CHAPTER 32

I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser

Midnights become my afternoons

When my depression works the graveyard shift

All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room

~ Taylor Swift, Anti-Hero

EPOV

Sleep had never been a priority of mine. It was a habit I realized in my late twenties my father lovingly trained out of me by the time I was a teenager. A few hours of shut eye had me set for a good sixteen hours of working. My body had been hardwired for it from a young age, and it was a habit that had stuck with me for life.

So I found it remarkably impressive that my wife was going on nearly hour thirteen of sleep with no sign of stirring.

It was a well earned sleep. She had finished her twenty-fourth and final show in Chicago last night. And it had been a month of keeping a rigorously tight schedule to keep her healthy and able to put on a three-plus hour show every night.

Fortunately for the nearly two million ticket holders that were at the shows, it was a schedule that had paid off. Not a single show was canceled or rescheduled. There were a few that were delayed a few hours thanks to Chicago's temperamental weather, but Bella had happily waited out the lightning and performed in the pouring rain a handful of times to keep everything on track.

Unfortunately for me, it meant I hadn't had the pleasure of testing out my wife's stamina in more fun ways in far too long.

It was a routine I was familiar with. One I respected because I knew how fucking hard she was working day in and day out. It simply meant I spent more time than usual working my excess energy out in less fun ways in the gym.

I pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead before she burrowed herself further into her pillow and softly closed our bedroom door behind me.

We were back at home, our latest penthouse in downtown left behind after the last show in the city. The house was blissfully quiet as I made my way down to our home gym. Documentary crews were gone. Bella and her team were taking a well deserved break for the next few days, a short while but a much needed attempt for them all to recharge before she headed out on a short tour of the US before she headed into awards season.

I enjoyed the quiet while I worked out. Let the strain of my muscles and grit of my teeth distract me from the way my brain liked to constantly run every worst case scenario these days.

Because Caius and O'Malley were still very much letting me know at every chance they got that they were waiting in the shadows. O'Malley had been honest about his unwillingness to put in the work to actually take over the city. He was a volatile and untrained man in this business, who, quite frankly, just liked to blow shit up.

Caius, however, was another story. He was far too much like Carlisle. Like me.

He had ambition. He had the bloodlust. And he had O'Malley to do whatever dirty work he wanted.

It was a dangerous combination. And both of them were infatuated with my wife. Knew that she was the foundation of the Cullen legacy and taking her out would leave us crumbling to the ground.

I let the weights fall to the ground with a clash as I scrubbed my hands over my face. Everyday I thought of a new way they could get to her. As much as I prided myself on how safe she was, there was no way to keep her completely guarded. Not while she was touring. And I sure as fuck couldn't tell her to cancel. Not when she worked so fucking hard to get to where she was. Not when she was glowing with pride and happiness every night.

Still, every day there was a new member of security in place.

Emmett and Jasper told me it was overboard. I knew it wouldn't be enough.

Soft fingers brushed through my hair, tugging softly at the ends to tilt my head up. My hands went to her waist before my eyes opened and focused on her in front of me.

Thirty years with the woman and she still took my fucking breath away.

"Bed was cold," she sighed, straddling my waist without hesitation.

"My apologies, love," I mumbled into her neck. She wore nothing but an oversized tour t-shirt. Her hair was in knots from immediately falling asleep after her shower last night. But I would recognize that glint in her eyes and the rasp in her voice anywhere.

The tongue drawing lazy circles on my neck was hardly subtle either.

"You should be resting." The words were empty as my hands slid down to her ass.

"You have no idea the amount of energy fourteen hours of sleep can give you," she countered, arms falling lazily over my shoulders as she grinned down at me.

A stronger man might have still argued that she needed rest. I knew she still did. But as soon as she ground herself right on my cock with that sexy little smirk on her lips, I was done for.

Her legs immediately wrapped around my waist as I stood, and it was the first time in weeks my brain was blissfully clear of tactical units and security formations and worry.

There was a full bathroom off of our home gym. I had Bella seated on the marble counter before she could break our kiss. She grumbled under her breath as I left her for no longer than ten seconds to turn on the shower.

I buried my fingers in her hair and captured her lips in mine as soon as I was back to her. Strong legs wrapped around my waist as she pulled herself closer to me. Me closer to her. It still wasn't enough. Never would be.

Then I got another one of those sexy little smirks as she dropped to her knees in front of me. She was thankfully just as impatient as I was because there was no teasing or playing before my sweatpants were on the ground and my cock in her mouth.

"Fuck," I grunted out, fingers knotting in her hair as she took me down her throat.

Goddamn heaven.

I moaned her name. She moaned around my cock. I nearly came down her throat.

I took an unsteady step back and pulled her to her feet. The remaining scraps of clothing between the two of us were quickly tossed aside as I had her pressed against the cool tile of the shower.

Steam from the water filled the room as I gripped both of her thighs firmly and lifted her. Her lips brushed against my ear, fingers tangled in my hair as she whispered, "I love you," her breath coming out as a moan as she finished speaking and I slid into her in one firm stroke.

Goddamn heaven.

–Love|Power–

It was a logistical fucking nightmare, touring. Always had been. It was worse this time around, considering the sheer size of the show and the amount of security we needed at all times. It was only a handful of shows across the US for the moment, and I was hoping by the time she went back out on tour next year I'd finally have the O'Malley and Caius problem under control.

Next time I saw either of them I would put a bullet between their eyes.

They were having fun taunting us for the moment. Always sending a disposable member of their 'organization' to do their dirty work. I made sure they always went back to them in pieces. But a new one always showed up.

Bella only knew about a few of the incidents. The ones I couldn't keep from her, like the presents left in her dressing rooms or the people caught trying to sneak onto her floor of the hotels we were staying in.

As much as I enjoyed watching her on that stage every night, and as much as I knew she was finally living up to her potential each night, the fact that tomorrow night was her final show in LA for the year had me counting down the hours until it was over.

"I'll meet you back at the hotel," I breathed out against her flushed cheek.

Bella scratched her nose with the sleeve of her cream cardigan. She had changed into a more comfortable outfit before leaving today; a soft cardigan, pain black tank top, and comfortable leggings.

"You okay?" she asked, voice like gravel as she leaned against my side.

I nodded. There had been a minor security breach backstage that I wanted to go over before I headed out.

One more night I reminded myself.

I pressed a kiss to her cheek. "I'll be there soon."

I watched her walk, surrounded by three former Marine's, Alistair, and Ben.

And twenty minutes later, as I was attempting to keep from strangling the man who had gotten distracted by a woman and let a random fan sneak past him, the earpiece I had that was feeding me the normally quiet signal of the team getting Bella to her hotel caught my attention.

The loud, metallic crunch was not part of the plan.

I froze. Everyone around me kept up with their pointless conversation as I listened to the static until it was broken up by the sound of gunfire and shouts.

My eyes met my son's across the room. Blissfully unaware of what I was hearing, simply frowning down at the man he was berating because he thought he had put his mother in danger.

More gunshots sounded in my ear, and a life without my wife flashed before my eyes.

We had been lucky. So fucking lucky to find each other. No one else on the planet could put up with me and my life, and no other man in the world could ever deserve the pleasure of her company. Hell, I knew I didn't deserve her but I had spent nearly every goddamn minute since I met her trying to.

We'd been through scandals and trials and arrests; shootings and plane crashes and every kind of betrayal there was, but we always ended up on the other side of it. Together.

And as I heard Ben's breathless curse over the transmission, I had to force myself to accept the reality that this might be the end of our lucky streak.

"Viper is gone. Fuck. V-viper is missing."

BPOV

I probably should have been more scared than annoyed, but every step I took had my feet crunching underneath me. My head was pounding. I would kill–quite literally–for a big bottle of water. And I was pretty sure the fucker who shoved me into this room had sprained my ankle in the process.

It was a surprisingly nice room. I wasn't sure where we were exactly, but it was a place where the owner appreciated luxury. A sitting room with plenty of plush couches. Windows that looked out over a disturbingly empty skyline.

Fancy house. Middle of nowhere. Not a good combination.

Before I could even try to think, the door I had been shoved through opened again.

I might have had more of a filter had I not been quite as exhausted.

"If you guys wanted to hang out, you could have just asked," I sighed, eying the men as they sauntered in.

It was an overcompensation, that cocky confidence. People with actual power didn't need to pretend to have it with an idiotic sway of their shoulders as they walked.

O'Malley was the first to come in. Followed by the face Edward had told me to memorize as his step-brother Caius. As if my night didn't suck enough, Lawrence, Colton Shay, and Duncan Zane followed.

"It's good to see age hasn't dulled that sarcasm, Bella," Zane sneered.

And as much as I hated it, the sound of his voice sent ice down my veins and nearly reverted me to that scared seventeen-year-old who put a smile on her face and walked the red carpet while fighting back the urge to curl in a ball and sob.

I couldn't remember the last time I had actually spoken to the man. I avoided him at all costs after that night.

"Good to see age has been a bitch to you, Zane," I sighed.

He was only a few years older than me, and age hadn't been that cruel to him, but I knew it would hurt. He came from a family of filmmakers and had inherited his position among the studio at a laughably young age back then, and one of the few things I remember about him was that he spent more time primping his hair in the car than I ever did.

"You used to be so much better at doing what you were told," Lawrence sighed, walking further into the room and collapsing on one of the couches as if he owned the place.

He could, I supposed. I made him plenty of money over the years.

"Have a seat, Bella," Caius drawled, eyes traveling up and down my body in a way that had my stomach churning.

He was disturbingly similar to Carlisle. The way he talked, the way he moved. Like he was ready to put a bullet in anyone who pissed him off.

In all fairness, it was very similar to the way Edward moved throughout a room. It was something I always watched with fascination, how one glance at him had people stiffening.

It wasn't quite as enjoyable of a trait on other people.

"What do you want?" I asked, forcing the nerves down to the pit of my stomach and disguising it with impatience in my voice

"Have a seat, Bella," Caisu repeated.

Frozen blue eyes shot daggers at me as I stood my ground.

"You're not in a position of power here, Bella," Lawrence sighed.

My eyes shot to him, narrowing on the man I had so stupidly once trusted so explicitly. "I'm always in a position of power."

Caius chuckled. "I can see why my brother is so infatuated with you. Your temper is… exciting."

I fought against cringing as he took a few eerily steady steps toward me. His smile was more of a sneer and I had to freeze every bone in my body to keep from pulling away as he leaned in and breathed against my ear, "I wonder how long it will take me to break it."

His hands dug painfully hard into my biceps as he pushed me down into a chair.

AidenPOV

"No fucking way. No fucking way am I just sitting here while you guys get Ma!" I shouted.

I couldn't remember the last time I shouted at my father.

Probably when I was high.

He was a volatile man, but I knew he'd never lay a finger on me. He wasn't that kind of guy. And after the amount of time I had spent working in the family business, I knew it was kind of a miracle that no one in our family was like that.

We did shady shit, for sure, but even we had morals.

Mom had morals.

She had been gone for hours by now, and Dad had the nerve to tell me to stay here while he, Emmett, Jasper, Ben, Alistair and a dozen other men went to get Ma.

My father's voice was cold and detached as he simply said, "No."

He had been disturbingly monotone from the moment Mom got taken. All business. No emotion.

Other than pure, undiluted, rage.

His knuckles were still broken and bloody from punching a concrete wall.

I knew something was wrong when he got up and left without bothering to so much as say a word to the idiot security guard who got distracted by a pretty face. Before I could get up to follow him, Emmett and Jasper's phones went off simultaneously. Both went matching shades of white before calmly getting up and leaving the room.

Emmett was already rushing down the hall toward where Dad had disappeared to when I followed them. I watched, wide eyed and confused as Uncle Emmett put a hand on Dad's shoulder to stop him and Dad swung at him without a second thought.

Emmett ducked.

Dad's fist collided with the concrete wall.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Until Emmett managed to get his arms around him and stop him from shredding his knuckles.

"Bella's car was t-boned on the way home tonight," Jasper said quietly from beside me. "Seven guards were taken out. Ben and Alistair were both shot, but they're on their way to the hospital now. Bella… your mom, she's missing."

Thankfully Ben and Alistair only had grazes. They gave the hospital twenty minutes to bandage them up before getting up and walking out without another word.

They beat us to the house. The cozy little mansion my mother had bought herself on the hillside of Los Angeles when she was seventeen. It immediately went from cozy to command central as soon as my father walked in.

More people than I even knew my father had in the city came and went. He sequestered the family in the house, all of them showing up bleary eyed and confused until they saw the commotion around them.

We took turns being the one who had to say Mom was missing.

Everyone's eyes immediately went to Dad when they found out. Swimming with instant fear and sadness and just the slightest hint of terror at Dad's coldness.

Adeline's went to me, though. Ella was passed out in her arms as she was ushered inside and while I was barely holding myself together at the thought of something happening to my mother, I wasn't sure what I would do if something happened to her. To Ella.

The fact that my father was even functioning at all was suddenly hard to believe.

The next few hours were a bit of a blur. Dad never once raised his voice, always keeping an eerily calm tone as he spoke to the tech guys frantically typing away and attempting to get a lock on the tracker Dad had on Mom.

An earring. He had a fucking tracker in a diamond earring.

I asked him if Ma knew about it before I could stop myself.

Dad shrugged. Said of course in that emotionless voice. And that was it.

He hardly had to lift a finger to find Ma, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize he planned it that way. He had everything in place, every single fucking thing he could, if something happened to her. Because he knew he wouldn't be able to handle it himself in the moment.

But when the time came to actually act, he was ready. Still somehow that empty shell that had been talking only when necessary, but armed with four different weapons on his person.

Telling me I wasn't going with them.

I expected my outburst to make him snap. To finally break that hold he had on himself and for him to at the very least snap back.

There was nothing behind his eyes when he looked at me, and for the first time all day I realized he had no hope of getting mom back. The situation was bad, I knew that, but fuck it–it was solvable. Nobody would actually hurt Ma, not when Dad was around.

She was fine.

She'd be fine.

We'd all be fine.

"Do not ask me to lose my wife and son in the same day."

BPOV

"You haven't touched your food."

I didn't respond.

"I have to imagine putting on a three and a half hour show leaves one with quite an appetite."

I sighed.

Caius liked games. It was annoying as hell.

The sun had already come up, but even with the help of the daylight I couldn't tell where exactly we were from the small window in the room. Lawrence, Shay, and Zane left hours ago. The room, at least. Maybe they were still in the house.

O'Malley came and went, checking in periodically. Caius never left. He sat there and stared.

Letting his threat sink in.

Waiting for me to break first.

I didn't know what he wanted. I assumed he and O'Malley had recruited Lawrence and his little gang in an effort to combine forces to become an ultimate pain in my ass. I wasn't letting myself think much further than that.

Because I knew with each minute that ticked by the situation was getting worse.

It took all of my willpower not to reach up and check to see if the tiny little diamond stud that Edward had given me when this all started was still in my ear.

"You've been underestimated your entire life," he started, eying me curiously. "Odd, considering the accolades you've collected. A murder charge is a bitch to overcome, though, I suppose."

I said nothing.

Caius smirked.

We sat in silence for a while longer.

"Does it ever bother you? That your husband claims to be the head of the family when you hold far more power than he ever will?"

I picked at my nail polish and tried to mentally calculate how many hours were left until the show tonight. There were currently ninety thousand people happily getting ready for it.

Caius was losing his patience. The silence between his jabs was shortening.

"I would have let you shine."

I fought against rolling my eyes.

"We could turn everything around, Bella. You and I–"

I snapped.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

Caius' lips twitched. "There's the temper."

"We've been sitting here for hours. What do you want?" I hissed.

"I thought it was obvious. You. I did you and Edward the favor of having your divorce papers drawn up. Nasty business, divorce, but we'll get through it. We can make our homebase here in LA if you'd like. Might be easier for your work. I–"

"You kidnapped me and let me sit in this house in the middle of fucking nowhere for hours and want me to sign divorce papers? And run off and live a happily ever after with you?"

I had read scripts with better plot lines than this. Shitty scripts that used more logic than the man in front of me.

Caius' lips twitched with a snarl. He slid a large stack of papers over to me on the coffee table that separated us. "I want what is mine by my birthright!" he bellowed. "I am Carlisle Cullen's son and I deserve to be treated as such. I deserve the money and the business. People should fear me, respect me, obey me. Not you, not Edward. Not Emmett or your son. Me."

"I am not yours by birthright," I said carefully. I had spent enough time in rehab centers to recognize the signs of a full mental break. And to know when to walk the other way before they escalated.

"No. But with you by my side I'll get what I should have a long time ago. Money. Power. Respect. Can't you see the headlines? Isabella Cullen leaves family behind for–"

I should have kept my mouth shut. I regretted the words the instant they came out. Not because I didn't mean them, but because I knew what he'd say next. "I will never leave my family behind."

Caius sighed. "If I'm not known as the man you leave your family for, then I'll have to be known as the man who killed you."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the sound of gunfire in the not-so-far distance caught both of our ears.

I nearly choked out a sob. I never thought the sound of shots would be so comforting, but judging by the shock on Caius' face, it wasn't planned.

I took a deep breath.

Squeezed my eyes shut.

And reached up to brush my fingers against the earrings they never bothered to take off of me.

A/N: Long time no see, eh? I know, I know. I'm so sorry, but I do hope this chapter makes up for it. It might be my favorite of the entire series. And I know it's a cliffhanger, but I nearly ended it six sentences earlier, so you're welcome for not doing that.

As always, thank you guys for sticking with me. I'm updating my stories as often as I can and I appreciate each of you guys who have stuck with me for the ride. See ya next time!