Chapter 21 – The Consequences

Three Weeks Later

Cumberland, Maryland

Edward Cullen POV

I was desperately attempting to concentrate on the book I held in front of me as opposed to the newswoman who’d invaded the community television with her live report from the other side of the country.

It wasn’t going very well.  

And it certainly didn’t help that the variety of genre was lacking lately.

I mean, what the fuck is a doppelganger, anyway?

“Members of the Forks, Washington police force attended the funeral for Isabella Swan last week.  Isabella was the daughter of police chief, Charlie Swan, who died this past year as well.  It was a tragedy that hit hard for many in the small town off the Olympic Peninsula…”

As she talked about the death of one of Marcus’ top players, I avoided looking directly at the pictures they displayed of her with her father throughout her life.  Instead, I eyed the background scenery, looking for any signs of foul play while people around me gossiped and shit.  I also tried not to think too much about the tiny brunette who’d taken a hardened heart and somehow softened it throughout our stay in a no name neighborhood on the outskirts of Austin, Texas.

I watched as long as I could and then, well… I just fucking couldn’t anymore.  “Think you can change the channel?”  I asked from my small corner of the activities room.

“Fuck you,” a big guy called out with his eyes still glued to the news.  Jason.  Jace. Somethin’ like that.  He was pretty much in charge of the TV during free time.

His Hispanic counterpart commented too. “She’s freaking hot.”

I shut the book and left it in my seat, taking the short walk over to a barred window.  I felt the sudden need to get some air, but I knew I couldn’t leave.  It wasn’t “time” yet.   So I stared out at the free world beyond the window instead.

“Man, what I wouldn’t do get a piece of that action.”

I clenched my jaw and felt my fingernails digging into the palms of my hands.  When I looked down at the blood seeping through my skin, a small flash of memory flew through my mind of Bella lying on the floor of that fucking kitchen with blood all over her.

Fake blood, mind you, but still.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Dude, she’s dead.”

“Whatever.”

I breathed in and closed my eyes.  Do not kick his ass.  Do not kick his ass.  Do. Not. Kick. His. Arrogant. Ugly. Smug. Mother. Fucking. Ass.

I was only about a few weeks into my initial incarceration, but I’d learned pretty quickly that taking my frustrations out on the assholes I had the unfortunate pleasure of being surrounded by was not my way out of the situation.

It was, however, the quickest way to solitary confinement.

There were different rules in jail, apparently.

“Cullen!  Visitor,” one of the guards called out, and I was thankful for the distraction.

Of course, it wasn’t who I’d been hoping for.  Just the court appointed lawyer Emmett had hooked me up with to go over bullshit that might happen at the trial.

The day I finally gave in and let myself get represented was the same day I’d been having somewhat of a nervous breakdown of sorts with Emmett.

………………

“You need a lawyer, dude,” he’d told me with calm, matter of factness in his voice.

And I flailed.  “Screw that noise… and by the way, fuck lawyers. They suck and ya can’t trust them for shit… all they’re out for is how to make the biggest score and what outcome is gonna look best for them.  They could give a shit what happens to you.”

“I know a guy.”

“Emmett, no offense but…”

“Ed… you need to calm down.  And like it or not, ya still need a lawyer.”

He let me have a moment.  He knew what was really bugging me.  Even though I was a hundred percent right about lawyers in general.

I gave up and sat down, trying to avoid the true subject at hand.   Then… I gave up.  I leaned across the table and told him quietly, so the cameras couldn’t hear me, “I need to see her, Em.”

“You can’t.”

Fucking… I hated calm and collected Government official, Emmett McCarty.  Where was drunken stupor Emmett when you needed him?

I got up, slowly walked around the tiny as fuck room, and then kicked a wall out of frustration.  And screw the cameras.  “I don’t think you fucking understand what I’m saying to you, Agent McCarty, I need… to. see. her.”

He didn’t move a muscle but to push a button, turning something off in another room.  “And. I. Said… you. can’t.”

“Why not?”  Fuck.  I really hurt my foot when I kicked that wall.

“It’s not part of the plan.”

“Screw the plan!”

“Ed.”

“Em, I can’t stand this.  I can’t talk to her, I can’t see her, I don’t know what the fuck is going on out there with her…. I think…”  I thought about it.  “Yeah, I think this was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake, Ed.  And she’s fine.  She was… a little annoyed when she woke up, but she’s fine.  She gets it.”

A little annoyed, he says.  I could tell by the look on his face, Bella nut punched someone.  Probably him.

I tried not to rub it in.

Much.

“A little?”

“She was agitated.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“Okay, she was sincerely pissed off and we needed to sedate her, okay?”

“You sedated her?”

“She’s fucking feisty, dude.”

I shook my head.  “I’m sure that didn’t go over any better than the whole waking up at FBI headquarters.”

“No.”

I laughed.  Hard. It was the first real laugh I’d let out in ages.  Because, for once, someone else was dealing with finally understanding the essence that is Bella Swan.

Then I moved onto something else that was biting at the back of my mind.

“So you talked to her then?”

He nodded.

“Well, what’d she say? Is she staying? Leaving? Moving on? What?”

“She said you’re an idiot.”

I laughed again.  It was a sarcastic one.

Of course that’s what she said.

I guess I was counting my blessings though, considering she could have gone half cocked and really fucked the way things were supposed to go from there on out.

See, the plan was, in a nutshell anyway…  Have Marcus think he killed Bella.  Everyone else still having the balls to be connected to him still sees it on the news… it’s bought into… they put me away as an accomplice to Marcus for all those years, also for everyone to see.  I stay locked up for a while, somewhere no one from the organization would cross my path… word spreads that I’m off the market and Bella’s no longer a threat… then I get released.

I was doing it all for her, basically. 

And me, hopefully. 

For us, really. 

Problem was, like the idiot she always reminded me that I was, I didn’t let her reply to my declaration of feelings for her that day back in North Carolina, and I wasn’t allowed any contact whatsoever with her until I was out.  So I had no idea what she’d do at that point.

Would she wait?

Would she go find a life of her own without the burden of someone else to worry about?

Or would she find another way to spend her life conning people?

She wasn’t precisely in witness protection, so to speak, seeing how she wasn’t exactly a witness for the case against Marcus.  But she was in hiding for a while until people could forget about her in the news and within the organization.

Once someone was believed to be dead, they really didn’t bother with them so much. And with Marcus out of play, I’m thinkin’ nobody really gave a shit anyway, but… better safe than sorry, I suppose.

I wasn’t told where the safe house was.  That was “against the rules” I guess.  Which made me roll my eyes because, really… no matter who you are, you break the rules at some point or another.  You just find ways to justify your rule breaking.

But I guess it was better I didn’t know, anyway.

In case it prompted me to commit a jail break and go after her before we could do any damage to Marcus.

So, lucky me, Emmett was my one and only link to her until freedom day.

“Did she… happen to mention, you know, if she uh…”

“I’m not playing cupid for you, Ed,” said dick hole government Special Agent McCarty.  Then he softened a little.  He probably felt bad for me.  Which I hated.  But I was taking what I could get when it came to information about Bella. “But no, she didn’t mention if she uh…” 

Smart ass.

Regardless… I breathed out, leaning my head against the same wall I’d kicked just prior.  Sorry wall.  Having a bad couple a decades, here.

“She loves you, dude… I saw it, Jasper saw it, Alice, Rose… hell, even crazy cat lady down the street saw it.  The only ones who didn’t see it, apparently, were you two.”

I pushed off of my new friend, the wall, and raked at my hair.  “Let’s hope so.”

He was right.  He had to be right.

Right?

I thought I knew what she’d do.  I had a gut feeling, anyway.  I mean, the way she looked at me that night…  But lately, my head spun faster than the speed of light and I wasn’t sure where any of this would land me in the end. I was sure that, when all was said and done… Marcus would be behind bars and I was feeling pretty good about that.

One step at a time, Edward.

There were other things I wondered about.  People, that is.  I tried to focus on them.  Any information about the world I’d just left behind somehow gave me comfort.  I guess that was gonna take some weaning.

“What’s going on with Seth?”

“He’s of age, Edward.  He made his decisions just like you and me.  He’s being held accountable.”

That sucked.  I mean, not that I liked the kid all that much, but Bella did and… he reminded me of me a little bit.  Which is probably why I didn’t like him all that much.

“He’s cooperating, though, and he hasn’t killed anyone, which is a plus,” Emmett told me, breaking into my thoughts about all my juvenile days and learning how to win people over with my youth and charming personality.  “He should get a decent deal and hopefully… he’ll make better decisions when he gets out.”

“Good.” I nodded, then practically mumbled, “Maybe you could force him to work with Jasper’s group of long lost kids.”

It was half joke, half desire to see Seth suffer, but it turned out Emmett liked the idea and was gonna suggest it to the DA.

Things were pretty goddamn tense leading up to the trial and all, I’m not gonna lie, but the good news was hardly anyone knew what was really supposed to go down. 

Emmett had a team of people he’d worked with for years and he trusted them with his life. They were gonna make sure the whole thing was kept mum and then be my entourage when I finally left. 

I had to start trusting somebody in the real world at some point, right?  I figured why not start with McCarty?

Anyway, who knew how long it was gonna be ‘til I needed to put some faith in those guys, seeing how I was getting actual charges pulled up against me for actual shit that I actually did and all.

Emmett had done what he could, but for one thing, they had to charge me with something seeing how they were gonna put me behind bars and all, and for thing two… once those charges were brought up, the whole of the government got involved, and you’d be surprised how much shit they can actually drudge up on you… if they really wanted to.

And man, they really wanted to, apparently.

…………………….

All I could do most days during those meetings with the lawyer was shake my head ‘cause… you know… Try to do something nice for some people….

It was fucking exhausting, by the way.   The whole process.  Pre-trial hearings, taped interviews, what I should bring up, what’s gonna get objected, topics to avoid.  By the time we were done, I wasn’t exactly sure which way was up.  Ya know?

And the other witnesses were very unstable, right up until the last minute in some cases.

See, not a lot of people were willing to come forward and testify against Marcus, it turned out.  Sure, some of those instances were because of ignorant, infinite loyalty to a highly disturbed human being.  But it turns out, there were a lot of people who happened to like what they were doing for him and didn’t wanna screw up any future opportunities with the guy.  Or anyone else, for that matter.

The government was hard pressed to find victims of Marcus’ cons and blackmailings to come forward, but once it became headline news that Jasper Whitlock was testifying, they came out of the wood work.  Until they found out Marcus would be at the trial live and in person, that is.

What can I say?  People were terrified for their lives even with the douche bag behind bars.

Marcus’ hand reached far and wide, even as his downfall approached.

I had told Emmett to go ahead and make it public that I was testifying and, once that was done, a few brave souls within the organization decided they would, too.  That, combined with several other tricky testimonies by third party participants, a glossing over of his arrest due to the murder of Bella Swan, because they didn’t want her very alive body to ever be an issue later on, and a couple of victims who’d had enough of Marcus’ games, turned out to be plenty enough to get him put away for a while. 

Not nearly long enough, in my opinion, but it would do.

The whole situation threw Congress into an uproar.

Names were dropped, decisions were questioned.  Everything Marcus ever touched had tainted any bill that passed, any official that had been voted into office…. Even the good things that happened.  There was always someone opposed to something in government, even down to the smallest political arenas, like school PTA boards.

No lie. 

Looking back, I was glad I was out of the loop and in my own incarcerated bubble while the majority of it went down. 

Trying to get by while stocks dropped, oil prices went up, and real life type jobs were being background checked out the wahzzooo woulda put a serious damper on this whole, trying to do the right thing stuff.

It was the right thing to do though.

I had to keep reminding myself of that.  Because every day was a battle.  And it was taxing on the conscience.  My conscience anyway. 

Facing people I’d duped in the past, watching their faces as they recognized me specifically from one time in their lives or another. 

Not pretty at all but… I got through it.  And I was paying for my mistakes. A lot of them, actually.

Although the highlight of the trial for me was when Marcus’ lawyer demanded I tell him the truth about my dealings and I got to use one of my all time favorite lines used by none other than the great Jack Nicholson. 

“You can’t handle the truth!” I’d yelled out at him.

No one really laughed.  Except for a few law abiding citizens who’d come to see the circus, and they were escorted from the courtroom promptly thereafter. 

People just don’t get me.

After the verdicts were read and they were leading my previous employer under lock and key from the room, he’d made a point to stop close enough to where I was sitting to inform me with his most evil of voices, “You’ll be paying dearly for this, old friend.”

I looked him in the eyes.  They didn’t send shivers up my spine anymore and I wished I could have seen him for what he was back when I was younger.

Woulda saved me a whole lotta bullshit, but like I said before, I also wouldn’t have met Bella.

“We’re not friends, Marcus… and if I were you, I’d be watching my back…. That guard over there?” I nodded to a big guy with a scar over his left eye that hadn’t healed all the way yet.  “He was just telling me the other night how your influence over the warden and his cool idea of cutting jobs back threw him into part time status… he lost his health insurance and everything.  His wife is sick now.  And they have bills out the ass.”  Then I leaned in a little for him and whispered the next part.  “I think he might be lookin’ for some payback.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, looking for my weakness. 

He wasn’t gonna find it this time.  He’d already used them all up. 

I shrugged.  “Just sayin’.”

As I watched him get taken away in cuffs and a very bright orange jump suit, horrible color for him in my opinion, I thought about how, in the end of it all, the long days and short nights were all completely worth it, because Marcus ended up getting twenty years with no chance for probation.

Yeah, he wasn’t gonna be recuiting any young kids anytime soon and hopefully, by the time he got out, nobody would hold him in any regard anymore. 

Once it was all over and done, and the paperwork was signed, and the deals were made good on, my old boss got transferred to a high security penitentiary facility somewhere over in the good state of California.  

I hear he has a boyfriend there.  And quite a few enemies.

Maybe he wouldn’t be making it out alive after all.

Me on the other hand.

My final list of charges included bribery, blackmail and some IRS back tax bullshit about unaccounted income, in the end.

I’m pretty sure Emmett’s bosses just pulled that last one out of the hat so they could tack on as much time as possible onto my service, despite the deal he’d offered me.  After all, it wasn’t like I was completely innocent.  There was a time I actually enjoyed finding cracks in people’s circles of trust, watching the rich go poor and the powerful fall.  It was just like dominos only, you know… different.

Okay, maybe I still liked doing some of those things, but I was working on suppressing the urges and knowing the difference between having bitter feelings toward crooked politicians or what have you… and acting on those bitter feelings.

I was placed in a medium security facility in Cumberland, Maryland.  It wasn’t so bad and, after a while, I was transferred over to the minimum security satellite camp next door for being a good boy. 

I got a reduced sentence, ended up with two years on the books, and served seven months.

Seven long, dark, very Bella-less months that I spent entertaining every idea from Bella and I spending the rest of our days on Earth sailing around the world in the Benneteau, to her ridding herself of me forever and me living a life of street vending and day to day spending.  

Isolated.

A shadow of my former self without her.

Yeah, I know.

I apparently have a flair for the dramatic lately. 

Jasper visited though, so that was cool.  I guess.  At first, not so much, because I got more lectures than chit chat about choices and shit like that, but then, after a while, they relaxed a little into easy conversations about his boy’s home and what his plans were for it.

He and Alice were getting married.

I know, right?

Good luck with that one, pal.

But even she didn’t know my actual status.  He’d told her some story about Bella and me moving back to New York and, although it set her back on the perky scale a bit for a while, he said she was doing fine now.

He’d have to fill her in some day about how that was a big fat lie, though.

Women do not like to be lied to.

Trust me.

“I’m really sorry about the way shit went down, Jasper,” I told him one day, months into my jail sentence when I was feeling particularly guilt ridden about some of my past.

“S’all good, Edward, I’m just glad ya did the right thing when push came to shove.”

“So, what… you pretty much knew all along?”  Emmett had said as much.  I wanted to hear it from Jasper.

 “I knew Marcus had it out for me for quite some time.  What I didn’t know was that he’d double team me.  Not ‘til Emmett approached me.  He wanted to take you down right after the bar-b-q, but I told him to give ya some time.”  He eyed me and my brow creased a little.

“I had a good feelin’ about you, Edward.”  His Texan smile appeared.  “And Bella.”

And all that initial jealousy I’d felt when we’d met and all his interactions with Bella… it all came back.  It all also made sense finally. 

Fucker.

“What are you, like… a matchmaker on top of computer security software guru, on top of orphan rescuer, on top of…”

He held a hand up, amused with my babblefest.  “I’m not, actually. It was just a way to distract the two of you at first, but then… I mean, even though I knew you were trying to dig somethin’ up on me… I don’t know, I guess I felt like we were friends after a while.”

“That coulda really bit ya in the ass had things gone another way, ya know.”

“I know,” he said.  “But I didn’t get where I am today by not taking risks.”

Funny how Marcus’ forcing me to take this one last job for him had ultimately led to his very own downfall. 

Mostly due to the actions of the man he was so desperately trying to get into his back pocket despite the several failed attempts he’d already made on the guy.

Had he given up… left it alone… Things would be so different right about now.

Emmett also made it a point to drop by from time to time.  You know, when he wasn’t busy rounding up other people from Marcus’ secret circle to toss into the clinker.

When I questioned him in what I thought was a very subtle way about Bella, he’d tell me highly annoyingly abstract shit like, “She’s doin’ good, Ed,”… “Don’t worry so much, Ed,” or… “I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Ed,” and I’d get seriously pissed off at him, but more because of the fact that I knew he was fucking with me than anything else.

He liked it. Making me squirm.  I saw it in his face when he’d feed me dribble.  The smirk he’d try unconvincingly to hide, the shoulder bobbing when he’d laugh silently with his back turned to me. 

He was a dick.

I wanted to fucking sucker punch him for that shit, but then reminded myself that it’s not nice to deck the who we now knew was a government FBI agent, who happened to have a license to put me out of my misery had it crossed his mind to do so after said sucker punch.

I hated his ass.

I also loved the guy.

And yeah, I know it’s a very womanly thing to say.  Sue me.

It was his banter and conversation along with Jasper’s visits that had kept me going most days.

The six months and one week following that day I’d watched Bella’s “funeral” on the common room TV set, wondering if I had made the right decision, going along with this course of events.

The course of events that led me to this day.

My release day.

And I didn’t know if was ready to go out and find the answers to all the questions that had been surfacing throughout my quality alone time in prison.

Was I ready to earn a living while staying within the legal limits of that living?

To go out… be free of Marcus?  For real this time?

To find out if I was gonna be free with Bella… or without her?

I was staring off at some crack in the wall of my cell when someone saved me from a fate worse than knowing the truth.  “You ready?”

“I’ve been ready for seven months and three days, Emmett.”

“You don’t look ready.”  He was referring to the backpack he’d left for me.  It was still empty.

That was only partially because I was purposely postponing my departure.

Partially because I was scared.

That’s right.

I can admit it.  Now, anyway.  Looking back, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go find the answers to all those questions I’d been asking myself.

I was such a pussy.

I picked up some books and stuffed them into the bag.  “No, I’m ready,” I told him, avoiding all eye contact whatsoever.

I’m ready.

I’m… ready… I’m… ready… and oh my fucking God, who am I, Spongebob?

Don’t laugh, like I said, Jace the Hungarian giant was in charge of TV.  At least I thought he was Hungarian.  He mighta been Romanian.  But… do people really live in Romania?   Other than Dracula, that is…

Not important.

Anyway… once I was done putting what I wanted to take with me into the backpack, I followed Emmett out of the cell, down the hall, and into a room where I’d be allowed to change back into my own street clothes.

“You sure you don’t want the new identity?”

I nodded absolutely.

I’d declined a new name because honestly, I wouldn’t ever be anywhere Marcus would find me.  By the time the day arrived that he’d be released, his hand wouldn’t reach quite as far as it used to.  And besides, I wanted to remember who I used to be so I could remember to be who I wanted to be going forward.

Who I wanted to be with Bella.

Who I hoped she wanted to be with me.

Oy.

After I changed, there was some paperwork to mull through, and I was handed a check for seventy-two dollars and fifty-eight cents.  Payment for work done behind bars.

I almost chucked the damn thing, but honestly, it was all I had so… Yeah, I kept it.

Em gave me a ride to a rental car agency and handed me another hundred that I tried not to take, but he insisted, telling me he didn’t want me getting tempted into stealing any Hummers on my walk south.

I laughed at his lame ass attempt at humor and took it, promising I’d pay him back as soon as possible and he told me to give him a call when I got settled.  That he’d come visit.

What he really meant was that he’d check up on me, but I didn’t care.  I was pretty ecstatic, actually.

Because starting at that exact moment, I could go where I wanted, see a movie, read a book, take a walk… not check in with anyone, not carry a fucking cell phone around, waiting for the next text of instructions to act on. I didn’t have to be fake or phony or weasel my way into anyone’s life in order to take them down.

I didn’t have Marcus or his second hand man Felix the dead asshole to worry about following me around anymore, threatening me or people I cared about in order to get results.

I was free.

But as Emmett drove away and I was faced with my future, I couldn’t help but be a little apprehensive about taking that first free step toward my new life.

Because the question was, would I be free with the woman I loved?