he got shot.
"You're okay?"
Ben nodded. "Mostly flesh wounds. A few stitches was all it took."
"I'm sorry, I –"
He held up his hand. "No apologies necessary. Are you ready to go? Mr. Cullen is at home waiting for you."
I frowned. He sent Ben to take me home? Why didn't he come get me himself? "I'll come back and get my stuff later, okay?" I told Alice as I left with Ben. I didn't hear her reply. I followed Ben quickly to the car, ready to finally get some answers.
My first instinct when I walked in the house was to be furious. Edward had left for days without a word and I wasn't used to being shut out like that. But seeing him hunched over on the couch, a bottle of scotch on the table in front of him, I knew anger wasn't what he needed right now.
I sat next to him, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder, and he looked up at me. Sad green eyes met mine, and I could immediately tell he hadn't slept at all in the days he had been gone. He opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him.
"You need to sleep."
"You deserve answers," Edward said, his voice gruff.
"I'll get them after you sleep, come on." Grabbing his hand, I pulled him up. I didn't have to actually expel any energy doing it, but Edward let me think I had won. Up in our bedroom I noticed a fairly large cut on his forearm as I was pulling his shirt off.
I didn't ask any questions, even though there were a million running through my mind. I pulled him into the ensuite and grabbed the large first aid kit I had stashed under the sink.
Edward was quiet, leaning against the counter and watching me as I moved. He didn't flinch when I cleaned the cut with antiseptic even though I knew it had to sting. "It doesn't look deep enough to need stitches," I mumbled, taping some gauze around it.
Edward cocked his head to the side and looked down at me. "How do you know?" he asked softly. He didn't say it in an accusatory or condescending way, just quiet curiosity.
I shrugged. "I learned some basics; what needs stitches, what just needs a good cleaning, how to do stitches, things like that. Just in case."
He dropped his head to my shoulder, his mouth quickly latching on to the pulse point of my neck. I reveled in his closeness for a minute, but had to step away when he pressed himself closer.
"You need to sleep," I repeated.
Once I had him in bed, Edward was quick to fall asleep. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was too, so I wasn't far behind.
Sometime later I groggily woke up and found a bright pair of green eyes staring at me. "You need more sleep," I grumbled, tucking myself as close to him as possible. It was quite the challenge with the belly I was working with.
"He'd been fucking with us for years," Edward said, his voice calm and quiet. It seemed like once he started talking, he couldn't get it all out fast enough as he told me everything he had found out.
Carlisle hated his father, hated the family he was forced to lead. Apparently, his resentment started when he fell in love with another woman, someone Edward was still trying to find the identity of, and Ronan forced him to marry Esme. She was a better match and would make a good wife for the life he had to lead.
He had kids because he had to. He played his part for years without anyone knowing how miserable he was. But, then he started planning. He wanted to destroy everything about the family that he thought stole his life from him.
Carlisle didn't care when Edward started using drugs and slacking on his responsibilities. He let Jasper be a major part of the family business despite the fact that he had no blood ties, hoping he might have ulterior motives. He let Emmett get kicked out of three colleges before graduating. He groomed his family to fall apart.
"But then, you came along," Edward said, smiling at me in the dark.
Apparently, Edward getting clean sort of leveled out the family. He started picking up the slack Carlisle purposefully left and the family started thriving again. That was when Carlisle partnered up with Aro, why they had me shot. He wanted to send Edward back to his old ways.
He had to fabricate the story of the tumor when he knew Edward was getting too close. He needed a reason for all of his erratic behavior, and didn't trust Aro not to tell Edward about his involvement.
Then, once he was back, he had to do damage control. He had to play his part of remorseful father looking to get in his family's good graces again. He didn't expect Aro to go rogue and try to take me out himself, but used the situation to get back on Edward's good side. Helping me through the trial would erase a lot of the checks he had against him.
He laid low for a while after that, needing to wait for the aftereffects of everything else to die down. Then he started up again a while ago, talking with Petrov and leaking bits and pieces of plans to people throughout the city.
I had been his newest target. With me being pregnant the family line could continue, something Carlisle never wanted. He was the one going around the city, killing people to get the cops' attention on Edward and I. He knew Zafrina would be linked directly to me.
"You don't have to worry about that anymore. The FBI knows what they need to."
I nodded, not wanting to know what kind of deal he made with them. There was so much information to process. I supposed a lot of things made more sense now. Carlisle and Esme's relationship for one.
Everything fit, though. Their sometimes-obvious disdain for each other. Carlisle never caring when Esme and I got into fights. Hell, I slapped her and he never even flinched.
Esme's attitude came into perspective as well. If I had grown up a Volturi it was possible I would have been in her position, forced to marry someone for the sake of status. The thought of being forced on someone is horrible in itself, but having that someone be as unreliable and erratic as Carlisle had to be hell. Throw in the fact that I broke the mold that she never could and I finally understood a fraction of the hate she felt for me.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Edward's cheek when he frowned at my apology. "Mine might have been on a slightly smaller scale, but I know the feeling of having a parent suddenly not be who you thought they were."
Edward held me close for a few minutes, then let out a shaky breath against my neck. "Your phone call… Fuck, Bella. When I heard you say you'd been there before I knew he had… But you remembered our code."
"Well, yeah. It's not something I would forget."
Edward wasn't a man who begged. Even at gun point he wouldn't beg for anything, except me. On the island, during one of the many sessions where he would teach me some self-defense, he told me that if we were ever in any kind of standoff and he said something along the lines of Don't hurt her, please that was my cue to drop immediately so he could take care of things.
"You're okay? Both of you?" he asked, placing a hand lightly on my stomach.
"Yes. He was kicking me all morning."
Edward smiled and gave me a soft kiss. "I love you."
"I love you, too. Now, get some more sleep. You still look exhausted."
A/N: Bringing some excitement back for these two. Another equally exciting chapter is next, I'm sure you can guess what's coming!
