CHAPTER 35

Gray and blue and fights and tunnels

Handcuffed to the spell I was under

For just one hour of sunshine

Years of labor, locks, and ceilings

In the shade of how he was feeling

But it's gonna be alright, I did my time

~ Taylor Swift, Fresh Out The Slammer

EPOV

I stood down the pier from her for a while. Watched the bracelet slip from her fingers and splash in the black water. Saw her lips moving as she murmured to herself.

I was no stranger to betrayal in my life and line of work. I expected it. Thought most people were fucking fools for not trying to pull one over on me as some point. But I was raised by Carlisle Cullen, and knew I would spend my life sleeping with one eye open at all times.

For as tough and hardened as Bella was now, I knew that girl from her childhood was still in there. The one who was lonely and neglected and needed a friend and a way out and a listening ear.

Lawrence gave her all of that. She trusted him with her career, with her life in some instances where the stunts he had her doing were concerned. While over the years she learned not to give her trust out so freely, Lawrence slipped through her cracks.

Broke her from the inside out.

I knew it wasn't until that night that she truly accepted the fact that he had turned on her. Because a public relations fight was far different from kidnapping. From a goddamn knife to the throat.

I rolled my neck, undiluted rage rushing through my veins at the memory of that knife slicing into her skin.

The wind picked up, another storm blowing in. I quietly walked to her side, placing an arm around her waist as another strong gust of wind hit us.

"We should get inside," I said quietly, leaning down to press my lips to the silk robe covering her shoulder.

After a few seconds longer staring at the angry ocean, she nodded.

The wind and beginning prattle of rain was still easily heard in the house once we were safely behind closed doors. I knew sleep wasn't an option for either of us so once Bella was settled on the couch I dug through the freezer for a pint of ice cream and grabbed a spoon on my way back to her.

I got the smallest twitch of a smile as I handed her the treat.

"Do you have my favorite ice cream stocked at every safe house?" she asked after a few small bites.

I nodded. "Yes."

Her eyes snapped to mine. She was probably joking when she asked.

But every safe house I had across the world was equipped with whatever I knew would make her most comfortable should she ever end up in one. From food to instruments to an obscene amount of blankets everywhere.

Her voice was hesitant and broken when she asked, "How many safe houses are there?"

"Five across the states," I told her honestly. "A few internationally as well. I would probably consider the island a safe house as well. Now that we've used this one and the one in South Carolina I'll sell them and find a couple new places."

Her eyes stayed on me. Studying me far too closely for a woman who had been staring at my face for the last thirty years. "What?"

"Thank you," she said, voice cracking as she set the pint of ice cream on the coffee table.

My head cocked to the side, flabbergasted that she was thanking me after what had happened. "For what?"

"You're the only person who has ever…" she frowned to herself, searching for the right words. Her eyes met mine, chocolate swimming with unshed tears. "You've stayed by my side. No matter what. For a long fucking time. And I–I've done some shit, you know? That you should probably hate me for. Resent me a little bit, at least. But you–"

I gripped her chin to keep her head from falling. "I would do anything for you, Isabella. Morals, laws, fucking time and space be damned. Anything."

Dramatic, but true. Morals had never held me back, and laws were certainly never an issue for me. She could ask me to take her to the moon for vacation and I would damn sure find a way.

Because, contrary to popular belief, Bella had spent her entire life, entire career, giving. Music, movies, tours, all of it was done in the off chance someone out there in the world felt a little bit like her. Needed to hear what she wished she had heard in a certain moment.

So, while she never put her needs above anyone else's, I would damn sure do it for her.

The tears finally overflowed in her eyes. I reached up and flicked a runaway off her cheek before it could fall.

"I know," she whispered. "I would do–"

I nodded. "I know."

Fuck if the woman hadn't shown me from day one that she was perfect. Just for me. The only woman in the world who could put up with everything that came with being mine. Who could do it with such grace and mix it with the perfect amount of vengeance of her own. Who could be the best in her own right, would have been just as successful and renowned without me holding her back. A woman who would quite literally commit a dozen different crimes for me.

"Do you remember the night we met?"

My lips twitched to the side. An odd question, but a fond memory. "Of course."

"Did you think then that one day we'd be married? Stay married for so long? Have a kid. A granddaughter. Everything?"

I sighed, leaning back into the couch and pulling her with me. She settled into my side with a sigh of her own. "Fuck no."

"Ouch," she chuckled.

"I don't think you've ever really understood just how much of an asshole I was before that night."

"I've heard stories."

I shook my head, arm tightening around her. She'd heard stories, but never the worst. I made sure of it.

From the ages of thirteen to twenty-six I was a menace to society. I still was, technically, but back then I was far more out of control than I was these days. I was young, stupid, and rich. A dangerous combination when you added in the easy access to drugs.

I did what I wanted and didn't give a shit about the consequences. Didn't care if I hurt a woman's feelings after promising to call her the morning after. Was enough of a prick to forget her name if I saw her the next night. I happily lived in my own drug-induced high while I left a pile of bodies in my wake and did whatever my father told me to without a second thought.

Then I met a pretty little brunette covered in tattoos who didn't flinch every time I moved and I was hooked. Irrevocably changed. Because for the first time in my entire goddamn life I had someone to live for. Fight for.

"You were wearing a coral dress," I reminisced. "It made your tattoos stand out even more. Half of your hair was twisted up and the rest fell down your shoulders in perfect waves. I remember thinking every other woman in the room had to hate you for outshining them so effortlessly."

Bella snorted against my chest.

"It was like I knew I could trust you the moment you sat down," she sighed. "Like I knew, for the first time since I was sixteen, that I was safe."

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Everyone else in the room was probably wondering whether I would snap at the commissioner and get arrested again like the year before."

Bella's head snapped up to look at me. "You got arrested the year before?"

I shrugged. "Emmett had me bailed out before I was processed."

She had said nearly the same thing a dozen times before. How safe she felt with me from day one.

If she had told that to anyone else they probably would have sent her back to rehab.

Everyone in Chicago knew who I was, what I did. I doubted my own father felt safe in a room with me.

But Bella…

I squeezed my eyes shut against the image of her with a knife to her throat.

"Give me one of them," I breathed out.

"What?"

"I know, Christ, I know you want to take them down in your own way first. But they planned and executed a kidnapping. I can't–I've got Caius being held back in Chicago and O'Malley is unsurprisingly on the run again, but Lawrence, Shay, and Zane… they were there. Taunting you. Hurting you. And we both know damn well they knew how bad of a situation it was for you to be in. I promised you got the first shot but I can't fucking let them just walk away–"

"Shay and Zane."

"What?"

"Zane worked me into rehab at eighteen and Shay has been a pain in my ass since I met him. It's been a mutual resentment between us for years. They're yours."

As much as I was itching to deal with them in my own way, I wanted to make sure she understood what my way was. "I'm going to–"

"I know what you're going to do."

Chocolate eyes met mine. Unfazed about giving me free reign to destroy two men she had known a majority of her life. She sat up, turning to face me on the couch as she tugged at the loose strands of the blanket in her lap.

"I… I knew what I was signing up for. Even at sixteen, I knew Hollywood was a rough place. I knew people like Shay and Zane were waiting around the corner and I took that job anyway because I needed something to get me out of Forks. But, Lawrence… I trusted him. So much, Edward. For so fucking long. And I just– the things he's already done are bad but there was still this tiny little part of me that thought…"

She scrubbed her hands over her face, but I saw the tears start to fall before she hid them. Her hands knotted in her hair, red rimmed eyes looking over at me.

"I don't know what I did to make him hate me," she choked out. "I don't know–I don't know why everyone always ends up hating me. It's like I was cursed, like there was some prophecy written the moment I was born where eventually, everything was going to fall apart. No matter what. In a year everyone will turn on me again and say I'm talentless. Every person who has ever called themself my parent has sold me out. I failed Aiden. He's was a fucking addict and I didn't–"

"Isabella," I said calmly. A complete opposite of the rage boiling in my veins. "None of that is on you. There is no curse, no prophecy. You… you're the most spectacularly talented woman I've ever met. So much so that ninety-nine percent of people who meet you are immediately threatened by it. It's not your fault. It's theirs."

Her eyes looked everywhere but me. The blanket. Her melting ice cream.

I waited.

"What if you eventually hate me?"

I coughed out a laugh. "Well shit, if that's what you're worried about all of our fucking problems are solved, love."

She didn't laugh, but I didn't really expect one.

I lifted her chin, waiting until her eyes hesitantly met mine. "You know, Bella. You know that'll never happen."

Eventually she nodded. Tears still glistened at the corner of her eyes.

"I still… I still can't figure it out," she admitted softly. "When… how did it end?"

–Love|Power–

BPOV

I've never been great with dealing with my emotions. Shocking, but true. Writing imaginary stories in my head to come to terms with how I'm feeling? That I excelled at.

Therapy was useful in my twenties, but once you end up on trial for murder and are brutally questioned for weeks by the prosecutor about your personal life and newly-deceased husband until you're violently sick and forever traumatized by the event, talking about your life with a stranger loses its effectiveness.

Even before that, I was never completely honest with therapists. Probably a major character flaw any of them would love to talk to me about, but I was brutally honest in my songs. Whether it was writing about how I knew everyone was trying to use me for their own monetary gain when I was eighteen or to some rather raunchy details about how badly I wanted my husband, I put it all out there. Because I didn't like the idea of anyone else in the world feeling like I did and thinking they were alone.

Writing was my way of coming to terms with my life. Saying, "Okay. This happened. Made me feel like this. And I need to move on."

Sometimes it took one song to get to the moving on part, sometimes a hundred. Just depended on how complex the pain was.

Lawrence stabbing me in the back until I was a broken and bloody corpse and still digging the knife in deeper was more complex than I had initially realized.

I thought folklore would be the end of it, and then If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power came from a bout of uncontrollable rage at not only Lawrence but the entire industry as a whole. Then things got a little better, I enjoyed reminiscing on my life during the documentary process with a more fond eye than when I was experiencing some of those things and Midnights was born.

For me, albums were never typically planned. I wasn't a traditional musician where I put an album out every two years then toured then started the process over again. I wrote when I wanted, what I wanted, and put it out when I felt it was something worth while.

So, in an effort to come to terms with the fact that the man who had been more of a father to me than any of my actual father figures in my life had irrevocably changed into a man who wanted me dead, I wrote.

And wrote.

And wrote.

On the couch with Edward by my side, absentmindedly offering a word or two to me when I was struggling. In the cozy little cabana he had set up on the beach, away from prying eyes and ears as we enjoyed the sound of the ocean waves and crying of the birds above us. At the piano in the middle of the night when I woke up from whatever nightmare my subconscious had conjured up for me that evening.

I wrote until I felt like maybe, I was finally able to let it go. Until I realized the man I had considered family was long gone, had maybe never even truly existed in the first place. Until I realized that maybe Hollywood and the public hated me because I hated them just as much.

My hatred for the industry had solidified at eighteen when Zane told me to put on a smile in the middle of a breakdown. The public and I had been in a giant love-hate relationship since the first pair of cuffs had been locked around my wrists.

Everything was a fucking mess.

But the Florida sunsets were quite lovely.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this one. I'll see you next time!