A/N:

This chapter comes with a TRIGGER WARNING for sensitive subjects. If you're uncertain you want to read without knowing beforehand, contact me and I'll let you know what the warning is for.

Title: The Death of a Prince

Author: MarieCarro

Beta: Alice's White Rabbit

Pre-reader: brierlynn03, AgoodWITCH, LunaEclipse17

Genre: Crime/Family/Drama

Rating: NC-17

Summary: At age 7, Edward Cullen witnesses his father's death. Traumatized and terrified, he blames himself and runs away.

Two minor league criminals stumble upon him when he wanders the streets at night, freezing and starving, and they decide to take him in.

Years later, Edward is confronted by his past and must decide if he'll take his rightful place as the head of the Irish Mob, or remain with those who raised him. Based on the plot for The Lion King, which belongs to Disney.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER 19

"You're going back," Jasper stated before Edward got a single word out. The minute he'd asked to talk to him and Emmett, Jasper had known. It wasn't a pleasant pill to swallow, but he'd promised he would accept his little brother's choice once he'd made it.

Edward nodded. "I am. It's the right thing to do, and you know it."

"I really don't," Jasper said honestly, shaking his head, but he wasn't going to argue. "But it's your decision." He stood up from the couch and went into the kitchen area while Edward looked after him, feeling just the tiniest bit confused.

"You're going to accept it? Just like that? I thought you'd at least put up a bit of a fight," he said. Jasper shrugged his response and opened a beer for himself.

"You're twenty-one, Junior. You're an adult, and I can't tell you what you can and can't do."

Edward narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Since when? You love telling me what to do."

"Yeah, that's sort of your personality in general," Emmett agreed.

Jasper rolled his eyes, took a sip of the beer, and then placed it back down before he dignified either of them with a response. "If you have to know, I promised Bella, and myself, that I'd accept either decision once you made it. I'm a man of my word. I break the law on a regular basis, but I'm not a liar." He let out a sigh before continuing. "I don't want you to go back because it means we're losing our little brother. We're family, Junior. It's always been the three of us, and I got territorial when Bella challenged that."

A moment passed as Edward hesitated, asking them what Bella had suggested back at their apartment, but eventually, his need to keep his brothers with him won. "You don't have to lose me … if you come with me."

Emmett gaped at him, and Jasper was grateful he hadn't taken a sip of his beer or he'd have choked from the shock.

"What?"

"I've told you the entire story. You know everything that I know, and Bella's been right all along," Edward said. "My uncle needs to be stopped, and having you there by my side would help a lot."

"We're thieves, Ed," Jasper said as if he had to remind him. "We don't have what it takes to overthrow a mob boss so that you can take his place."

Edward disagreed with a shake of his head. "I don't know about that. Bella told me about the guns she bought you, and that both of you learned quickly how to use them. Sounds to me like you're naturals who just need a bit more training."

"Shooting at targets isn't the same as staging a coup. And it would mean killing people."

"In self-defense and for the greater good," Edward argued despite the stone slowly sinking in his stomach as he realized he wouldn't just have to hold a loaded gun, he'd have to use it and aim it at people. Maybe even shooting his own uncle if he wasn't given a choice.

"That's what every side says."

Edward let his head fall into his hands and groaned in frustration. "I know I'm asking a lot of you. But I really could use your help."

The beer bottle was empty, and Jasper threw it away. "But it's not just help you're asking for. You're talking about joining the Irish Mob. One step in that direction and there's no going back."

"You're involved as it is anyway," Edward said apologetically. "If we succeed in stopping Caius, and I take his place, the people of our neighborhood will know. They'll believe you have connections with the Cullen Family, and they'll treat you accordingly."

"Which won't be a pleasant experience for you in that part of town," Bella said as she slowly came down the hallway to join them. When all three men looked at her questioningly, she elaborated. "The night we met, I'd had a meeting with Jacob Black. He's a smuggler of various illegal goods, and he operates out of your neighborhood."

Jasper, Emmett, and Edward exchanged a look with each other as they all remembered the sleazeball Bella had been sitting with at the bar. That was when Edward had thought her only to be a scam artist who preyed on desperate men and stole their wallets.

"Black used to exclusively smuggle for the family, but he left when Caius took over. He did it early enough to save his own life. Before Caius started 'cleaning up' to rid himself of those more loyal to Carlisle than himself. Black told me that while your neighborhood used to be Cullen territory, it's not anymore. More so the opposite. If anyone with a criminal background—which is most people around there—find out that you two are connected to the new head of the Cullen Family, they'll either run you out or beat you to death."

Emmett exchanged an apprehensive look with Jasper. "Great," he said sarcastically, but then threw his hands out helplessly. "You can count on me, Ed."

"Emmett!" Jasper exclaimed in protest. "Will you be serious for a second?"

"I'm very serious," Emmett said and glared at Jasper. "I don't run my mouth as much as you do, but that doesn't make me stupid. I know what he's asking of us, and I know what saying yes to it will mean, but I'm not about to just leave our brother to handle this on his own."

Jasper crossed his arms defiantly. He cared little for the fact that he was the oldest within the company—being the only one who'd surpassed the thirty-mark—he didn't like what Emmett was implying. "I'm not the one leaving. I've given everything to the both of you. I've been both an older brother and a father at times because we were all anyone of us had. What happened to family sticks together?"

Emmett stood up from his seat and walked across the room until he was closer to Edward and Bella than Jasper. "I was about to ask you the same thing," he said and looked at Jasper with disappointment.

The tension was thick in the apartment, and Edward didn't want to pretend he didn't understand how Jasper was feeling. He knew exactly why he hesitated. Up until a couple hours earlier, he'd been right there with him. So he got up and joined Jasper in the kitchen.

"I'm not going to force you to come with me, and I'm sorry for leaving the life you've given me behind. It's not because I don't appreciate everything you've done, and I'm quite sure you already know that, but I do have responsibilities that I've fled once before." Jasper let his defiant arms fall, and he heavily leaned on the counter while listening to Edward's words. "I have so many questions about my dad's death, and I hate how much pain I've caused my mom by disappearing. I can't continue to ignore all of that and keep living my life as if none of this ever happened. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Of course, I can," Jasper instantly replied. Hard-headed as he was, he could still feel empathy for others.

He glanced in Emmett's and Bella's direction and reluctantly realized that once they left with Edward, he would be completely alone. He had plenty of friends around their neighborhood, but none of them could ever take his brothers' places, and he didn't want them to either.

Jasper hung his head and groaned. "Fuck," he exclaimed and pushed away from the counter. He was terrified he'd regret the decision, but between a life-long commitment with Edward as his boss and deserting his brothers to a fate where they both could end up dead, there really wasn't even a choice to make. "Fine. I'm in." He clenched his jaw and pointed at Edward. "But so help me, Edward, if we go up against your uncle, and we all die, I'm gonna kill you."

A smile broke out on Edward's face, and he stepped forward to embrace the man who'd practically raised him. "We'll do our damnedest to stay alive."

"You bet your ass we will," Jasper grumbled as he wound his arms around him and patted him on the back.

When the two men parted, they turned to Bella and Emmett. Emmett wore a pleased grin while Bella nodded in approval.

"Okay, then," she said. "Let's get to work."

—{(DP)}—

The mansion was eerily quiet.

Beautifully carved wooden archways gaped in the darkness like wailing mouths of tortured souls in hell, and the icy atmosphere left the skin on Rosalie's arms prickly with goosebumps. It didn't matter that it was summer or that the temperature inside was a comfortable seventy-one degrees because she was still freezing to the point that her hands were shaking.

At least, that was what she told herself was the reason behind her trembling fingers. She wasn't ready to confront the emotions raging inside her that caused her head to throb violently while her heart fluttered within her rib cage.

She just wanted it all to stop, and she couldn't see any other way out.

Looking up and over her shoulder toward the second floor where the bedrooms were, she knew Caius was asleep in their shared bed. If she didn't return soon, he would notice her absence even in his dreams, and he'd wake up. He would come looking for her and drag her back to bed.

Not as violently as he had in the past now that she was carrying his heir, but that was almost worse. She was nothing but a body to him. A vessel. Something to fuck when he felt like it, a punching bag to hit, and now a container to be kept alive while his seed developed.

Hot tears seeped out the corners of her eyes and slid down her cold cheeks. Her nose started to burn, and she had to wipe the snot off her upper lip with the back of her hand.

There wasn't a single cell in her entire body that had ever loved Caius Cullen or wished he'd love her. The first time he called her into his office and demanded she take her clothes off, she'd done so out of fear, and as it became a recurring thing, it was self-preservation that forced her to go along with his whims. When she said no, it was the first and last time she did so. She learned his moods and to read his body language to save herself from being beaten, but it had backfired, and he'd started to see her as an ally.

Cold metal and pretentious diamonds on her left ring finger weighed her down, and every step she took threatened to topple her until she crashed to the ground.

Slowly, she rose up on her toes and took a deep breath, but before she had the chance to exhale again, the chair underneath her wobbled unsteadily, which caused her to momentarily lose her balance. The rough texture tightened under her chin, and her heart skipped a beat as her mind screamed, "No, I don't want to!"

The chair steadied again, and she regained her balance. She tore the rope off, stepped off the chair, and an overwhelming sense of relief surged through her as she sat down on the floor.

It wasn't just her hands that trembled as she crumbled to pieces. Her arms gave way, and she curled up on her side, trying to make herself as small as possible, hoping the dark shadows would just swallow her up.

A sudden whisper of footsteps caused Rosalie to flinch as she imagined Caius finding her in her current position. He would definitely break his own rules on not beating her while she was pregnant as soon as he realized what she'd almost done.

"Oh my god. Rose?"

"Esme?" She lifted her head and saw Esme hurrying down the stairs toward her.

"Oh, sweetheart," she exclaimed in as quiet, whispery tones as she could manage, but the sound traveled easily through the large structure of the mansion. "My dear girl, come here," she said and crouched next to Rosalie, enveloping her in her warm embrace.

Rosalie couldn't stop her tears as they started pouring out her eyes again. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing," she whimpered.

Esme comforted her as best as she could, but it wasn't easy when they had to be careful so as not to wake Caius. "You're okay, sweetheart. I'm here for you. Talk to me."

"I can't, Esme," she said and pressed herself harder against Esme's body. "I can't continue like this. I can't have his child! I can't!" She was slowly growing agitated, and Esme tried to shush her.

"Shh, you're okay. We'll get through this together. You and me. The two of us will be fine. We have a plan, remember? Bella's getting help."

Rosalie sniffled but didn't reply. She didn't have much hope for the plan. Bella had been gone for over a month, and it made Caius angry that she had just up and left. Being married to him had always been a disaster, but ever since his paranoia started building around the Volponi Family, Bella's disappearance, and his absolute conviction there were people within his own ranks working against him, it had become unbearable.

It didn't matter that all of his fears were true.

When he found out she was pregnant, he had almost locked her inside their room to "protect" her and the fetus she was carrying.

"We need to get you back to bed before he notices," Esme said apologetically, and Rosalie hated that she was right.

The last thing she wanted was to go back and lie down next to the man who was worse than the devil himself, but she had little choice unless she wished to bring his wrath upon herself.

Together, the two women walked up the stairs, but outside the bedroom door, Esme stopped them and turned Rosalie so they were facing each other.

"My dear, I'm not going to pretend I know how you feel. We're going through two very different things, you and I, but I know what it's like to be alone. I want you to know that you can always talk to me; always lean on me and seek comfort with me. I'm always here for you, and I'm not going anywhere."

Rosalie swallowed hard and nodded. "Thank you, Esme."

Esme nodded and gestured for Rosalie to go into the bedroom.

"What about—" she started, but Esme already knew what she was going to say.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it. He won't know a thing."

"Thank you." She entered the room, and Esme turned on her heel to put everything in the hall in order again.

A/N:

Rosalie is really struggling. Bella was a huge part of her support net and strength and with her gone, she feels more alone than ever.

But we have Jasper and Emmett onboard now, so the plan is coming together.

It's a dark place to end a chapter on, but Wednesday's not that far away. Please, don't sit with this feeling. Watch cute cat videos, read a funny story, look at memes … anything. Just take care of yourselves, and I love you!

Stay Awesome!