A/N: Apologies for the day delay. I was thinking that I posted the last chapter on Sunday, not a Saturday.
Happy reading!
3
Edward
I spent the next few days getting to know Isabella's routines, which wasn't hard considering she had an Instagram. A fucking Instagram. I bet daddy dearest didn't know about that one. It was set to private, of course, she wasn't totally clueless, but it wasn't hard getting passed that tiny detail when Felix was a tech wiz.
"Got it. That was almost too easy." Felix is a bulk of a man, made of pure muscle. He was tall, with brown, almost black hair that was longer on top and shorter on the sides. He and Aro shared the same piercing gray eyes that were almost unnerving to look at.
We'd grown up together, spending time talking shit while our fathers met for hours, talking about finances and other shit we didn't care about at the time. He and Riley, a son of another one of my father's associates, had been my best friends. All of my friends had been within our tiny bubble. I'd been homeschooled, so my only social interactions had been other children from our inner circle.
"Thanks." I say right before I smack him on the side of his head.
"The fuck, man! I just did you a fucking favor!" Felix is giving me death eyes, rubbing the place I'd smacked.
"That was for telling Tanya what happened at the bar."
He looks at me like I lost my mind. "I didn't tell Tanya shit. I fucking know better. Caius and I were shooting the shit, and I told him what happened. We were in the men's restaurant at Dirty Martini smoking, I thought it was a completely private conversation."
"Why were you telling anyone anything about me?"
"Because it was fucking funny." He has the audacity to laugh. "You getting turned down? That never happens. I was sure your dick was going to fall off."
"Ha ha. I'm happy that I can so easily amuse you."
"Man, what is your problem? You've had a stick shoved firmly up your ass since you got back."
"How can you joke with all this shit going on?"
He leans back in his chair, any ounce of playfulness gone. "Because if I think about nothing but that, I will lose my mind. I'm trying to remind myself that there's more than just death. I think that's what everyone we've lost would want for us."
"Even Marcus?" His death was fucking me up the most. He was just a kid.
"You didn't know him like I did, Edward."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"It means, he was a snot nosed kid that shinned a little too bright and wasn't being careful."
"So that makes him getting murdered okay?"
"No! That's not what I'm fucking saying." Felix leans forward, elbows on his knees. "What I'm saying is, maybe we've all gotten a little too cocky and forgotten that we're mortal. There's an end that we'll all eventually meet. The only question is when and where. I would like mine to be when I'm old and too fucking crazy to remember my own name. Not in a dark alley with a bullet in my back."
"Then you don't love our family like I do." We may not all be blood, but everyone within the organization was my family, I'd grown up with them, and now I was watching them die. I now had a way I could stop all this., and I was going to fucking do just that.
He looks at me like I just gutted him. "How can you fucking say that to me?" He says through clenched teeth. "How fucking dare, you." He stands from his chair, towering over me. "Or have you forgotten that of the two of us, I'm the one that's lost the most? Have fun with your little assignment," he motions toward the screen where Isabella Swan's face is smiling back at us. "Don't forget to tell me what kind of casket you want."
As he stormed out of the room, I knew that was a low blow even for me. I still had both of my parents, he didn't. And the life we'd chosen, our family, had been the reason.
-SC-
Isabella's Instagram is like any other twenty-something's. There are esthetic pictures of coffee and her favorite places in LA. I try not to roll my eyes at the monotony of it all. It was all so predictable that it made my eyes bleed.
The pictures she'd posted since she'd been back in New York were what I focused on. She really liked to document her life, which was fortunate for me. She posted several photos a day. Why did girls feel the need to do that? Most of which had her friend, Rosalie Hale tagged in them.
According to her social media portfolio, Ms. Hale was the daughter of a bigwig financier that worked with several high profile, wealthy people. I'm sure Charlie Swan being one of them. But I don't think that's something they'd want the public to know about. Most upstanding citizens didn't want to work with someone with mob connections. Why, if word got out, it would kill their business. That was something I was pocketing for later.
Based on the numerous posts, and I do mean numerous, Isabella and Ms. Hale went to palates three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, like clockwork at ZenCo in Manhattan. Of course they went there, that's were all the millennial, gen-z people went who had money. It was esthetically pleasing, the perfect Instagram background with its layers upon layers of beige.
I watched from across the street, wearing a ball cap and sunglasses for a few days, trying my best to be inconspicuous, which in New York wasn't hard. People had definitely seen strange things.
They had the same routine. Go to palates, then go next door for an outrageously priced smoothie. I had to do this right, make it seem like running into them was a coincidence. The only thing that was complicating my plans, was the man always just a few feet behind them wearing all black who was obviously Isabella's security. It seems the little princess got herself into some trouble with daddy dearest after spending time on our side of town. I almost felt bad for her.
I was waiting around the corner, my ball cap and sunglasses in my back pocket as I watched Isabella and her friend enter the store to purchase their smoothies. My heart started to pound as they exited, sipping on their treats as they made their way in my direction, Isabella's ever-present security behind them.
They were coming closer and closer, I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, palms starting to sweat. This was it. This was my shot.
As they were rounding the corner, I stepped forward, crashing right into Isabella like I had the night at Dirty Martini. And much like that night, her drink makes friends with the front of my shirt.
The cold, sticky liquid seeps into my gray t-shirt, staining it pink. What was it with her and pink drinks? Why couldn't it have been purple, or blue or some shit?
"Oh my God! I'm sorry." Her reaction is much like that night, her hand coming to wipe the front of my t-shirt off. And much like that night, my hand comes down to cover hers, stopping her movements.
"It's just a shirt, no big."
She freezes for a moment when she hears my voice, her eyes slowly coming to rest on my face.
"Oh, shit! It's you!" she snatches her hand back, shaking the smoothie off. The look of disgust on her face is almost amusing. She is a fiery one, and under normal circumstances, I would find that incredibly sexy.
"I see I made an impression." I say, turning on the charm, to which she rolls her eyes.
"Don't most people remember unpleasant things?" Ouch.
"I don't remember it being unpleasant." I rack my eyes over her, making sure she can tell exactly what I'm doing. The skintight light pink workout clothes she's wearing hug her figure in a way that should be illegal. Fuck, if she wasn't a Swan, what I would do to her.
She flushes, but I can't tell if it's from irritation or pleasure. "Of course, you would think that most assholes do."
"Ouch." She was the second person to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that I was an asshole. It somehow stung worse when she said it. "Shouldn't you at least know my name before you call me an asshole?" I take a step closer to her. "Anthony Cullen." I introduce myself under my fake name, sticking my hand out for her to shake. She just stares at It like it will bite her. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"
"Not interested." She puts her arm around her friend who is laughing into her smoothie at my expense.
When her security passes, he gives me a once over, shaking his head like he almost feels sorry for me.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
-SC-
After Isabella leaves me on the sidewalk, I make my way back to our side of town. Walking through the back door of Dirty Martini, I find Felix sitting at one of the stools at the bar, working on his computer. I take a seat next to him, but he doesn't acknowledge me, which after what I said to him the other day, I don't blame him.
"I'm sorry." His fingers stop and he sits there unmoving, waiting for me to continue. "What I said was wrong. I shouldn't have insinuated that you didn't love our family as much as me. Of course you do. You've lost so much through all of this, and it wasn't fair of me to downplay that."
"No, it fucking wasn't." He looks at me, eyes filled with hurt and anger. "Just because I don't want to end up in a body bag before my time, doesn't meant that I wouldn't fight for our family."
I wince. "I know."
He goes back to his work, and just like that, we're back to normal. "How did it go today?"
I sigh. "Not great. I was being an asshole."
He snorts. "I could've told you that."
"Fuck off." I shove his shoulder. "No, but really, I played it all wrong."
"You mean, she doesn't like douches?" He sounds astonished, hands covering his mouth as he gasps like a damsel in distresses in old movies.
I flip him off.
"You're used to getting whoever you want, whenever you want. It's not surprising that you don't know how to actually woo a girl."
"I'm not that bad."
He just looks at me.
"Fuck." I rub my hand across my face. "Am I really that bad?"
"Not when you're being yourself."
I furrow my brow, "What does that mean?"
"It means," he turns to face me. "You've been in the game so long, that you're used to having to put on this persona to make yourself untouchable. You're used to having to the asshole in the room. But, when you're just being you, like you are right now, you're pretty great. For this assignment, to be able to get to this girl, you're going to have to be you. You can look at her social media all day long, but that's a persona. That's not actually her. You have a preconceived notion about who she is, you need to put that aside, because she's more than esthetically pleasing pictures on the internet."
"Since when do you make sense?" I ask, letting the truth of his words sink in. I have been putting on my normal asshole persona, that obviously isn't working for me. Sometimes, it was hard to remember what I was actually like aside from all of this game playing.
He slaps my back, "You've been gone a long time, man. A lot has changed."
After my talk with Felix, I know I need to change my game plan. I've been letting my assumption of who I think she is influence too much of how I'm going about this. Anyone can put up pretty pictures on social media, but that's not all of who they are. I should know better.
I take my morning run in Central Park the next day to think about what my next steps are. I need to smooth things over if I'm going to have any hope of winning her over. She's fiery and stands up for herself, it shouldn't be surprising that she didn't like the game I was playing at. I was just too fucking stupid to change something that had always worked for me. I really was an asshole.
As I'm running past a bench, I slow down, because there sits Isabella, like my thoughts have manifested her presence. She's the most casual I've seen her in a pair of shorts and a tank top, her hair in a bun at the top of her head, a pair of glasses sitting on her nose as she reads a book in the morning light. Her ever-present body guard sits on the bench across from her. When he sees me, I swear I see him laugh.
I may have fucked up, but at least I was memorable, I guess.
I half expect him to stop me as I head over to her, but he just sits there watching as I approach her. He's on high alert, but he isn't stopping me. Curious.
Isabella is so absorbed in the book she's reading, that it takes my shadow falling completely over her for her to finally look up. Her big, brown eyes, the color of chocolate, fill with molten lava when she's it's me.
"You've got to be kidding me!" She exclaims, slamming her book shut. "Three times in less than week?"
She gets up from the bench, starting to storm away, her bodyguard giving me a look that says, 'did you expect anything different?'
"Wait!" I run after her, getting in front of her to block her path. She crosses her arms, looking away. She clearly doesn't want to talk to me, but she isn't walking away. "I just wanted to apologize." She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, skeptically. "I was an asshole…"
"Yes, you were." She cuts me off, uncrossing her arms.
"I was," I agree, because I was. "I shouldn't have treated you that way. What I should've done the other day was apologize for my behavior the night at Dirty Martini and introduce myself, praying that you would give me a chance."
She looks me over, some of the ice melting. She still doesn't trust me, not that I say that I blame her.
"If you'd been like this the night at Dirty Martini, things probably would've been different."
I hang my head. "I promise I'm not an asshole all the time."
"That's yet to be seen…" she trails off, trying to remember my name.
"Anthony." I once again give her my fake name.
She nods. "Anthony. At least when I see you on the street now, I won't want to punch you in throat."
I laugh. Shrinking violet, she is not. If I'm not careful, I'll want to make her mine. "That's something."
She twists up her mouth to hide her smile.
"Have I earned your name yet?" I ask, hesitantly.
She rolls her eyes, but I can see it. The satisfaction that's in those brown eyes of hers. "Not yet. Maybe next time."
Did she just flirt with me?
I tamp down my triumphant smile. "Next time."
She may be able to hide her smile, but she can't hide the blush that comes to her cheeks as she walks away.
See you next week!