I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of my story.
Author's Note at the end.
Edward raises the tablespoon of soup to his mouth trying to get himself to eat anything, to no avail. She will be receiving the papers at any moment now. He has no idea how she will react. Will she storm in and punch him? Will she not come here? Is she going to fight dirty? Will she put a hit on him?
A loud banging rings through the house.
I guess we know what she chose.
The spoon he drops in his plate clatters loudly before it's followed by a louder banging of the door. He pushes his chair back and goes to open the door.
"What is this?" Bella demands the moment his eyes meet hers. She shoves him out of the way and walks into the apartment.
"Come in. It's nice of you to join me. Would you like soup?" Edward asks sarcastically as he closes the door and follows behind her.
"Are you mocking me?" She demands angrily and then mutters to herself, "Of course he is mocking me. As if Edward is capable of an ounce of care or respect for anyone but himself."
"Now wait a damn minute. I care about other people. You just have to make your way to my priority list," he tells her cutting in and interrupting her muttering to herself.
Bella gets a hurt look on her face which she masks quickly then tells him, "If this is your way to tell me that you don't care about me, you don't need to. The message has been received loud and clear. I have never operated under the dellusion that you did."
Edward stares at her silently for a second. She has her arms crossed across her chest as she glares at him. Anger comes off her in waves as she crumbles the paper she is holding.
She finds his silent staring unnerving, so she escapes his gaze by pacing around the room. The last thing she needs is for him to think that she can't look him in the eyes. He won't be wrong, but not for the reason he might think.
He rolls his shoulders back and tells her, "I didn't want to do this, but this was my only option."
She spins around quickly to face him and demands, "Only option for what?"
"To make you understand that I am serious about Cece."
She takes a step toward him before she mutters, "Is this a fucking game to you. Is this all about trying to prove a point, 'cause if it is," She pauses for a moment then throws her hands in the air before continuing, "Congrats, you have proven how much of a serious pain in the ass you are? Now stop the case."
"I won't. I want my daughter. You can't keep me away from her. Eleazar isn't here for you to hide behind anymore," Edward tells her then he walks towards one of the couches and sits down. This is going to be a long night and he might as well sit down.
Bella let's out a dark short laugh before telling him, "You think I am going to let that happen?"
Edward leans back and tells her, "I can't see you having any excuse to keep me away. You have no legal leg to stand on."
Bella walks slowly toward the couch opposite the one Edward is sitting on as she tells him, "You think a judge can make me do something I don't want to."
"Not the judge personally. But I can see the police getting involved," Edward replies nonchalantly.
This time Bella lets out a longer and louder laugh that abruptly ends when she demands, "You are testing me. Is this a threat?"
"Call it what you want. I am letting you know what will happen if you don't comply."
His smirk and the wink he throws her at the end make it extremely hard for her to not punch him.
"Nothing," She states slowly, then continues, "Nothing will happen if I do not comply. Do you know why?" Bella pauses for a minute and continues when he stays silent, "Because you will only get your hands on Cece if I am dead."
Edward rolls his eyes at her then mutters, "Don't be dramatic Bella."
Bella snorts before she slowly sits down while looking him in the eyes and telling him, "Darling, you have no idea how much dramatic I can be when I want to be. More so, you don't know the lines I would cross to protect my daughter, not that protecting anyone but yourself is something you will ever understand."
"Don't," Edward snaps, "Dont pretend like I never cared about you. Don't pretend like I don't care about you because I do all the time. You are all I think of every single day," he is shouting by the end of his speech.
Bella rolls her eyes at him and mutters to herself, "He is still trying to sell me this crap as if I will believe him."
Edward loses any semblance of coolness he had and starts screaming, "Don't pretend like I never cared. I never left. You did. You left me with nothing. You took everything with you and left. I loved you. I love you. If you would just love me I would pretend like everything that happened never did. God, against my common sense I would." By the end, his voice is trembling.
Bella stays silent for a moment trying to think her words through before she tells him in a quiet voice, "Just because you leave it doesn't mean you don't care."
"Then what does it mean?" Edward demands.
"It means that I had to. It was self preservation," Bella replies looking deep into his eyes.
"Yeah, sure. Tell me exactly how does Marco fit into the self-preservation narrative you have going on?" Edward asks not taking any word she said seriously.
She takes a deep breath and then tells him, "I met him five months after Cece was born."
Edward barks a loud laugh then tells her, "Yeah sure. That is why you told me otherwise before."
"I had to lie then. We were on a mission as FBI agents. We couldn't exactly tell you the truth."
Edward gets off the couch and starts pacing in front of it. While a part of him tells him that she is lying. The smart part of him knows better. Bella is too smart to get caught in a lie that's so easy to disprove.
"Then why did you leave?" He asks crossing his arms across his chest.
"If I tell you, would you believe me?" she asks looking at her feet.
"I will," he replies trying to control the tone of his voice. He is both excited and anxious to find out. He has been wanting to know the truth for years. The masks have fallen. It's not in Bella's best interest to lie anymore.
"Even if you don't like it?" Bella asks raising her eyes to meet his.
He huffs in frustration over her beating around the bush then tells her, "You have been telling me things I don't like since you came back. It won't be surprising."
"Yet you don't believe anything I have said so far," She tells him.
"Bella, just spit it out," he mutters to himself as he throws himself back on the couch.
"It's true that I knew Eleazar before I left, but not because he offered me a job. It was because he blackmailed me," Bella states.
"What?" He yells jumping to his feet angrily. He always knew that the asshole is wicked but not to this extent. Did he care so much about his daughter's dating life that he would go to the extent of blackmailing an innocent bystander?
"What did he blackmail you with?" he demands as he goes back to pacing the room.
"He had video footage that framed me as a murderer and he threatened to send it to the police if I didn't leave," she continues.
"The fuck! You did not murder someone, did you?" Edward demands as he walks to her and towers over her.
Rubbing her hand across her face, she tells him, "Could you please sit down? This is nerve wrecking as it is and your pacing and jumping isn't helping."
"Sorry," he mutters in embarrassment as he walks toward the opposite couch.
"Do you remember that party we attended at Marcus Alanzo three months before I left?" She asks.
He scratches his head trying to remember what party she is talking about until it dawns on him and he asks her, "The night I had the weird dream about running over someone?"
She nods her head then tells him, "I lied to you about something the next day."
"What is it?" he asks interrupting her.
"It wasn't a dream," Bella tells him quietly.
The moment he understands what she meant, she knows because the look on his face turns venomous.
"Shut up," he spits out.
She stays silent and doesn't reply. She isn't about to get in a verbal fight with him. She just won't. She doesn't trust him when he is angry.
"You will not try to make me out to be a murderer when I am not, just to make yourself be a victim," he tells her as knuckles turn white.
"You dragged me from that party while drunk. You wouldn't let me drive despite being drunk and you were too aggressive for me to dare and try to stop you. You kept yelling and screaming that night instead of watching the street, then suddenly out of nowhere, I saw someone cross the street. You tried to stop but it was too late. I got out of the car and dragged the body to the side of the road and then we switched seats and I drove away. I called some of the friends we left at the party and told them that we were using another route and that route was very difficult to navigate at this hourt make sure everyone assumes that we were nowhere near the hit. Everything I did was caught on camera by Eleazar cause the accident happened near his house. I ended up carrying the sin of your mistake. If you wanna blame someone for me leaving, don't blame me. Blame yourself. I would have never left if it was up to me alone," she tells him.
He is silent for a moment as if searching for something, then he calmly tells her, "Go back home Bella and I will pretend I never heard the shit you just said and will not hold it against you in court 'cause I could."
"So you won't believe me?" she asks then continues looking resigned, "Just like I expected."
"I will believe you when you say something believable," he screams.
She smiles a sad smile. How typical of him to revert to anger whenever something he doesn't like happens. She is going to leave now. She won't wait for his anger to bubble to the surface more and kick her out aggressively.
"I am not lying. If you don't believe me good for you. Here take this," she tells him throwing a USP at the table between them, "This has the video Eleazar blackmailed me with. Watch it. Maybe you will finally wake up and realize what you're made of."
She gets up and walks toward the door of his apartment and after opening the door she tells him, "By the way, you will make it to your grave before you reach the court. I don't want you to take it as a threat. I want you to know that it is a promise."
Hello lovely people,
Thanks to everyone who commented on my last chapter. I want to reply to some comments, but I will put this off for the next chapter and instead talk about what happened in Turkey and Syria.
A couple of days ago, an earthquake hit Turkey and Syria and so far the death toll is over 13 thousand people and counting. If you have any capacity to help, please do.
Especially with Syria. Syria is being helped primarily by foundations and individuals. Add to it that those areas are some of the most fierce opposers to Bashar Al-Asad and have been getting bombed by his government and the Russian army for year's now. The people living there are living in the worst human conditions possible.
If you have anything to spare, please donate to the Earthquake urgent response fundraiser hosted by Molhamteam. As someone who is residing in the region they are one of the most trustworthy organizations working currently in Syria. They are a youth lead organization that has been working in Syria for years to provide support and housing for the people left homeless due to the war today they are using this fundraiser to provide support for the people impacted by the earthquake and to fund the efforts for the search for survivors. There are still today, people under the rubble waiting to be saved.
Every cent count and you have no idea how much the help is needed.
Until my next update,
Stay Safe