A/N: Here we are. A new chapter. You don't care what I have to say but thank you to my prereaders Maplestyle, bitterHarpy, LaMoMo, and Agoodwitch and my beta Alice's white Rabbit, I love you ladies so much. Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing. Y'all rock!

Tensions were already high when Emmett arrived, so his booming knock made me jump. Katiya was still in the basement and she hadn't noticed that anything was wrong. We wanted to keep it that way. I rose to answer the door, but Edward beat me there and shook his head. He looked through the peephole and waited for Emmett to announce himself. Emmett and I locked eyes the minute he walked in through the door. I had one worry, my family. "Rose, my parents?"

"I already called another marshal stationed in Seattle. They're on the way to get your parents and Rose. They're going to have to go into protective custody. I won't know where they are going and I can't tell them where you are, but I'm going to brief your family when we are done here," Emmett replied.

"How did the news find out who Bella is? No regular reporter stumbled across this information. They were led to the answer," Edward asked.

"Why? Isn't it easier to just try to find Katiya silently?" I questioned.

"Well, yeah, but Edward pulled you guys out of Seattle. So, it's time to ring the cavalry bell," Emmett explained.

"But who is supposed to reply? Is this just corrupt cops, or does it run deeper?" Edward shot back.

"I think your mob idea is starting to become more and more plausible," I said.

"Yeah, and where the girl is from, I shudder to think this may be the Russians," Emmett replied.

"What does that matter? The mafia is the mafia," I stated.

Emmett and Edward both looked at me sympathetically. "The Russians are ruthless. They will chase anyone and everyone to the ends of the earth to get what they're after."

"But all she did was see three guys kill her 'parents' who may have had mob ties. It was obviously a hit. There has got to be something we don't know," I said.

"I'm finding dead ends everywhere I look. There is a lot we don't know, and I don't know how deep this runs, but, Edward, you may need to consider—" Emmett stated.

"Fuck that; I considered it the day Bella asked for help," Edward said, cutting him off.

"What?" I asked.

"If you guys are made, he'll have to enter WitSec too."

"Last resort option," Edward reassured.

"Right, and this is all speculation. We have no proof yet. Okay, before I leave, I need Bella's and your cell phones. Here's a burner phone if you need to get a hold of me," Emmett explained while handing the phone to Edward.

"What? Why?"

"Phones have GPS on them, and the account is in our names. Even if you turn it off, there are still ways you can be tracked," Edward said, taking his battery out of his phone and snapping the phone in half before handing it to Emmett.

I went to the bedroom to grab my phone. Of all the things breaking me down little by little lately, this one hurt the most. I wasn't one of those people who lived for their phones, but this had pictures of my family and texts from Rose and my mom. I trudged out to the living room and handed Emmett my phone without looking at him.

"It's just a phone, Bella. You can get another one when this is over." I shook my head and explained to him why I was upset about losing the phone. Emmett gave me a look like he kinda understood why I was so upset. "When I get home tonight, I'll see if there is anything I can do to save the pictures for you."

I gave him a hug, almost to the point of tears. "Thank you, Emmett. Can you tell Rose I love her and my parents that I'm okay?" He nodded, not speaking. I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and I could see his cheeks turn pink, those dimples on full display. I smiled at him and he grinned back. Edward gave him one of those guy hugs.

"So, are you guys staying here?"

"I think so. For now. I'm gonna need to know where another safe house is though, in case this one is compromised."

Emmett nodded and pulled out his phone, typing something in. "Okay. I'll have the info ASAP. I gotta get on the road. I'll let you know when I have another location and after I talk to your family."

We said our goodbyes and Emmett gave me another hug before he left. "I'll make sure they're in good hands, Bells." I nodded, and with that, he was out the door and gone. Edward seemed to be studying me. I scrubbed my face with my hands, and finally, the dam broke. I started crying, and to Edward's credit, he tried to gather me in his arms, but I wasn't having it. I pushed him away.

"Bella—" he said, clearly confused about why I was pushing him away.

"How can you even stand there being so calm? I'm the reason you're in this situation. You may have to throw your life away because of me. You know, I hope they don't let me adopt Katiya after all this is over because I just fuck everything up."

"Come on. You know that's not true."

"Isn't it? My family has to uproot their lives, you may never see Ali, Carlisle, and Esme ever again, Emmett has no idea where Rose is going, and they just reconnected."

"All that is repercussions of other people's choices, not just you, and you're forgetting why all this is happening. Because you selflessly took in a frightened child who needed help. Emmett knew the score, so did I. If your parents and Rose knew, they wouldn't make a different choice. Katiya lost the only parents she knew, and she felt it the minute she met you that she could trust you."

"When you agreed to help me, you couldn't know that this would be happening."

"No, I didn't, but even if I had known all this information, I would make the same fucking decision. I'm glad you called me because I'm good at my job and I'll be damned if anyone else was going to protect you." He cradled my face in his hands. "I will kill every motherfucker who even thinks of hurting you or Katiya, and I'll do it with a smile on my face. Don't doubt how I feel about you or whether I regret anything. This is all unnecessary guilt. Stop taking that shit on your shoulders." He rested his forehead on mine, and I closed my eyes, sighing.

I felt his lips lightly brush mine, and I leaned in, pressing against his lips. I gripped his forearms and skimmed my hands to his back, pulling him to me, pressing against his shoulder blades. The great thing about Edward was he was stronger than he looked. He lifted me up and I locked my legs around his waist. Soon, I was backed into the wall, and I slid my hands under his shirt, scratching his back. I moaned when he palmed my right breast and licked down my neck.

I heard a girly scream come from below us. It was like a bucket of cold water dousing the flame of our desire, and Edward and I locked eyes for a millisecond. I untangled my legs from his body and made it downstairs before Edward, though he was right on my heels. Katiya was standing on the coffee table in the middle of the room. I opened my arms and gestured for her to come to me. She put her arms around my neck and locked her legs around my waist. I inspected her, making sure she wasn't hurt.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She nodded, hiding her face in my hair. "I saw a spider over there. I don't like them."

I let out a deep breath, glad it wasn't something huge, but I told Edward to kill it because I wasn't doing that shit. I hated spiders too.

"Hey, pretty girl. Why are you hiding? It's nothing to be embarrassed about. I don't like spiders either; they freak me out."

"Really?" she asked, pulling away to look in my face. I nodded and she smiled and giggled. Edward stomped on what we assumed was the spider across the room.

"Looks like he got it. Let's go make some popcorn and watch Harry Potter."

"What's that?"

"Oh, Katiya, I have so much to teach you."

She giggled again and we headed upstairs.

RPOV

I followed the silent asshole through the halls of the police station. He was a man of few words and I knew I was letting my pregnant brain lead when I followed him with little explanation. He better start talking soon or I was gonna turn around and storm back outside. He opened a door and my parents were sitting in a little conference room.

"Mom, Dad. What's going on?" I asked as I sat down. My dad helped me settle in my chair.

"I don't know, Rose. Do you think it has anything to do with Bella? Did you see the news?" my mom asked.

"This is just a huge misunderstanding. Bella would never be capable of doing something so horrible to a little kid," my dad said. He never wanted to believe badly of his youngest daughter. He started pacing.

"I don't want to believe it either, Daddy, but the footage was pretty damning, and she skipped town without a word," I rationalized. I had no idea what the hell was going on. I had tried to call her all day after seeing the news. All I got was voicemail. My mom tried to get my dad to sit and calm down.

"Charlie, your blood pressure. Please, sit down and let's wait to see what they have to say. Okay?"

He harrumphed and sat down. I sighed. What the hell are you doing, Bella? I thought. I loved my little sister, but she had a habit of leaping before looking. I just hoped that she didn't end up in jail. We sat in silence, just waiting. The door opened and a huge mammoth of a man walked in. I looked at his face and I knew immediately that was my Emmett. The short hair, the dimples, the boyish charm that shouldn't be on this grown man's face but that worked so well for him. "Holy hell."

His head snapped to look at me, and I was glad I was sitting, otherwise, I would have fainted. "Rose," he murmured.

"Emmett," I said breathily. "What's going on?"

Emmett sat down at the head of the table. "I want to start by letting you guys know that Bella's okay, and the news reports you've heard are mostly incorrect. Now that her name is out there though, that makes you all targets as well. We're going to have to put you in protective custody," he explained.

My mom and I looked at my dad for an explanation; he was the cop after all. "It's kinda like witness protection, but we're not bound by the same rules and we don't have to get new identities. We're basically going into hiding and we'll have a marshal with us. You said you know Bella is okay. Where is she? What is going on?" my dad asked.

"I can't tell you, Charlie. She's being protected and she said to tell you all that she loves you and she is okay," Emmett replied.

"How do you fit into all this?" my dad questioned.

"I work with the FBI," he said simply.

"So, are you going to be with us?"

"No, Riley here is the marshal. I'm not one. I'll be investigating the case relating to all this."

"Is my sister's life in danger?"

"She's with someone I trust implicitly. Yes, there are bad people out there looking for her, but she's safe right now."

"I'm not hiding unless it's with my sister," I said, standing up as gracefully as I could. "I want to see her."

"Rose, you're six months pregnant. He just told us he can't tell us where she is."

Now my temper was rising to the surface. "I heard him. I'm not deaf just because I'm pregnant," I said, spinning to look at my mom. "She's my sister and I am not having this kid without her by my side, and she will be in her nephew's life if I have to search the entire United States to find her." My rant was losing steam. I suddenly felt a large warm hand grab my own, and the calm that fell over me was complete and consuming. I looked up, and of course, it was Emmett holding my hand.

"I know you're worried, Rose, and this is scary stuff, but Bella is okay. She would lose her mind if something happened to you. She never wanted any of you to be a part of this, but someone made that choice to include you, so now we need to get you safe. When this is all over, I promise you will be reconnected with Bella," he said, looking over at Riley.

"So, you're leaving us with this chatty Cathy over here," I said, jerking my head toward the statue guy in the corner.

"He's good at his job, but he isn't super warm and cuddly. Sorry," Emmett replied, flashing those damn dimples. He won so many fights when we dated by flashing those things. It was completely unfair. I smiled despite myself and nodded in agreement. There was no point fighting it at this point.

"When will I see you again? I just found you."

He gently cupped my cheeks with his hands. "When this is all over, I will find you." He pulled me into a hug, and it was a little awkward because of my stomach. I wanted to kiss him, but I knew if that happened, I wouldn't let him leave. Our eyes met and I knew he was thinking the same thing because he hesitated. "Take care of yourself, Rose."

Just like that, he was out the door and we were being led out of the police station by Riley, the man who would be with us for the foreseeable future.

Bella, I hope you are okay, I thought, hoping that whatever force was out there in the universe heard my plea.

BPOV

1 week later

Shortly after Emmett left to go talk to my family, Edward and I got the location of the next safe house we could move to. We talked about it extensively, but because of our visits from Emmett and Salem being a larger town, Edward was ready to get out of Dodge. After another three-hour car drive in the middle of the night, we arrived in Coos Bay, Oregon. It was close to the ocean and was only about a two-hour drive to California. There was another safe house in Cannon Beach, Oregon but that would have taken us closer to Washington, which we were trying to stay away from. The house was a three-bedroom house, but Edward and I weren't willing to stop sharing a bedroom, so it became a spare room while we were there.

Since we arrived in the middle of the night, we celebrated Katiya's birthday in the morning the day we got to the new house. I gave her the necklace that I had Emmett get for her. I had him get her a necklace that had a crescent moon and a daisy-like flower. On the back, it said "To the moon and back." I told her that it was something my mom told me all the time as a child—that she loved me to the moon and back. I told her that if she ever got scared or sad to think of that and that we cared a lot about her. She surprised me by bursting into tears, but luckily, they were happy tears.

Today, Edward got a text message on the burner phone that Emmett had made some headway in the case and he needed to talk to him. It had been a week and a half since the night he told us about Katiya's adoptive parents and the men who killed them. I was a little worried about what he had to tell us. Katiya was inside watching a movie and Edward and I were sitting on the deck when Emmett called. This house was tucked back up on a hill and there were no super close neighbors. Coos Bay was a really small town, so the house was located on the outskirts of town.

Edward answered the phone and put it on speaker. "Hey, Emmett. How are you?"

"I'm all right, man. How are you two faring?" Emmett answered.

"As good as can be expected," I said.

"And Katiya?" he asked.

"Blissfully ignorant," Edward answered.

"Well, I found a little bit more information. Every answer I turn over in this case just leads to more questions," Emmett explained.

"All right, so what new questions do we have?" Edward asked.

"Well, the reason it's been so hard to find some back history on Katiya and her parents is because they didn't exist until they entered the US."

"Wait, what?" Edward asked.

"How is that possible?" I questioned.

"Forgery. Their paperwork is false. It's well done, really well done. Jenks almost didn't catch it. There was one small error that was made, and not only that—he knows who did it. He's run across his work before," Emmett answered.

"J Jenks is still helping you guys out?" Edward snarked.

"Hey, his ass wants to stay out of jail, so yeah, he is," Emmett added.

"So, where is the guy who forged their papers?" Edward asked.

"He's in jail. In New York. Jenks and I fly out tomorrow," Emmett told us.

"You're gonna go talk to him?" Edward guessed.

"Yeah, we need to find out who they really are," Emmett said simply.

"But is that going to help us. If their trail starts in Russia, how are we gonna get any info?" I asked, knowing that the Russian government wasn't gonna give us any info.

"I have a friend of a friend who has Russian connections, but this is gonna take some time. I have to find out as much info as I can from my end before I pass it off to someone overseas because we don't want to tip our hat," Emmett explained.

"All right. Well, that is some information," Edward said.

"Sit and wait game again, man. Sorry, Bells. I know you wish there was more," Emmett apologized.

"It's fine. I knew when that bitch reporter announced my name on TV that I wasn't going back to my old life anytime soon, if ever," I replied.

"I'll probably give you guys a call in a couple days. Let you know what we found."

"All right, Em. Please be safe. My sister would never forgive me if I let you die for me."

Emmett chuckled. "Ah, Bella, I miss you. I will be safe, if only to see you and your fiery sister again."

We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. I just looked at Edward, waiting for his reaction.

"This is gonna get even more complicated. I can feel it. There wasn't a ton of information that Emmett gave us I wasn't half expecting. Things haven't matched up from day one. Usually with a corrupt cop and murder, money is exchanging hands somewhere, but Emmett has found nothing on the police chief."

"Maybe he's a red herring."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, maybe he is dirty, but maybe he was brought into the inner circle to make any law enforcement chase their tails. It's a well-known fact that honorable cops fucking hate dirty cops. Maybe he's nothing more than a convenience. Plus, Emmett said they were never expecting the girl to disappear from the state, especially with some random nurse. Since we are no longer in Washington, they have no one to protect them, and the chief is just a loose end now. Watch, in the third act, he'll wind up dead."

"Well, you had me up until that last part, Bella. This isn't a bad action movie."

We both laughed, and soon, Katiya came out and wanted to eat dinner. We all made it back inside and made dinner all together as we usually did. Katiya loved helping us whether it be chopping vegetables, making a salad, or stirring and mixing. Our evening after dinner was pretty standard for us—Katiya and Edward played cards, and I folded the laundry I had done. I did it every few days, just in case we needed to leave in a hurry, so that we weren't carrying around a bunch of dirty laundry. Edward and I put Katiya to bed, and shortly after, we made our way to bed as well.

Edward and I were lying in bed, facing each other, legs tangled together. He kissed my forehead, then my eyelids, followed by my cheeks, and my nose, causing me to giggle until he kissed me on the lips. I moaned, my tongue seeking entrance. Suddenly, Edward pulled away from me and the look on his face was serious. He put his finger up to his lips. Then I heard it. A clicking sound that sounded like someone walking on tile. The only place in the house that had tile was the entrance into the house from the outside deck. Someone was in the house.

"Get Katiya and get in the bathtub. Don't get out until I come get you."

I nodded, grabbed my gun from the nightstand, and ran to Katiya's room. I got her out of bed as gently as I could. One of the first things I loved about this house was the big clawfoot bathtub. Now I loved it for an entirely different reason. Made of cast iron, it would protect us from bullets. I picked her up and we got inside the tub, lying down like Edward asked. That's when hell completely opened on us.

A/N: So, how do we feel. I love this story and I love all you. Leave me some love and your thoughts. It is amazing reading your thoughts and guesses.