Chapter 4 - Love and War
Once settled in the large SUV, he immediately pulled his phone from his pocket, and texted Leah, rescheduling the visit. He erased the entire conversation and turned the phone off, placing the personal cell under his passenger seat.
Relieved to have the 20 minute drive alone with his thoughts, Jake had begun to settle the anxiety rising within him. He whipped the truck through the gravel-covered lot, and pulled in close to the nondescript building, noticing the number of cars first.
Something was wrong.
There were way too many cars there.
This many of the Cullens never came to do anything together if it didn't involve naked women, alcohol or loud music. Ever.
He sighed with quiet annoyance at the fact he was starving, and this didn't appear to be a one-hour type of event. He descended the large vehicle, walking the perimeter of the building, and adjusting the collar of his black dress shirt and tan blazer.
Colin stood leaning against the large door casually smoking a cigarette and gazing out into the distance, obviously the lookout.
"E," he said, shaking hands with Jake and reaching for the handle of the large door.
"What the hell's going on?"
Colin amusingly shook his head in response, an odd smile crossing his lips. Squinting his eyes against the irritating smoke drifting from the cigarette between his lips, he took the butt and expertly flung it to the ground.
"Shit's going down, man," he replied cryptically, sliding the door open. Jake quizzically cocked his head to the side at the young man, removed his aviator sunglasses, and then walked into the dark warehouse.
Now. Jake had seen a lot in his time as a cop. Even more as an extended member of this family.
This went right up there with some of the worst.
He smelled the blood before he could really get a good look at the guy, but he could see the well built man restrained to a chair, surrounded by Edward, Emmett, Jasper, Carlisle, Garrett, and about seven others in various places in the large space. He vaguely heard the muffled conversation Brady was engaged in on his cell, speaking in hushed, but furious tones and pacing a far corner.
The air in the room was thick, solid with anxiety and anger. No one even stopped to acknowledge Jake's addition to the room.
"You're a Fed, huh?" Edward stated softly, inches from the face of who appeared to be James Laurent at closer inspection. James was relatively new dealer the family had become bedfellows with over the course of a couple months.
Lucky for all of them, the Cullens never got close to guys like this personally, especially the level at which he operated. He was just a runner, and, now knowing he was in the Bureau, Jake was sure he wasn't very good at his job. He hadn't made any real advancement in rank in that time, and Jake was closer than this guy ever hoped to be.
Blood and mucus oozed from every possible orifice of his face though, and Jake could barely recognize the man's once handsome face. The FBI?
Fuck. They were forcing his hand.
Though he'd handled all the particulars he needed to prior to all of this, he felt relieved at that moment that the deal with the Columbians was just a few short days away.
"I can't fucking believe that motherfucker's a fucking pig!" Jasper yelled wildly, walking in a small circle, amazed. Turning away, he reached into his pocket and retrieved something Jake couldn't yet see. With blaring speed, he closed his fist and understanding crossed Jake's face when he saw the gleaming metal. Jasper soon landed a forceful brass-knuckled fist across James' face.
Jake's already weakening fortitude was nearly demolished by the sight of more blood and teeth scattering across the cement floor. He had been fully prepared to deal with anything today, but he never prepared himself for this. His gun suddenly felt a hundred pounds heavier. He could see his own face covered in blood, his own head dripping from a head wound. This man could easily be him.
Times like these, Jake wished like hell he had chosen another profession. A much quieter, safer one. Perhaps an accountant. Times like these, he wondered if his family and Leah's complaints didn't have a bit of truth in them.
Flashes of his first kill undercover with the Cullens peppered his memory.
He never forgot, that night ever present with him every time he pulled the trigger as Eli.
He'd had to show he heart. He had to let everyone know he'd do anything for the family.
Most importantly though, he had to show that he wasn't a cop.
Eric was managing a cutting and bagging location in a shit part of Southern Miami, which was a cushy enough job, compared to some. He was a lowlife and a rat, but he worked for cheap and had never proven himself anything but legit to the Cullens, so, they kept him on the payroll. After some time, Jasper, the money man, started realizing that profits were coming up short. Things just weren't adding up, no matter how many sets of numbers he crunched.
After a couple weeks of research, it was all centering around Eric's territory. It didn't take much for a couple of kids on his own private payroll to rat him out.
He was skimming off the top and flipping coke on the back end.
Edward commanded that Jake 'handle the situation' and sent Emmett along just to make sure things got, well, handled.
They brought him to that very warehouse in the dark of night.
He begged for his life, a life that had spanned no more than Jake's at the time.
Jake, asked silently for forgiveness, while Eli screwed on his silencer and put two muffled bullets in the back of Eric's head.
He promised himself that day that he would never kill anyone unless he was in imminent danger himself. Unless he had no other choice, and he'd stayed strong on that promise.
The day was still early though.
James moaned in agony, as he struggled to loosen the circulation-restrictive handcuffs behind his back and around each of his ankles, binding him to a chair in the center of the room. There was no real way of knowing what time it was or how long they had been working him over, but the light seeping through various cracks in the ceiling gradually changed angles, but still shown brightly, so, he guessed it was late afternoon.
Roughly six hours. It was six hours since they knocked him unconscious, then dragged him here.
"Fuck you," James' voice lowly gurgled through the blood pooling in his throat. He'd maintained his strength of mind, even in the face of certain death. His little girl and wife flashed across his memory, and he knew he would never see them again. Not getting closer to the Cullens and needing to have a closed casket were his only regrets.
Jake hoped James had made good with his own god, but wisely made no moves to stop the exchange before him. The last thing he needed was attention on himself at this moment; not only would he not be able to save this guy, he'd lose his own life in the process. Survival of the fittest, Jake had learned – the code of the streets.
This didn't look good at all - ten or more members of the Cullen crew and this poor ill-fated officer.
He would die today.
"Fuck me, huh? How much did you tell them….HUH?" Edward exclaimed, uncharacteristically raising his voice. "You, come in and threaten my family! My life, motherfucker? Then, it's fuck me?"
He turned his back on the wounded man briefly, meeting eyes for the first time that day with Jake for a millisecond and removing his Beretta from a nearby table. Jake knew it would be over at any moment then.
"No, Ed, hold on, hold on," Emmett said approaching James slowly, rolling his head around his shoulders and cracking his knuckles. He bent his massive frame at the waist and stared his darkening blue eyes at him.
"Hey… hey," he said softly to him, attempting to gain his attention. James locked eyes with him through the sheet of blood blurring his vision. "I want you to remember who did this to you when you're in fucking hell you piece of shit."
Emmett reared back and placed a blow to James' left shoulder just so, and with a sickening crack, dislocated, then broke his arm.
James' screams were soon muffled by a rag stuffed into his mouth; his arms and legs were unlocked, and he was pushed to the ground. He was met with a barrage of kicks and punches and various expletives.
That's when it got particularly ugly.
Edward was the one, though, to finally place a bullet in his head.
Well, what was left of it.
Hours later, when the body had been properly disposed of, and the warehouse was devoid of any trace of evidence, as was the procedure, Jake took his leave.
He craved a shower. He needed rest.
He fought with the decision to stop home before he headed to Leah's but, after eyeing his reflection in the glossy paint of his Navigator, he was surprised to note he was no worse for wear. Physically anyway.
Jake quickly phoned Leah, and entered the interstate going north. Glancing in his rear-view and side mirrors several times during the duration of the drive, he pulled into the familiar house and quickly closed the garage, making sure no one had followed him there.
She was standing in the kitchen making his favorite Mexican meal, complete with enchiladas, chicken quesadillas, and beans and rice. Still as beautiful as ever, her long dark hair was piled on top of her head and she wore simple sweatpants and a tank.
"You sure know how to welcome someone," Jake said with an easy, but sad smile.
"…Figured you'd be hungry," she said, heaping a large plate full of food, and handing him a fork. He was at the table and halfway done with the meal in the time it took Leah to pull two Coronas from the stainless steel refrigerator.
"Guess I was right," she mused rummaging through a kitchen drawer for a bottle opener. He looked as good as she'd remembered him, just a little tired. His hair had grown out from the buzz cut he was known to wear when he was off a case.
She dragged her eyes over him, looking at the man that had left her so long ago to work in a world that was unsafe. She unconsciously found herself searching for a much younger Jake who was quick to smile and had painted her the countless pieces of artwork hanging around the house and stacked in corners of their garage. She couldn't find him anywhere.
After pushing the last of the meal around his plate with his fork mindlessly, he finished his second plate of food. Leah and Jake sat in comfortable silence for a few brief moments, mutually attempting to hold on to the last of what was their ending relationship.
"Well," Leah said finally, rising to her feet. Jake followed her lead into the bedroom they shared. He really hadn't planned on taking much. He had most of his clothes, and what he didn't have, he could purchase. Leah had already begun packing items she'd known he would want to take.
Books, pictures, his trophies from college, and other personal items. Jake would have to send all this to his mother for safe-keeping.
"You remember this?" Jake said, gazing wistfully at a picture of him and Leah standing in front of a log cabin.
Leah glanced at the photo with a smile, taking it from him, "How could I not? We got snowed in and had to use each other for body heat for almost twelve hours."
"From what I remember, you weren't too upset by that," he teased, wagging his eyebrows playfully.
They both laughed at the memory. The night went on like that. Some tears, but mostly laughter, and reminiscence. After Jake had taken several trips to his truck with boxes varying in size, he glanced around and realized he was done.
Leah caught eyes with Jake, and couldn't help but be strangely happy at the sight of him. He was giving her something that she hadn't realized she wanted from him - peace of mind, freedom.
In the short time that he had been with her, Jake felt more at ease, at peace with the happenings of that afternoon. The turmoil that had been stirring within him, stilled for a brief moment.
"Okay, well, I guess that's it then," Jake sighed, not moving an inch from where he stood in the center of their bedroom.
"Yeah, I guess that's…it," Leah whispered reluctantly. They stared at each other again for what seemed like an eternity, neither of them daring to make the first move. Finally, Leah began toward the hallway, fully expecting him to follow. Instead, though, he captured her hand and tugged her toward him, wrapping his arms around her slender waist. Her hands instinctively clasped behind his neck and her lips found his. She almost protested, but it felt too good, too right, too comfortable. So, she allowed him to explore her mouth hungrily with his, to run his strong hands along the sides of her body.
Jake was exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and he just wanted to fall into her. To take this moment, and remember every part of her. To look back on this, and be comforted.
So, with meticulous attentiveness, he removed her clothing and his, and still, she did not protest. He made love to her, and she to him, for the last time, with passion that was as painful as it was pleasurable.
She'd lost count of her climaxes past four, but more than that, she wanted to remember the feel of him. The smell of him, the taste of him, so, she took her time. Though, the more she attempted to pleasure him, the more he fought to please her.
Through countless tears and kisses and licks and sucks, they burned the memory of each other into their mutual psyche. Every curve, every dip, every inch of skin was indulged, then committed to memory.
The next morning, as they showered together, and Jake prepared to depart, they never spoke – not once. There was no more to say. There was a satisfied silence between the two of them that neither wanted to shatter. They knew that everything would be fine.
They knew that even in their breakup, they would both be okay, and that was good enough.
.
A/N - I own nothing, it all belongs to Stephenie Meyer.
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