A/N: Thanks to the lovely Ninkita for editing this chapter. I think we can all tell when I skip that step compared to when she sweeps up my typos. Thanks, Hun!

Agent Masen shook Bella gently by the shoulder to wake her up. She stared blurrily at the clock to verify that it really was time to get up. She felt like she had barely slept. She stumbled to the shower and turned the water as hot as she could stand, then hunched under the spray, willing the water to burn away the stiffness. Every inch of her body ached.

Remembering their timeline, Bella hurried through her shower, squeezed the water from her hair and toweled off. She used a wad of tissues to wipe a section of the mirror free of condensation to apply her makeup. Her mood was stark and brittle. With careful but heavy strokes, she used one of Jacob's techniques to paint her eyes and mouth. He claimed it masked expressions more effectively than any other combination. She wondered if he had guessed that she would end up using it against her own partner while he was teaching her. The thick black eyeliner above and below, combined with black mascara and dark-lined lips, made her look like certain young people she remembered seeing around her high school and college campuses. A hard, emotionless shell on the outside to protect the insecurity within.

Masen edged past her to get to the toilet, peed and stepped into the shower. He could have been alone in the room for all the concern or self-consciousness he displayed. She was pretty certain that she would have to be full to bursting in order to pee with somebody else in the room. Even the stalls in public restrooms felt too flimsy for her. She knew she was going to have to get over that. Urination was not that big a deal. Not compared to everything else she was considering.

Bella brushed her hair forcefully and pulled it into a tight ponytail high on her head. She wrapped a bright blue ribbon several times around the hair tie, tucking the ends in, then dressed in another of Marie's skirt and blouse combos. She looked at the time. They were supposed to leave in 10 minutes.

Masen came out of the bathroom as she was packing her bags. He threw clothes on as quickly as a cop or firefighter dressing for action, except that he was fastening buttons and smoothing wrinkles, not arming himself with protective gear and utility belts. They got ready to leave like soldiers breaking camp; near silent, focused, intent on just one task, one detail at a time. At two minutes after the hour, there was a knock at the door. Masen propped the door open, directed the bellboy to their pile of luggage with a nod of his head, grabbed his briefcase with one hand and Bella's hand with the other.

Their exit was swift and wordless. The precision and coolness of Agent Masen's adopted persona seemed to drop the temperature of every space they passed through. Conversations dimmed, eyes flicked their way, guests and employees were cautiously concerned. . . and then they were gone. Back on the road and barreling down the interstate.

They planned to travel more than 1,100 miles in a single day. Bella looked out the window as another city faded away. She hoped he would break the silence first. She felt humiliated and confused over their argument from the night before. She didn't know what he was thinking or if he was angry or offended by her misstep. Eventually, the hum of the engine and the gentle sway of Masen changing lanes as he wove between slower vehicles lulled her into a restless sleep.

She woke up again when the car slowed, and surreptitiously wiped a drop of drool from her lower lip. Disoriented, she looked around. Rapid City already? Masen had covered 200 miles in less than two hours.

"How fast were we going? Aren't you afraid of getting pulled over?"

"We're in the clear today. Mahardy has these plates down as a top secret government courier. We need to be in Chicago tonight and this is the only way. It's a risk, but it's necessary."

"Okay. Got it," Bella replied, still fighting off the sluggishness of her unplanned nap. She looked at Masen and noted the dark shadows beneath his eyes and the tension in his jaw. His mind was working on something.

Bella remained in the car as Masen filled the gas tank, then ran into a store to buy drinks, snacks and sandwiches. From the looks of it, he wasn't planning another stop for a long time. She made sure to sip her juice between bites even though she was thirsty. She didn't want to get stuck holding it for hours until their next stop. Masen scarfed down some food then placed a call, leaving the phone in the console as it dialed.

"Agent Masen?" Mahardy's voice came through, sounding relieved.

"Just checking in."

"Where are you?"

"Passing through South Dakota. Thanks for the free pass. We're cutting it close and I'd rather not have to deal with the locals."

"By locals I assume you mean the State Patrol," Mahardy drawled.

"Yeah, them," Masen agreed, before slurping his hot coffee loudly.

Bella's lips twitched. She knew him well enough now to see when he was intentionally doing things to annoy Special Agent Mahardy. She wondered if there was a history there, or if Mahardy was just unfortunate enough to be lumped in with other 'bureaucrats' and 'desk jockeys' in Masen's head.

"Well don't wrap that shiny Bimmer around a telephone pole. What's your ETA?"

"1930. We'll see how traffic looks when we get close. We should be drifting into town after rush hour."

"Great. We'll have a team in place one floor down. Stomp twice if you need them. Three times to come in hot."

"That won't be necessary, Rick."

"Humor me. Run the Cranston switch if you get even a whiff of something being off. If you don't need them, they'll pack up shop in the morning and a couple of your peers got a 5-star overnight. No big deal. It's barely a drop in the bucket compared to how much we're spending on everything else."

"Don't start griping about my budget. You already have me running on a shoestring," Masen laughed.

"Check in tomorrow morning. The Friday morning conference call always makes me want to punch somebody. I would really appreciate the excuse to skip it."

"Aw, come on, Rick. It can't be that bad."

"It will be when they see my operations budget projections."

"And the hits just keep on coming. Okay, man. I'm gonna hang up now before you start downgrading my boxers from silk to lycra." He hung up before Special Agent Mahardy could respond, but he was grinning and looked more awake.

Bella bit her lip before speaking, but her curiosity was stronger than her self-consciousness. "What is a Cranston switch?"

"Mahardy was referring to a safeguard I came up with a few years back. We used it in an operation when we were concerned that we were going to step on a hornet's nest. A pair of agents will be in the room right below us. If I suspect that I've been followed tonight, we'll switch rooms. If somebody does follow me and they try to confront me, they'll end up at the wrong room. Initiating the switch will cue Mahardy to have somebody hack into the hotel database and video surveillance systems. If they approach our original room, we'll flip flop our room numbers in the scheduling database. The other agents will do their best to stall, slowing the enemy down and creating confusion. When they call back to the desk and are told the other room number, they'll assume the clerk misread the number or misspoke the first time. If it works, by the time they get downstairs, all they'll find is an empty room."

"That sounds like a smart precaution. But you think Mahardy is being too cautious. Why? What are you doing tonight?"

"I'm trying to reconnect with an old contact. It's always a risky proposition. This crowd is very. . . suspicious. And I've been out of touch for a long time."

"What do you need him for?"

"Her."

"Oh. Well, what do you need her for?"

"I'm doing the same thing I was doing in DC and Seattle. I'm looking for a buyer or a trade. So far, all signs point to the Volturi controlling the supply lines in every metropolitan hub."

"And she's a trafficker?"

"Let's just say, when she was starting her first business, she didn't question where her girls were coming from too closely. I don't know what she's up to now. Like I said, I've been out of touch for a while. Not only that, but last time I was in contact with her she knew the Feds were onto her and she was cleaning up her act. She was running an escort service. A high class gig: College-educated girls, all natural, no plastic."

"She's a madam?" The concept was only slightly less distasteful than an outright trafficker by Bella's reckoning.

"From what I could tell, most of the employees really were escorts, not hookers. She had the stereotypical group of aspiring actresses and models, but she also had young women with professional degrees who were networking to launch their careers and getting paid well to do it. Not all men are in it just for the sex. Some businessmen appreciate intelligent conversation and the prestige that comes with having a brilliant and beautiful young woman on their arm."

"Some, but not most."

"True."

"So she's gone legit?"

"Possibly. But people hear things, even when they're working on the fringe. They keep tabs on the key players. It's a dicey world, and you gotta be smart to stay alive."

Bella considered his explanation from all angles. If he believed his contact was not a threat, then Mahardy was probably worried about danger coming from another quarter. Masen's contact might be keeping tabs on her competition and other key players, but that almost certainly meant that somebody was keeping tabs on her. How deeply she was involved in selling sex today would determine how closely she was being watched.

Were the Volturi active in Chicago? From what she had read in Tanya's files, they were busy in almost every major city in the country, with tentacles that reached across oceans and continents to major cities around the globe.

"Why do we call them the Volturi family? It's an Italian name, but they aren't connected with the mafia, and nobody in any of Tanya's files had Volturi as their last name."

"That's a really good question. I'm not the best resource to answer it, though. Call Tanya." He dialed with his thumb without taking his eyes off the road and handed the phone to Bella. She only hesitated for a second before swiping the screen and holding it up to her ear.

"Filipovna," Tanya answered brusquely.

"Agent Filipovna, it's Isabella Swan. Agent Masen's partner."

"I remember you. How can I help you?" Her voice softened, becoming friendlier and more encouraging.

"Masen suggested that I call you. I have some questions about the Volturi that weren't really covered in the data we reviewed."

"What kind of questions?" The older woman's curiosity was evident in her tone.

"I'm confused about their history. I noticed that everyone refers to them as the Volturi family, but from what I read, there is no actual Volturi family."

"Not any more. At least, not that we know of. But there used to be." Tanya paused, then cleared her throat and continued. "How much time do you have?"

"As much as you need, I guess. We're on the road. If I put you on speaker, Masen can hear, too."

"So, the long version. Tell me if I'm putting you to sleep and I'll stop. I have a tendency to get carried away with details. That's why they shut me up in a crypt and only send people to talk to me when they're desperate." Bella had activated the speakerphone, so Masen heard Tanya's disclaimer and burst out laughing.

"I can't sleep, I'm driving. But if you hear Ms. Swan snoring, you'll know you've failed."

"I don't snore," Bella objected.

"I'll record it for you sometime since you don't want to take my word for it."

Bella clamped her mouth shut on her retort when she heard Tanya laugh over the phone line. It felt odd to have so much openness with anyone other than Masen.

"Well, then. Let's see. The Volturi were an aristocratic family that held a lot of political and religious influence across the Italian peninsula during the 16th and 17th centuries. The firstborn son always inherited the family lands surrounding the town of Volterra, the second son joined the church, and any further children were pushed into military or political service. That was a common strategy, but their family employed it more effectively than most. Their influence was not always significant enough to make it into the history books, but they were one of the most affluent and consistently relevant bloodlines in the region for centuries.

"In the early 1800s there was a change in the social and political landscape. Italy was taking shape as a sovereign nation, and the Volturi family was too entrenched in their own machinations to realize that the international community was about to make their financial, social and religious status obsolete. The First Italian War of Independence effectively put an end to their power plays. As land and titles were reshuffled, the Volturi saw immediate declines in their income and influence.

"The patriarch at the time was a wise business man and took a gamble, investing more than half of his fortune in commerce. On the surface he was trading wine, building materials and technology. Beneath it all, his expanding logistical network was a conduit for secrets, weaponry and anything else of value. Everything was a commodity in his eyes. Fragments of correspondence from that period indicate that their network was responsible for assisting several high-ranking political refugees escape the region.

"His sons expanded the network beyond the Italian peninsula, playing whatever role was most profitable as the region was fought over by the Savoy dynasty, the Austrians and the French. Volterra itself became little more than a figurehead for the family. The actual family operated out of Messina, where they were better able to oversee their shipping supply lines and maintain communication with their international couriers and informants.

"They were well on their way to become the most powerful family in the country again when the massive 1908 earthquake destroyed many of the towns and cities in southern Italy and Sicily. The four brothers and their families are all believed to have died in the quake. A cousin inherited the family property and business interests. He was not the same caliber as his deceased cousins. The assets were poorly managed and declined rapidly. By the Second World War, the Volturi name was barely more than a footnote in history books, although their legacy was remembered within the intelligence community.

"Fast forward to our situation. About 15 years ago, a New York-based child prostitution ring was broken and the operators were arrested and tried. By the end of the investigation, it was evident that each of them had been recruited by the same individual. None of them had ever met their employer, but they were supplied with victims, prospective client lists and equipped with properties to operate from. All roads lead back to Italy and a shell company called Volturi Arts and Entertainment. Even with the cooperation of the Italian government, we were unable to identify any living descendent of the Volturi family that could have been involved in the establishment or development of the company or its US operations.

"The investigation ended there and would have disappeared completely, but a few years later, another human trafficking operation was busted smuggling Chinese girls through another shell company, this time based in Australia. Again, the company featured Volturi in its name. The name began popping up with increasing frequency. Two years ago, a California drug ring was ambushed and every member was executed. Local authorities and the DEA concluded it was a rival cartel. However, rumors on the street were that the drug runners were smuggling Latino girls into the country using their drop boats and selling them as domestic servants with additional benefits to Silicon Valley millionaires- and this had angered somebody. People were whispering that the Volturi didn't appreciate them stepping out of their wheelhouse. The consensus was that the Volturi eliminated their main competition to scare any smaller groups and secure the monopoly."

"Wait. I'm sorry to interrupt, but does that mean somebody just picked a name at random and adopted it for their international crime network?" Bella was puzzling through the details Tanya had related and trying to absorb it all. The idea that a group could identify every member of a rival organization and eliminate them so efficiently and ruthlessly was terrifying.

"That's the conclusion the other analysts came to. However, I've studied criminal psychology for years, and the consistency of naming the companies feels like an act of pride. A challenge. It's like waving your standard or emblazoning your coat of arms on your breastplate. The Volturi family lost its power and influence decades ago, but somebody is working very hard to make the name relevant again. The client lists we've dug up read like the who's who of politics, technology and banking. Somebody is actively soliciting people with both money and influence."

"You believe a member of the Volturi family is alive and behind it all," Bella concluded.

"That's what I think. But I don't have any solid evidence to support it. All I have is a gut feeling."

"I see," Bella mused.

"There's one other detail about the San Francisco massacre that is not a matter of record. Every corpse had a 'V' branded on its chest. And it wasn't your normal two lines connecting at a point. It was fancy script. Somebody has a flare for the dramatic."

"That's disturbing. And nauseating."

"I know. Did I answer your question?"

"Yeah, and then some," she chuckled with a bemused sigh.

"I did warn you," Tanya laughed.

"You can't scare Agent Swan off that easily," Masen said with a wry grin.

"I see that. Well, I have to run. I have an appointment in five. Good luck, you two. I'll let you know if anything else comes to my attention."

"Thanks," they both said as she hung up.

"Wow," Bella said, rubbing her temples. "I've never been good with history."

"Me neither, that's why I had you call her."

"And I'm not good with being executed and branded," she added with a shudder.

"That's not going to happen."

"No. I'll just get periodically clobbered by my psychotic partner."

"Much better," he replied with a lopsided smile.

"If you say so," she sighed theatrically, glad that whatever had happened the night before was already water under the bridge.

A/N: I am criminally behind on my reading. I have about 15 or 16 stories that I have to catch up on, so if I'm slow to update in the coming weeks, it's because I'm doing something else that I love just as much as writing.

What am I reading? Here are a few that I HIGHLY recommend:

The Boy in the Womb Room (11121938) by twentyfourth and vine - Snark is her middle name.

Something Beautiful Remains (11092949) by Bethesda Grey - Box of tissues is required for chapters 1, 2 and possible others

The Man Next Door (11041506) by RobzBeanie - An unlikely pairing, but so compelling. This Bella shows incredible bravery, trust and compassion.