It's Murder
Chapter 13
The End
All night long all I could think about was the joy I felt in having Bella home again, safe and sound. She was clearly exhausted, physically and mentally, and as excited as she was to be back, she fell asleep in my arms before either of us indicated our desire to wipe out the memory of the 'sex test' at Aro's with proper love making.
That was okay; fine; I had no expectations that the first night home would be a marathon of reconciliation. All I needed was to feel the warmth of her body beside mine and listen to her breathing.
Tomorrow she would face Marcus and I'd be there sitting in, hearing every word about what she had endured.
I barely slept but it didn't matter, I'd become used to sleeping the bare minimum while she was away and I was happy just watching her face as she slept beside me.
It was quiet. Emmett and Rose were down several flights in the old apartment and I imagined things were noisier down there, knowing that pair as I did. In a way I envied their ability to just accept one another so completely without being bothered about one another's pasts, but I already knew they both were wired that way.
When Rose and I dated, and I'd felt the time had come for 'the talk' where we each confessed how many former sexual partners we had enjoyed, she'd shrugged the conversation away and said she really did not care and had no interest exchanging war stories with me. We were now together, and that was all that mattered.
I admit I did wonder if that meant she had rather more sex partners than me, but I accepted her view that maybe it really was something we didn't have to wade through. No names, no numbers.
We'd been a fairly good match but she was the girl who expressed never wanting children and my interest in her had instantly waned.
I had no idea of course if her views had now changed, but on the other hand, I wasn't even sure how much Emmett wanted a family so it was something they'd work out together, if they lasted. I thought they just might. They were so well suited.
She had never been the girl for me but honestly, soon after I met her when I was in New York at my aborted attempt to attend medical school, it had occurred to me early in our romance that Emmett would just love her.
Those words often popped into my head when she related some of her more ribald stories, and it never occurred to her to tone them down or substitute more acceptable words to describe the men involved in these shenanigans. All I could think was, My God, this girl is the female version of Emmett.
So naturally I never took her home to meet the family.
In breaks she and I had travelled instead, and I must admit I have some fond memories of our trips to Paris and London. The woman could shop like a demon. She could shop for the Olympics if there were a category for women who bargain shopped in the shortest time.
She was studying fashion and design and I'd thought that career choice was obvious and perfect for her.
While I knew many of us had started down one pathway before realizing we were going in the wrong direction and had to branch off, I truly had not expected Rose to be amongst us. Her path had seemed so perfect and preordained almost.
My life had hit that second speed bump around then; the first having been the 'Tanya' incident; but this one had seemed as large and disorienting as that one all the same.
I thought I wanted to be a doctor, regardless of it already being Carlisle's profession. I didn't really think he'd influenced my choice, then one day when talking on the phone to Esme, she'd commented about how she and Dad had 'always known' I would follow this path, and she'd laughed about much it had paid off, Dad buying me my first doctor's kit when I turned three.
After I'd hung up, I'd felt a little as if I'd been manipulated to study medicine and started questioning my choice. Was it even my choice at all, or had I been brainwashed to want to be a doctor from the beginning?
Rose, who'd I'd adored for ages had proven to be so different to what I'd thought, and that vague, imagined future had evaporated like a hologram running out of energy, and she had moved on quickly, without a backward glance. I was questioning my life, my choice in women and my chosen career path, and suddenly it just felt like I was wearing someone else's shoes.
I'd struggled with a new direction to take, unsure what career would suit me now medicine was ruled out, and then I'd watched a lot of tv to fill in time between various hook ups I'd indulged in, not ready to commit to anyone new for quite some time.
The 'Tanya' influence was knocking me for six again, as it had over the years, and parting from Rose had re enforced that maybe there was no right woman out there for me anyway. I'd never thought Rose was my One and Only Forever girl, but then, I didn't really think there was such a creature for me. I'd thought she was Good Enough, and isn't that all there is?
I'd thought so at the time.
So, I basically wallowed for some months, unsure what to do next. I drank too much to break the monotony; ate fast food, and forgot to bathe.
I wandered around my apartment, restless and sick of my own company.
The only companion I had was television.
Of course there were a million cop shows on tv, and I guess that's what gave me the idea of joining the ranks of good against evil.
Now I knew it was the path I had to walk to meet the woman who really had been made for me all along.
My Bella.
So beautiful.
So trusting.
So special.
So perfect.
I felt a little strange at that thought and my stomach clenched.
Not quite perfect, Edward.
Not perfect enough to value our relationship and future above her desire to find Riley.
Not perfect enough to just come home once Rose had informed her he was alive and safe.
No, she had risked everything; her very life, to go into that dark pit and seek him out.
Okay, I'd wanted her to stand face to face with him, but not at any expense. I'd never wanted her to risk her very life to speak to him.
Of course I was extremely pissed at Marcus, as well, for letting her go in. There had been missed calls from him on my phone; the phone I had not dared take with me when I went to the castle to make my purchases. I assumed he had tried to call to tell me finally exactly where she was.
Restless, I kissed her sleeping form quickly and slid from her bed.
The light from the rising sun was just tingeing the horizon a light gold/pink, and I gazed outside and tried to shake off this feeling of doubt and fear.
Was she good for me?
Was I the lamb, walking into the lion's den?
Would I get the life I craved with her? Could she give it to me?
I loved her, of that there was no doubt.
I even believe she loves me almost as much in return, but this escapade spoke volumes.
I had raced in after her as quickly as possible to bring her home safely, because for me there had been no other option. For my life to proceed, I needed Bella back.
But for her, had she even considered that she was risking our future by her actions? Aro could have imprisoned her forever. She could have spent her life chained to a wall, providing entertainment and pleasure for maybe hundreds of men, unwillingly no doubt but that was irrelevant.
If she really, truly cared about us, she would have never entered that castle.
She knew what she was jeopardizing.
She knew she was placing what we shared on the line, and had Claire moved on before I arrived in Italy, or been staying over at some man's apartment, I would not have had any idea where Bella was.
Even if Claire had simply been the type of girl who subscribed to the idea what happened in Italy, stayed in Italy, and hadn't spoken to me that morning, Bella and Rose would both have simply slipped off the radar like Riley had.
Sure, 'Izzy' had told me she had talked to Marcus, but I wasn't sure that was even true or just part of the act because she knew Aro was listening. She'd managed to convey to me that she could not leave voluntarily but what if my leg had not healed as fast as it had? What if I'd had normal bones and couldn't have gone searching for her for another month; or just another week, or even another day?
Aro had made plans to enjoy her company that very night.
Aro was not a man to require consent from his 'dates'. He would have ravaged her body with or without her permission.
At best, she would have been left raped and no doubt beaten for her lack of cooperation when she fought back, as we all know she would have.
A girl like Rose may have been able to suck it up and play out the scene with the man she despised the most in the world, and managed to shut the experience away in some hidden compartment in her mind, and write it off as just something she'd had to endure for the job, but not Bella.
Never Bella.
Her choices would have been to break and fall apart when she eventually told me what happened to her, or, more likely, to keep the whole thing from me and try to pretend it never happened.
Either way, it would have spoiled things between us.
Her perceived guilt for 'cheating' on me; for allowing another man inside her, no matter that she had no say, would have changed her. Because she was the one who put herself in the position where that would have happened.
Nobody had drugged her hot chocolate and stolen her away in the night.
Wasn't what we shared important enough to influence her choices?
Most women would have thanked Rose, declined her offer to get her into that nightmare place, and shrugged off being unable to speak to a man who after all, she had claimed over and over was nothing to her now. So, I would never have gotten the satisfaction of knowing Bella saw him face to face and chose me. That I could live with. Sure, I wanted her to have closure, but not at any price. I thought she had the sense to walk away if necessary.
If I'd had lingering doubts that I'd been wrong about Rose, and been faced with the same choice; to go inside Aro's domain to see her again just to be sure I wasn't hankering after what we'd shared years before, I'd have said No and come home, because my future with Bella was far more important than anything else.
Hell, even if Rose had been able to contact Marcus, and had needed rescuing, I would never have agreed to go in after her. Someone else could have done what I did. There were no photos of Edward Anthony Masen. Any of the UC squad could have become him.
I'd risked my life and freedom myself, but only for Bella's safe return.
I'd have never done it for Rose.
And Bella had not even gone in to save Riley, merely to see him again.
What did this all mean?
Emmett accuses me regularly of over thinking everything, but I was seriously concerned, and found myself longing for a cigarette.
Oh for the days when nicotine was the biggest threat to my future and happiness.
I gazed at the sleeping form before me and knew she held me in the palm of her hand. I was merely her puppet, and she could use me however she chose.
My only other choice was to walk away and maybe save myself, but did I even want to live if the world I existed in was a world without Bella?
It felt like she was as essential as the air I breathed.
Yet she had risked forcing me to live in that world, anyway.
What if Aro had grown tired when she resisted him and had decided she wasn't worth the struggle? Maybe he didn't even care if his 'dates' were breathing, so long as their bodies were still warm. Maybe he would have had one of his henchman break her neck to end her screams.
How could she have done that to me?
How could she have risked us, risked everything?
Did I even know her at all?
xxxx
I made breakfast and eventually Bella came downstairs and my heart lifted at the sight of her, warm and rumpled, her hair wild and knotted from sleeping. She wore an old shirt of mine, and it looked so much better on her body. She looked sexy, sure, but more than that she looked so small and vulnerable and incredibly precious, and the words I'd been rehearsing in my head disappeared as I took her into my arms and kissed her.
"I love you more than my own life. You are my life now," I admitted.
She smiled up at me, oblivious to the torment she had caused me.
"So, what did you cook for me? Eggs? Awesome. What time do I have to face Marcus? It's not going to be pretty."
"You said he knew what you intended doing," I faltered, confused.
"Well, he did know where I was, once Aro called him to check on my background as one of his 'subs'. I may have avoided asking his permission to go in there. I kind of winged it and just hoped he'd play along, and he did. He twigged the only reason Aro Volturi would be calling him was to check my resume. "
"Marcus never knew you were going to go into Aro's den?" I echoed back at her. I couldn't believe this. She had gone in without any permission? Without any back up, apart from Rose, who would have been as much a victim herself had Aro picked upon any clues they were not what they appeared.
Riley would not have been any help, with him defecting to the Dark Side as he had.
Aro had never been arrested and charged with any wrongdoings ever, and why was that? Because anyone willing to testify against him disappeared.
The man was a killer.
A cold blooded, ruthless murderer.
I couldn't speak, so I left her to her omelette and went to shower and dress while inside I simmered with rage.
I swear if this apartment had come with a 'games room' she would now be manacled to it's wall and feeling the taste of leather against her back, because I would have whipped some sense into her, no matter how much I loved her.
Maybe because I loved her.
I felt her looking at me as I drove her to work in silence. I didn't want to attack her until I knew all the facts.
She chatted nervously, going on about the art galleries she had visited and paintings she had seen, and I merely bit my lip and nodded now and then.
Marcus, on the other hand, greeted her with unbridled rage and tore several strips off her before asking her any questions.
He screamed what I had managed to suppress.
"I cannot believe you thought that was a good idea, Swan. Only a complete moron would put themselves in that position. You do realize at some point Aro would have decided to 'test the goods' right? No businessman hires a new recruit and believes every word her past employer has written or spoken. You were willing to let that man defile you just to speak to Riley Biers, even though Rose had told you she'd seen Riley with her own eyes and knew he was fine? And what if you hadn't been to Aro's liking? Do you have any idea how many girls simply disappear when they don't make the grade? He doesn't send them back home to their Mommies, he kills them, Bella. You are a professional, for God's sake. You went in knowing the man was barely human. He's an animal. You did get that, right?"
She struggled to excuse her actions and he cut her off every time she tried.
"I'm glad you resigned, because if you hadn't, I'd have kicked you out anyway. And what about this fiance of yours? Did you give him a single thought. Not to mention Edward. The man was going insane. If you'd died in there you would have ruined Edward's life. I can't pretend to understand what it is between you two, seeing he supposedly married someone else, but I'm not blind. I know he loves you to distraction. I know he put up his own money, Bella, to buy you from that monster. He's virtually bankrupted himself to get you home. Not that he cares about the money. He'd have died to save you. My God, if this had ended badly the man would have been off the nearest cliff without further thought. If Aro had killed you, he would have been begging the man to kill him as well. Did any of this even occur to you?"
I could barely stand the ranting and left the room, leaving her to face his wrath alone. She deserved every word.
Rose was sitting in an interview room, and it seemed she had been there for hours, not at home with my brother as I thought. I sat in on the end of her debriefing as a distraction from what was happening in that other room.
"So Riley Biers is indeed in deep and completely has Aro's trust?"
"Completely. He's quite confident Aro has accepted he loves the lifestyle and wants to stay forever. He has everything in place to bring the monster down. I had no idea his plans were so advanced though or I would never have given in to Bella's pleas for me to take her in there to see him. I believe he would have brought the whole operation down days ago if I hadn't done that. But I'm sure he will proceed as planned now she's gone."
"And he is Aro's right hand man, and has all the details we will need to smash this ring at the source?"
"Absolutely. Aro Volturi is about to pay for his crimes and Riley has secreted out enough proof to have that creature face the death penalty a dozen times over."
"Is this young girl, Bree, any use as a witness against him?"
"There's no need. The case won't need witnesses. It's all over bar the shouting. Riley knows where the bodies are buried, literally. He helped Aro dispose of some himself and he says there were..."
Rose faltered and almost retched. She shook herself.
"There were hundreds. He tosses them into a pit in the bowels of the dungeon where nobody else has access. He doesn't burn the remains or anything. Just leaves them all to rot. "
"Thank you, Rose. Marcus is going to be one very happy man once he listens to this. You should go home and get some rest. No doubt he'll be wanting to hear some of this from your own lips once he's through debriefing Bella."
The forensic teams would have their work cut out for them identifying the dead girls, but at least there would not be any more added to the pile. Riley had done his job and managed to get himself into a position of trust far closer than any agent before him.
The man was a hero.
A superhero.
Bella had no idea.
xxxx
I spent the hours that followed tying up the paperwork on other closed cases. Regardless of what happened here today, I was done.
I was returning to Forks, and continuing my medical studies.
Whether or not Bella came with me, I was going.
It may sound crazy that I even needed to find it in my heart to forgive her, but I did. She may have just been doing her job, but the way she had done it...
No doubt she would need time to consider her options as well.
By lunchtime, I was headed for my old apartment to gather up whatever I'd left behind, then I went back to Bella's and packed everything there up as well.
In a way,I wished I could take the coward's way out and leave her a note, but I couldn't.
She knew, the moment she walked through the door and saw my face.
"You're leaving," she stated. It wasn't a question.
"I think we both need some time apart to think about things and be sure what we want," I replied.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Edward. I wasn't thinking. I just got caught up with seeing Rose again and the two of us were always doing crazy shit, and just for one single moment it seemed like a good idea.
It was a momentary indiscretion. That's all. A stupid selfish decision. It doesn't have to wreck everything. I love you. I love you."
"Bella, when you did what you did, I was the last person on your mind, or you would never have done it. What does that tell you?"
"It wasn't about Riley, if that's what you were thinking. He truly is nothing to me, Edward. I'm begging you to believe that."
"I do believe you. What you feel or don't feel about him doesn't bother me at all. In fact, had you realized you loved him, it would have been better; more understandable. I could have accepted you did what you did out of desperation to be with the man you loved, so reason wasn't enough to make you pause and think it through.
It's that even though you love me, you still jeopardized everything we have together without a second thought that kills me. I just don't know... I don't know if you are good for me. I need to think about what our future would be like if you never put me first, like I always do for you.
I'm sure on the surface we could manage to look like the perfect couple, but I'd always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. For you to act irresponsibly without thought again, and what if this happens after we are married, and have children, Bella.
What if next time it's not just me whose world you risk destroying?
I love you, we both know that; God, everyone else knew before we did. That probably will never change. But before we go any further, I have to consider what I can cope with, and whether this is more an addiction than a relationship.
I'm addicted to you, you are a drug to me. You are my own personal form of heroin and I'll always crave you, but the question is, will you kill me? Am I better off going through the agony of withdrawal if it means someday I'll get over my dependence on you? Right now, I depend entirely on you for my happiness, and that's never a good thing.
Everyone has to make their own happiness.
I'll always love you and desire you and want you, but I also need you, and I need to know, even without you, I could go on. Until I truly know that you could not completely destroy me, I need to make a life for myself apart from you."
" But I have nothing now. No career... Where should I go? What should I do?" she uttered.
What was it Rhett Butler said to Scarlett?
Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn?
The problem was, I did give a damn.
I needed to get away from her and find myself, and it would be a test of faith, but if we were meant to be together someday, and stay together forever, we would.
One day, when the time was right.
I walked towards the door and looked back one last time.
Shakespeare was right.
Parting was such sweet sorrow.
XXXXX
A/N Yes, there will be a sequel, if desired by you readers, let me know. I know some people like stories that have an open ending for you to fill in yourself, but I never do. If you read any of my 49 stories on my "Zosie" page, you know the most favourite thing for me is getting Edward and Bella back together no matter what has gone down.