First shots fired, everybody's gathered around. You're looking at me like I tried to take you down. No, no, it's not what happened at all. There's no sound, I'm waiting on your next move. A showdown, and I know where to hit you. But no, no, it's not how I wanted this to go down. Now we're standing in the ring and you make the first swing and now we're fighting dirty. ~ Taylor Swift, Battle (Unreleased)
BPOV
When I was seventeen and promoting what became one of the biggest franchises in historyI had to attend nearly every award show that happened that year. Video Music Awards, People's Choice Awards, random shows that I didn't even remember the name of now. While to the average person it looked fun and glamorous, when you were seventeen and severely sleep deprived and hiding the fact that you were on the edge of a mental breakdown every night, they weren't quite so exciting.
That was when I realized my mind and body had an interesting connection. When I was told I had to do something, I was usually able to suck it up and get it done. No matter how I was feeling, if it was important, I did it. I was a consummate people pleaser and constantly put aside my own well-being to do so.
I've had directors tell me we had the lighting right for one more scene and if I didn't do it right, I would cost the movie hundreds of thousands to extend shooting. I've had studio executives tell me that if I didn't walk a red carpet and talk about the film, despite the fact that I hadn't slept in three days, I would never work another day in this industry. From the age of seventeen on, I had always been good under pressure. Even when they moved to life or death situations once I met Edward.
Edward often told me I thrived under pressure, but I always thought I panicked under pressure. My plans made in intense circumstances weren't typically the smartest and I didn't have a great track record. But, the moment Edward said he was turning himself into the police I felt the familiar rush of panic induced adrenaline through my veins.
I didn't think about the consequences as I tried to convince him not to turn himself in. All I could think about was protecting my husband and son.
Even after Edward agreed not to turn himself in, there were hundreds of things to worry about. As I sat at our dining room table, surrounded by our family as they discussed the issues, I couldn't be bothered by those worries.
All I could see was red.
As petrified as I was the second Edward said he was turning himself in, I was also furious. For as long as I could remember he always said he would never leave me and here he was, voluntarily turning himself in to get sent to prison for the rest of his life.
The longer I sat there and pictured that future, the more frustrated I became. Edward sat silent and stoic beside me, and Aiden listened intently as his uncle's discussed options. When I stood from the table Edward immediately started to stand himself.
"No," I whispered as I walked past him. I was too angry to discuss anything civilly with him.
I found my solace in the kitchen, for once not upset with the used pan Aiden left in the sink after he cooked himself a late-night snack. I rolled up my sleeves and started angrily scrubbing at the dish.
My wrists tingled from where Edward had his hands wrapped tightly minutes ago, my mind replaying every instance when someone snapped a pair of handcuffs around them. It wasn't something that bothered me much anymore. Until the idea of a new pair being slapped around them became a very real possibility.
It was easy to sacrifice myself in the moment, when the thought of Edward taking the fall for my crime was too painful to process. It still was, but the thought of reliving that part of my life also left me with a knot in my gut.
Usually I was the one that panicked and overreacted. When Edward was the one panicking, it had to be bad.
Petrov knew about the bank.
He got my son into drugs.
He was threatening to frame me for Felix and Demetri's murders.
He, most likely, had backup plan after backup plan in place for any move we made.
Maybe sabotaging ourselves was the only move we could make.
A warm hand fell to my shoulder. I didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
"I don't want to talk to you."
"Bella –"
"We've been married a long time, Edward Cullen," I grunted, dropping the pan in the sink and turning around to face him. Seeing him now just made my heart clench. "But, I've never been this… furious with you."
"Why?" he asked, making me frown. It should have been obvious to him why I was mad… right?
I could say I was mad because he was going to sacrifice himself to the authorities, but that would make me a hypocrite. I could say I was mad about him grabbing my wrists, but that would prove his point that I couldn't handle going through all of that again. I could say I was mad about a lot of things but he knew them all.
He knew the real person I was furious with was Viktor Petrov.
"As much as we both hate to admit it, this life is in your blood. Even women born into it wouldn't have done half of the shit you have for us."
I huffed and tried to walk around him, but Edward wrapped his hands around my waist, keeping me in place.
"You, Isabella Cullen, were made to be mine. Every little thing about you…" his words trailed off as he pressed soft kisses to my jaw; even as I turned my face away from him, barely holding on to my anger. "I love how passionate you are about your work. How in the blink of an eye you can transform yourself into someone else. I'm obsessed with the songs you write about us, how you can so easily put into words how you feel, how I feel."
Edward's hands started traveling around my waist and I wanted to push them away, because he had a habit of thinking sex solved everything, but I was frozen as I listened to him talk.
"I hate that you've had to compromise your morals for me, hate how guilty I know you feel about the things you've done. Sometimes I think you would have been better off meeting someone more… normal. Then, I see that side of you. The one so fiercely protective of me and our son and our life together. No other man would have appreciated how fucking ruthless you can be."
I gasped at his words and his hands as they ended up on my ass, pressing me against his ever present hard on.
The ruthlessness, the lies and crimes, it had all become normal around me. Most of the time I simply had to turn a blind eye, especially these days. But Edward was right. I never hesitated when Jasper and Emmett mentioned I could get inside that safety deposit box so long ago. I never really fought the idea of taking over the family when the men were arrested. I sure as hell didn't waver before putting four bullets in Aro Volturi's chest. Would have done the same thing to his sons if my conscious hadn't gotten in the way.
"We were made for each other, baby. Your sly little smile, the way innocence flows off of you even after you've done unimaginable things. You know just where to hit people for it to hurt the most and I fucking love you for it."
Everything he was saying should have disgusted me. Everything he told me so long ago in that hotel room should have made me run as far away from him as possible, but I had no limit to what I would do for this man. Maybe I never did. I liked to think I wasn't the same girl that did all of this in the past, that I would never have that urge to destroy someone so completely again.
But it was back. Edward knew it before I did, understood it better than I did.
When he kissed me it was a battle of nipping teeth and all I could think about as his warm hands slid up under my t-shirt was that I had always been attracted to the darker side of Edward. I think I always hid my darker side, though, because I was scared he loved me because I wasn't from his world. Apparently, I was wrong.
His hand snuck underneath my yoga pants, not shy at all about the fact that our entire family could walk in at any moment. I should have pushed him away, come to my senses and gone back to the other room. I should have, but I didn't. He knew he had me, too, the moment his fingers brushed against my sensitive flesh I melted into him. Because in this moment, everything was fine. Everyone was safe and all I had to focus on was the jolt of adrenaline that shot through me every time he touched me.
"What would you do to him? If you had woken up and I had already turned myself in, what would you have done to Petrov?" His thumb pressed against my clit and my hips jerked against his hand. "Tell me, Bella."
"I would have let him think he broke me," I whispered, burying my head against his chest. I barely managed to quiet my moan when two of his fingers slowly slide inside of me. My entire body was sore from the night before, but it didn't matter when he started slowly and sensually playing me as only he could.
"What next?" His voice was muffled against my shoulder. I forgot to answer for a minute when he started sucking on the sensitive skin behind my ear.
"I would let him think he won," I repeated. "Then I would turn the tables and watch him fucking burn. Tear his plan apart piece by piece so he knew I was coming and couldn't do anything about it. Let him have to wait for me to destroy everything he cared about until I destroyed him."
His fingers got more insistent and I swore he smiled against my neck. Then he kissed me like we hadn't spent last night intertwined for hours, like we hadn't been kissing for decades. Maybe the desperation should have worried me, but it made me feel like we were twenty years younger and untouchable.
"That's my girl," His free hand that had been resting on my hip moved to the back of my neck, holding me against his shoulder until he was the only thing on my mind. Edward and how good he felt against me, inside me, everywhere.
My teeth clamped down on his shoulder when my climax rocked through every nerve I had. Reality didn't give me long to relish in my high, as all of our problems flooded back to my mind.
"What are we going to do?" I whispered to him.
He sighed against me, a heavy sigh that told me he was just as confused as me. "We'll figure it out."
…Dark…
It was always easy to tell the severity of a situation based on the hours Edward and the men spent in his office thinking of a plan. It had only been about an hour that they had been talking, but I knew they were nowhere close to a resolution yet.
Edward bluntly and quickly kicked everyone out of the house this morning after our talk in the kitchen, except for Emmett and Jasper. Aiden frowned when we had returned, looking back and forth from the both of us. I could tell he wanted to ask a million questions, some probably similar to questions I had.
I knew I needed to calm down first, though. The warm shower helped alleviate some of the anxiousness that had been bubbling up inside of me all morning. It was what I needed before being able to talk to him.
Finally making it to Aiden's room, I knocked on the door quietly. I cracked it open after I heard a mumbled yeah.
"Can I come in?"
Aiden nodded from his spot on his bed, leaning back against the headboard with his computer in his lap.
I folded myself into the chair across from him and sighed. Ever since the first moment I held him in my arms, being around my son made me almost instantly calm. When he was a baby I would spend hours staring at him, memorizing every gurgle and blink. It took me months to come to terms with that fact he was ours. An actual human that Edward and I created.
It was easy to step back from acting and focus on him as he grew up. Spending time with him, having as normal of a life as I had ever gotten, it was more rewarding than I ever thought possible. Which was why it was fucking killing me that he got caught up in all of this.
Would he have eventually turned to drugs without Petrov interfering? Would he still be that teenager with an innocent smile and eyes that didn't give away the shit he had been through?
Maggie would tell me it was pointless to get caught up in what-ifs, but I couldn't help it.
Aiden broke me out of my thoughts. "Are you going to get arrested?"
I sucked in a quick breath even though I shouldn't have been surprised by the question. "It's a possibility."
"It's all my fault," he moaned, tossing his computer aside and tugging at his hair in a very Edward-like fashion. The similarity made me smile just a little bit.
"No matter what happens, Aiden, it's not your fault." He looked at me like I had three heads, so I elaborated. "I did it. It's on me, not you."
"But I told – "
"He could have already known, or could have just as easily found out another way." It wasn't really true. Jasper and Emmett were supposed to have erased any kind of evidence, and hopefully that would work in our favor soon, but I didn't want him feeling guilty about any of this. If Petrov did have other evidence, we were screwed anyway.
"I just keep messing everything up and I don't know how to stop." His voice cracked as he spoke, and it created a little fissure in my chest.
I jumped out of my spot, sitting on the edge of his bed next to him and pulled him into me. The way his shoulders shook, just a tiny bit like he was trying to keep himself from crying, nearly broke me.
"You're not messing everything up. Things are rough now, but it'll get better," I told him, keeping him in a tight hug. "I'm so, so proud of you, Aiden."
He pulled away, rubbing his hands over his face and frowning at me. "You don't have to lie, Ma."
"I'm not lying. You've made so much progress in such a short amount of time. You stuck with the program your father set up and you're doing so well. I know it's not easy all of the time. I know you fight every day to stay clean and I'm so proud of you for that."
I wasn't trying to go easy on him. He knew he fucked up and he knew things were bad now, but that didn't mean he should ignore how much progress he had made.
"Everything is going to be okay," I told him, and myself.
"But – "
"You don't have to worry about anything. You're seventeen, Aiden. You don't need to worry about this stuff."
"When you were seventeen you were practically on your own already."
"Because I was running away from a small town and a family that was slowly suffocating me. You don't need to grow up as fast as your father and I did."
That was the whole reason we never told him about all of this in the first place. He deserved a childhood. One that Petrov helped tear away from him.
He looked at me for a moment, like he was studying me, then nodded to himself. Before I could ask what he was thinking there was a thud from upstairs. We both winced.
"You're okay?" I asked, standing up.
"Yeah. Thanks, Ma."
I ruffled his hair and got a smile as I walked out.
Thankfully Aiden's room was on the opposite side of the house from Edward's office. As soon as I started up the stairs I could hear the fighting from it.
"That's not a fucking option," Edward grunted.
"It's a good plan, Edward. You're falling for his shit."
"You think I'm going to let my wife not only take the fall for doing something you two idiots told her to do, but also self-sabotage her entire fucking reputation again?" He was pissed. The kind of pissed that made his voice sound like a threat no matter what he said.
"You know she would do it without hesitating."
"That doesn't mean I'm going to let her."
"You don't need to let me do anything," I said, leaning against the door frame. The entire room froze. I took a second to look around, barely resisting the urge to chuckle at the overturned chair in the corner. Edward had a habit of breaking things when his temper got the best of him.
"Bella –"
Jasper interrupted Edward. "If we ask her and she says no, we'll figure something else out. This is our best option though, Edward, and you know it. Hell, she came up with half of it downstairs."
Edward frowned at both of them, and never met my eyes as I looked at him. He turned his back on us and stood at the window.
I sat on the couch in the corner and listened as Emmett and Jasper explained their plan. I wasn't as experienced as them at this kind of thing, but even I could see that it seemed like a solid course of action considering all of the unknowns we were dealing with. There were some suggestions I had myself, simply from an outsider's perspective. I'd read a million and one scripts that tried to describe humans as accurately as possible. I knew how to read people and how to play them, and there were a few things I knew would make the plan a little more realistic, but I kept them to myself for now because I saw how uncomfortable Edward was in the corner.
To their credit, neither Jasper or Emmett looked too pleased about the plan either. I was taking the brunt of the repercussions because Petrov was gunning for me in the first place. I was his only way to really get to Edward. Aiden and I were his weak spots, and there was no way in hell we were letting him get caught up in this mess again.
Jasper and Emmett were able to see reason though, understand that this was probably the best option. Edward just saw red whenever they mentioned using me.
I gave Jasper and Emmett a nod and they walked out quietly. Edward stayed in his spot, his arms rigid as he propped himself up against the windowsill and his back obviously tense.
"You could have been unstoppable," Edward said out of the blue. "You could have double, triple the amount of accolades you have now, you could have the respect from your peers that you deserve. You could have had the fucking world at your fingertips if I had just stayed away from you."
My chest tightened as he spoke, the sadness so evident in his voice. Edward had said similar things before, but never had he looked so convinced of his theory.
It was probably true, some of it at least. Yes, people probably would have respected me more if I had never been accused of murder or if I never married a man with the reputation Edward had. Maybe I would have gotten sent more scripts or been given better opportunities, but I was proud of the career I had.
Because I made it. When people screwed me over and told me I couldn't be paid for any work for a year, I did it myself, out of my own pocket. When the world had decided I was a snake and would never work in the industry again I built myself back up, making the movie and music I wanted to. And I won Best Picture at the Academy fucking Awards.
I didn't need a million more statues or people kissing my ass because they pretended to respect me but really envied me. Maybe, when I was eighteen, I thought that was what I wanted, but it all seemed so trivial now.
"I don't care about the awards or anyone else," I told him, feeling like we had this conversation all too often. "Just this morning you said we were made for each other. What happened to that?"
He angrily grunted out his response. "This morning our plan wasn't to fucking sabotage your reputation again."
Everyone had a reputation. My husband had the reputation of losing his temper and being the kind of man whose bad side you didn't ever want to be on. I had gone through a few reputations through the years; America's sweetheart turned to the good girl gone bad, then the comeback kid who proved everyone wrong. I liked to think my reputation now overshadowed all of the old ones; award winning actor and songwriter, mother and wife who would do anything for her family.
Emmett and Jasper's plan, though, would likely revert me back to being public enemy number one. Because in order to let Petrov think he was winning, he had to think he was destroying me. In order for him to destroy me he had to take away one of the only things Edward couldn't control.
Hopefully it was enough to placate him while Edward worked on his own rebuttal. Otherwise we would be sabotaging ourselves for no fucking reason.
Either way, if my husband and son were happy and safe, none of it mattered. Yes, I had grown up in the public eye and been conditioned to care about what they all thought about me, but there were much more important things than my reputation these days.
Pushing myself away from the door frame, I made my way to his side. I hooked my arm around his, sighing when I felt a little of the tension drift away from him.
"It's fi-"
"Do not say the word fine. If you value my sanity, do not say that you are fine."
And the tension was back.
I squeezed myself between Edward's body and the windowsill, hopping up to sit on the ledge. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and tugged at his silky hair until he finally looked at me.
"You know how most girls dream of first dates and boyfriends and weddings and happily ever after's when their young?"
Edward squinted at me for a moment, probably confused at my odd switch of the conversation, but nodded. "Alice had her entire wedding planned by the age of ten."
"I'm not surprised," I giggled. "I never did that. I never thought anyone would want to spend time with me, let alone date me. Never had any inkling of hope that one day I would put on a pretty white dress and marry someone that loved me for me. I sure as hell never thought I would get a happily ever after."
His eyes, the ones that always looked at me filled with love and adoration, were swimming in sadness now.
"Then, you sat next to me and started telling me how you wanted to lick all of my tattoos and you haven't left my side since." I pressed soft kisses along his neck, traveling them over his sharp jaw. "You and Aiden are my happily ever after, no matter what people say about me."
Edward sighed into me, his eyes losing the sadness and being taken over by complete rage. "I'm going to destroy him."
I should have felt guilty about it, should've told him not to hurt anyone.
Instead, I said, "Good."
…Dark…
The next few days were a bit of a blur. We didn't leave the house much, Edward barely left his office. Emmett and Jasper came and went, usually mumbling under their breath about something or other. Everyone was frustrated, but I was surprisingly calm. Some kind of fluke, probably, considering the phone call I was on.
"I'm sorry… you're what?" Heidi balked over the phone. I was sitting in my office at home, staring at the wall of awards as I spoke to her, Kate, and Claire.
"I'm leaving the agency." Things were about to turn to shit really fast, and I wasn't going to take them down with me.
"Bella, you're a partner here," Kate said, sounding flabbergasted. I just barely made out one of the other women in the background muttering something about being the biggest client there as well.
"I'm not going anywhere else. I just…"
They were all silent as I thought, until Kate spoke up again. "Something is happening again."
My friends weren't stupid. I was sure they all knew most of what people said about Edward was true.
"Yes."
"And you don't want us caught up in it."
"Yes."
It was mostly true. I also didn't want them to have to lie because of me. The plan definitely requires a hell of a lot of lying.
"We can handle it, Bella."
"I know you guys could. That's the problem."
There wasn't much more I could say. They were excellent at their jobs, and I knew they would fight tooth and nail against any bad press that popped up, but we didn't necessarily want that.
"We'll do whatever you need us to, Bella. If you want us to take a more… lax approach to things, that's fine. We can run every little thing by you if we need to."
"We've been in this together from the very beginning, Bella. We're not going anywhere."
I sighed and thought for a moment. I didn't want to leave them. It was rare, but they had been my team since I was seventeen. We worked so well together, and I trusted them explicitly. It wasn't even Edward's idea for me to leave them, he told me they would probably react like this. I just didn't want anyone else stuck in the middle of everything.
"Everything, everything, has to be run by me," I bargained.
"Of course."
There was a soft knock on my door and Aiden peaked his head inside.
"Starting now, okay? Everything."
"Got it."
As soon as I hung up the phone, Aiden handed me an envelope with a proud smile. I sat up a little straighter on the couch and opened it. "What is this?"
"An acceptance letter. From Northwestern."
I froze, the paper not even out of the envelope yet. "That's a college."
"Uh, yeah."
"You got accepted into college?"
"Well, I'm not that stupid, Ma."
"No, that's not what I meant," I stuttered. "It's… college. That's for adults." Sort of. If you considered eighteen an adult. Some people at eighteen were obviously mature adults, others weren't.
"I'd like to think I'm more adult than child these days."
He didn't say it to hurt me, but it did. He was a baby. My baby. The one that grew inside of me, that lived off of me for months. One of the only good things I've ever done was create him and now he was grown?
"But you haven't graduated high school."
"I've got the credits, but I figured I'd go back to school for the spring semester to get back into the swing of things. Finish with a few extra classes under me and start at Northwestern in the fall."
He would be eighteen by then. Eighteen and free to do whatever he wanted. Damnit.
I read the letter as I stumbled to Edward's office upstairs. Dear Aiden Cullen… accepted to Northwestern University… blah, blah, blah.
"Did you know about this?" I asked him, tossing the letter on the desk in front of him. He frowned at me, then quickly skimmed the letter.
Then, he smiled. Fucking smiled.
"You applied to Northwestern?" He asked, looking behind me. Aiden must have followed me up here.
He repeated his plan to his father, who kept fucking smiling.
"What's the problem?" Edward asked me.
"The problem?" My eyes widened. "The problem is he's going to college, just out of the blue!"
"How is this out of the blue? I skipped a grade, but got a little behind after the whole… you know. This is what most people my age do, Mom."
"But…" I didn't have any other arguments, though. I should have seen it coming, but there were a million other things I had to worry about. Plus, with the arrest and his sudden homeschooling I let all thoughts of college fall from my mind.
Surprisingly, I wasn't worried about how he would handle college. Not that I knew what he should expect, but I knew he was strong in his resolve to stay clean. I saw it on his face every time it was brought up, and usually after he spoke to Maggie.
The only argument I had left was that I didn't want him growing up and leaving us.
"It's not like I'm going across the country or anything. I'll be downtown."
"I made you, you know. So, you can't just up and leave and never come back."
"You didn't make him on your own," Edward said, smirking in my direction.
"Oh, please," I huffed. "You just got to do the fun part."
"I'm not going to leave and never come back. I just… I want to make you guys proud. I want to forget all of the stupid shit I've done and be able to help the family when things like this happen."
Edward was still very adamant that Aiden was never getting close to the family business, but it was becoming more and more obvious that he wanted in now. Both were equally headstrong, and I honestly didn't know who was going to win the fight.
I sulked and fell into a chair opposite of Edward. He got up and gave Aiden one of those man hugs where they slapped each other on the back. He whispered something to him, I think, but I couldn't hear it. He followed Aiden out of the office and softly shut the door behind him.
"What the fuck?" I exclaimed once we were alone.
Edward laughed.
"He's too young to go to college, he's only been clean for a few months and he shouldn't be living with other kids. What if one of them is on something and then he –"
Edward's hands framed my face and he pressed a soft kiss to my lips. "You're fucking cute when you're all mom."
"Edward – "
"He'll be fine, Bella. Hopefully this whole mess will be over by the time he goes, even if it's not he'll be protected."
I slumped against the chair. "This sucks. He used to be like…" I held my hands out, the approximate size Aiden was the first time I ever held him. "This big. Now he's what? An adult? When did that happen?"
"He'll always be our son, whether he's living here or not."
"I know. But the last seventeen year's he's had to be with us. What if he goes out into the real world and decides he hates us like everyone else?"
"He won't. He's very determined to become part of the family."
"I don't know how I feel about that," I sighed.
"Me either."
…Dark…
For now, our plan was pretty simple. We just needed Petrov to believe he was getting to us. We could try to do it subtly, rely on the theory that he had people watching us as closely as Edward had people watching him, but we didn't want to take any chances. Thankfully, subtle had never been my strong suite.
Tonight, we were going to one of Delilah's dance recitals. Having worked with dancers in the past, auditioning a few hundred myself, I could see how talented she was. She practiced every chance she got and had the right mindset to get her far within the competitive field.
Everyone in the family was aware of the plan, but they didn't know all of the specifics. We needed reactions to be as real as possible. I wasn't looking forward to airing dirty laundry in front of the public, even fake dirty laundry, but I knew it had to be done.
"You look very handsome," I sighed, straightening Edward's suit jacket. He wore them all the time, but seemed to look exceptionally good in this one. He was in all black; black suit, black shirt, eyes dark enough to pass for black as he ran through our plan in his mind.
"You look…" He shook his head. "Too beautiful for words."
I rolled my eyes as he held my long, tan coat open for me. It was a simple, black dress and boots. Nothing too beautiful for words.
"It's not too late to change our minds."
"You know we don't have a lot of other options."
He caught me off guard as I was turning to grab my purse, pressing me against the wall and capturing my lips before I could even catch my breath. One hand cradled my neck, keeping me in place while the other snuck under my coat and wrapped tightly around my waist. It was embarrassing, my inability to keep my groan to myself when he slid his hand down and squeezed my ass.
"Oh, ew. Um, are we going now?"
I pulled away quickly, buttoning my coat and grabbing my purse like our son hadn't just caught us making out by the front door.
The drive was peaceful, Edward held my hand in his as he drove us, fiddling with my wedding ring.
"We're starting tonight," Edward said, looking at Aiden through the rear-view mirror. We were parked on the street, the closest spot we could find to the venue the recital was being held.
"Oh," Aiden mumbled, sounding a little sad. "That explains the door thing, then."
I blushed. Edward laughed. We all put on our public faces as we got out of the car.
I had been living in Chicago long enough that the typical resident didn't get too shocked to see me walking down the street. Sometimes, usually around the time when I had a project coming out, people stopped and asked for a picture or an autograph, but I was usually able to sneak by before people realized who I was.
There was the occasional tourist that sometimes caused a scene and would give everyone around me the courage to come up and create a bit of a mob, but that was what Ben was for. He said no to people when I didn't have the heart to.
Tonight, I got a few shy waves from a group of girls across the street on the short walk to the venue. I gave them a smile and waved with the hand that should have been intertwined with Edward's, but instead was being kept warm in my pocket.
Edward walked a few paces ahead of me, Aiden beside him. I kept my pace even and my head down for the most part, knowing Ben was close, followed by Eric and Alistar. Eric was training Alistar before he started working with Ben for a while before he retired. Eric floated around, working with whoever needed a little extra protection in the family, so he was giving Alistar a bit of an overview before he got into the nitty gritty.
I had met him once and wasn't looking forward to the next time we actually spoke. He was gruff and standoffish. Ben was both of those things, too, but I cracked him early on. He was my friend now and I was still pissed he was leaving.
I took a deep breath as we approached the venue, and rolled out all of the kinks in my neck. Showtime.
Edward held the door open for me, sighing impatiently as I walked through. We were the last to arrive and sat at the end of the row Alice had reserved for the family. Her and Rosalie looked at me with questions floating in their eyes when they saw how annoyed Edward looked and how sad I seemed. They both appeared to realize it at the same time, understanding dawning on their features.
I opened the program we were handed as we entered and sighed in relief that Delilah and her group were on in the first half of the program. I didn't want to ruin her night.
I couldn't really remember the last time I sat next to Edward without any physical contact. We weren't holding hands and he didn't have his resting on my knee. We just sat there, eyes watching the dancers. Well, mine were. Edward's floated down to his phone every few minutes.
Our entire row stood and applauded Delilah when she was done, and as soon as we sat back down Edward checked his phone again.
"Everything okay?" I asked, my eyes flickering down to his phone.
"Fine," he grunted, pocketing it quickly.
It was just a few minutes later that he pulled it out again.
"Who is it?" I whispered, my eyes drifting from the dancers to Edward.
"No one you know."
Again, I sighed, and again, Edward pulled out his phone a few minutes later. I huffed and quickly snatched it from his hands before getting up as quietly as I could and storming out of the theater.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Edward whisper-shouted as he found me in the lobby. He pulled my arm back, stopping me before I could get anywhere else.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I spit back.
"Christ, Bella. How many times do I have to tell you he was just fucking with you. Tony isn't mine, and Tanya and I never fucked after I met you."
"I'm sick of all the lies, Edward! Our entire lives are one fucked up thing after the next. Then last week Alice told me she saw you cozying up to some bitch at lunch out in the city. Is that who you've been talking to?"
"It's called a business meeting, Bella. You would know what they're like if you ever worked an honest fucking job."
I let his phone fall from my fingers. When Edward let go of my hand I didn't think before slapping him none too lightly. He was shocked, rightfully so, and stared at me blinking for a minute.
"I'm staying at the penthouse tonight," I said, tying the belt around my coat and blinking back a few tears.
"Fuck. Bella – "
"Enough, Edward. Just… leave me alone."
I didn't look at him again as I left. I put my hands in my pockets and let the frigid air cool myself down. Ben was beside me the second I walked out the door. We walked the few blocks to Edward's old penthouse in silence while I cried to myself. I patted the tears away as they spilled over my cheeks, sighing as we entered the penthouse elevator.
I only relaxed as soon as the door was shut and locked behind me. The place looked much the same as it did the first time I had been here. The furniture was upgraded through the years, but the layout never changed much. It was surprisingly comforting.
I pulled out the new phone from my purse. The one that was supposed to be practically impossible to hack into, and texted Edward.
Excellent acting, Mr. Cullen. Sorry about your cheek. I love you.
A/N: It's been about five years since I've read the original twilight books but I can still pull exact quotes out of my brain apparently! I'm sure you spotted the line that's from BD and, therefore, not mine at all.
Apologies for the long wait, but the holidays got me out of my writing zone. Fingers crossed I'll be able to pull another chapter out by next Friday! For updates about when I'll be updating… fragilefanfic on twitter!
