Chapter 8

Rogue

Chapter 8

Masen

I am losing it. I don’t know what in the hell is wrong with me, but I am so far out of my element right now don’t know which way is up.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I mean jumping on a private jet with Bella sounded good at the time that was until we arrived here. Let me start by saying that being around her has me on edge all the fucking time. I am constantly on guard and this is only the first damn day.

One of the things that makes me uneasy is that she isn’t like any other woman I have met.

I doubt shopping at the mall is on the top of her to do list, like the wives of the associates or their goomahs.

Bella is different. She has this eerie calmness about her, I find it unnerving.  

I regret coming here with her alone. I should have insisted on bringing Jasper, Emmett, or even Carlisle. That only puts me more on edge. No one has my back here.

How the fuck is a man supposed to still feel manly when you are in the presence of a woman like Bella? I feel inadequate and it’s turning me into someone I am not!

I stare out the window as we head back to her friends home. Another place I will feel totally out of place in. God could this day get any worse?

“You sure are quiet is everything okay?”

I turn to look at her. “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You sure? Because you seem a little tense.”

Just let it go Bella please.

Hold your tongue Masen.

“I am not a big supporter of visiting Los Angeles. The people are rude, the traffic is a nightmare, everything here has a ridiculous price tag, and their law enforcement are a bunch of racist holier than thou bullies that are even more corrupt than we are. I guess I should have probably told you that before I agreed to this little trip. It is not my favorite place to be.”

She plugs in her iPod and turns on some music.

I am glad she doesn’t have anything to say.

The song that begins to play surprises me. The compact car fills with the few chords of the piano before the deep vocals of David Draiman follow. I look over at her and watch her.

She is lip syncing the words to the song and as I watch her I notice how into it she gets. She even closes her eyes for a moment. I swear it’s as if she forgot I was sitting next to her.

And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share, and no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

She sings the song from beginning to end and all I do is watch her. She doesn’t look over at me once until the end of it.

“Sorry, I like that song and Disturbed nailed it better than the original.”

“It is a great song.” I still stare at her.

“I like the fact that according to the writers, it is written about the inability of people to communicate with each other, not because they don't speak the same language, it is that they can’t connect emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other and I find that really sad.”

I turn to stare back out the window again. “You are the most interesting person I have ever met Bella.”

“I am?” she looks over at me as I turn to look at her again, watching her. She shifts in her seat uncomfortably now that I am openly studying her.

“What?” her eyes glance over in my direction but quickly return to road.

“Pull over.” I demand.

“What? We are in the middle of the freeway.”

“I don’t care, pull over!” I raise my voice a notch.

“Jeez.” she switches lanes and pulls off the shoulder, putting it in park.

“Get out.” I tell her as I open my door to step out of this damn car heading around to her side. I open her door for her and it takes her a minute before she finally listens to me. I am surprised I don’t have to drag her out it.

She stands here and I move around her and climb in.

She is still standing there as the cars whizz by her, the wind whipping her hair.

“Are you going to get in, or am I going to have to leave you here?” I wait hitting the gas pedal while its in neutral once to rev the engine of this piece of shit car.

She is pissed. I don’t care! She literally stomps her way around the car, opens the door forcefully climbing in while glaring at me the whole time.

Suddenly I feel like I grew my balls back.

I turn to face her and she doesn’t dare look away from me, because I know the expression on my face is fucking serious. “What happened to you after we danced the night I first met you?” I had been waiting long enough to confront her on this.

I see her eyes widen in a small moment of panic. She didn’t expect me to ask. She is fucking crazy to think I wouldn’t.

She looks down at my chest and I barely hear her say, “Yeah about that, I am sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology! I want to know why the fuck you bailed without so much as a word that you were leaving. What the fuck Bella you snuck out a back door! Was I that appalling?”

Her eyes are still focused on my chest, but they come up to meet mine. “You weren’t supposed to do that.”

“Do what? Ask you to dance with me? Jesus, I didn’t think there was any harm in that!”

She is about to panic, her eyes are darting all over the place and she starts to bite her bottom lip and I can see her hands out of the corner of my eyes start to ball into fists. Her body starts to vibrate. It is the strangest reaction I have ever seen.

I swear I want to think she is an alien who has taken over a female’s body. I decide to cut her a fucking break and not push her for an answer. She looks like she is about to snap or something. Not physically, but mentally. I am getting a strange warning in the back of my head that is telling me to back the fuck off. I don’t know why I even listen to it, but I do.

I turn around and put the car into gear, wait for traffic before I merge back in.

She sits beside me quietly staring out the side window like I just was when I was sitting there.

Good.

Her soft voice interrupts the silence, "You don’t know where you are going.”

I turn my eyes on her, “I know exactly where I am going.”

I watch her response as she furrows her brow, but I don’t give her any clue as to where we are going. We exit the freeway and I head west.

“For not liking this town, you sure seem to know your way around it Masen.”

“Who said I didn’t know my way around it?” I glance over at her flashing my all knowing cocky smirk.

She looks both baffled and pissed. It’s a rather cute look on her. Like a little furious, yet curious kitten. I almost laugh at her but I am too pissed off right now to do so.

“Look, I may not know my way around your top secret abandoned military installations or whatever in the hell you call that place, but I know my way around Los Angeles. If my little rant didn’t clue you in, I have been here before more than once. My father loves this god forsaken desert and he drags the family out here to vacation. When I was younger we visited every year. Now, that I am older, I get to turn him down when he tries to get me to come.”

“You shouldn’t turn him down.”

That was the last fucking thing I expected to hear from her.

“He shouldn’t ask me to go somewhere that I despise either. Now, if he wanted me to go to Australia or the Bahamas then I would happily tag along.”

The streets here are now pretty clear, it's a little after three am as I turn down Highland and head up the hillside on the curvy winding roads.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

“You are pissed I take it? Is it because you aren’t in control all of a sudden?” I glance over but not for long or I will drive us right over the side of the cliff.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I shrug, well it is how I felt so I am starting to think she is more like me. I don’t bother to answer her. If she couldn’t answer my questions then why the hell would I answer hers.

I pull up to the gate, look at the damn door and realize I have to crank the damn thing to get the window down. I key in the code to the gate and it starts to slide open. I look over at her and smile, “I am driving this fucking piece of shit car off the side of a cliff the first chance I get.”

She rolls her eyes, “It’s a rental Masen, it has to be returned.”

“Tell the bastards to come get it. We are not riding in this damn thing again!” I pull up the drive curving around to the garage door and park in front of the first one.

“Where are we?” she asks again as I start to climb out.

“My father’s house.”

“Wait what?” she asks now climbing out and running around to follow me as I head for the front door I key in the entry door and walk in with her on my heels. I shut it behind her and say, “Welcome to the Masen family vacation home.” I head for the kitchen and open the refrigerator.

“Are you hungry?” I ask as I pull out stuff to make a sandwich.

“I am starving. We haven’t eaten anything all day!”

I move around the kitchen and gather everything I will need, bringing it to the island where I start making us both one.

“Everything on it?”

“No onions.”

I nod and walk around her to grab a knife.

“Why do I not know about this place?” she asks just as I pull the knife out of the wooden block. I stop dead in my tracks. Anger surges through me again as I turn to look at her.  

“Excuse me?” I can hear the shock and anger in my own tone, but I don’t think she is aware of it. Her back is turned from me when she speaks again. I don’t even think she realizes what the fuck she is saying when it all comes spewing out of her mouth, completely unaware that I am standing behind her holding a fucking knife.

“I know everything about your family. I don’t understand how this slipped by me. I am thinking because the house must not be in your father’s name maybe. There surely has to be a reason why this place isn’t listed as his in my files.”

I snapped.

The whole idea that someone has been so invasive into the personal details of my families life was too much for a normal person to be okay about it. But my family is not a normal family, and the fact that she is talking about them like we are some huge research project pisses me off. What if she or Charlie had decided to add us to their list of kills instead of including us in on it? What if we were wiped out with the Italians. I lost it and there is no way she could have seen me coming when I let loose on her.

She didn’t see me coming.

“I have been more than tolerant of you and your father Miss Swan. I am fully aware of what you both are capable of. I can sincerely say that I don’t care about what you have done in the past, but I also will not forget it either. Just so we understand each other, the Swan family still has one strike against them. I am the new Boss of the commission. That same commission that has to the power to decide the fate of every member of this organization. In my house, it is three strikes and you are out. You are welcome to continue thinking that my hands are pretty for now, but do not doubt that if you or your father make one wrong move, I will show you just how pretty his blood will look on my hands when I am done with him. Do I make myself crystal fucking clear?“

I tower over her giving her no room to breathe, let alone look anywhere but right at me while still holding my knife against her throat, “You are not the only one in this world designed to kill sweetheart."

She seriously looks shaken and that is exactly the way I want her to feel.

Scared.

“Masen.” she gasps out, “you are hurting me.”

It was like a slap in the face that came out of nowhere. I realized how I had pinned her up against the center island, and the way her arms were pressed behind her.

I have at least 65 pounds over her and it’s all muscle. Even if she could knee me in the balls, there is no way she can get the leverage she would need to take me down the way that I have her pinned. That is, not to say she won’t punch me the minute I back away from her and release her. I have never been in this situation before. When my temper has gotten me to this point, the person usually dies before I would ever let them go to ever give them a chance to strike back.

She is the exception, once again. I ease up and slowly pull away removing the weight of my body against hers. Her hand slowly comes up and she touches her throat, pulls it back to look at it. She thinks I cut her. Her eyes dart up to mine and she is pissed. There is a fire in her eyes that sends a signal right down to my cock.  

Wait where the fuck did that come from?  

“You want to take a shot baby, go for it.” I lay the knife down on the counter and open my arms up for her to hit me.

“Give me that chance in a ring, then I would be happy to take you up on the offer.” she snaps.

“That’s right, you took kickboxing. Do you really think that is a fair fight? Going up against a guy who only took a limited amount of karate when I was a kid?”

“About as fair as you pulling a knife on me while my back is turned!”

Touche’.

“You only get one shot Bella. Take it now, you will only get one fucking chance.”

She moves away, walking around the island, to take over making the sandwiches from where I left off.

“You do realize that our luggage is at Sienna’s house. I have nothing here. You may, but I don’t.”

“I am sure we can supply you with whatever you need.”

She is taking her anger out on the poor sandwiches she is making, then she stops right in the middle of it closes her eyes, takes a long drawn out breath, then opens her eyes again. The eerie calm she seems to have snaps back into place.

“I can understand why you are angry. I wouldn’t like it either if someone were digging around in my family's background…”

I don’t let her finish. “Oh well let me clue you in because that’s exactly what is happening as we speak, so now I do hope you know what it is like, so tell me Bella, are we even now? Oh no, wait, there is a slight difference, I wasn’t planning on murdering you and your entire family if you don’t pass my background check! I just want to know anything you haven’t already shared.” I all but yelled out, my anger still on the edge.

Her expression changes immediately.

“You are right. I can’t say we are even. But I can say this, I don’t kill those who don’t deserve it. When I discovered that your family only dealt in the types of business you do, I knew right away that you weren’t like the rest of them. I am sorry if that upsets you, but I am also not going to lie. If I had found out you were selling children as sex slaves, I would have slit all of your throats and not have batted an eyelash when I did it. You and I both know you would have deserved it if you had, just like I let every one of those bastards know it before I ended their lives. Especially the cartel members.”

“Well, I guess I can’t really be all that pissed off at you when you put it that way now can I?”

“Imagine the suffering Masen. What those that are sold and traded like cattle go through. The fear of dying every single day or worse, being kept alive a prisoner, beaten, starved, abused sexually, physically, mentally. They are human beings and it breaks my fucking heart. No one should live that way, especially at the hands of another human. Then, you have these motherfuckers selling drugs and killing innocent people for either knowing too much, or using them to traffic drugs through the country. They put no value on any human life. Someone has to finally stand up to them. Someone has to say this is enough and you need to be eradicated and not just say it, but to have the fucking nerve and backbone to do it! Justice hasn’t worked, it has only gotten worse, if we wait around for the authorities to be given the power, it will be too late, there will be too many innocent people who have died.”

I stand here and stare at her wondering how she is unaware of the Volturi’s recent involvement in the drug trade. They are part of my organization, and therefore that makes me a part of it. Aro made the choice to enter into it. None of us could go against him at the time since he was the Boss. I was his family that he was still the Don for. I have considered shutting it down, but it wasn’t a priority on my list of things to change. I was more focused on setting up each family with their own computer systems to get them earning money another way. That was until Swan happened. Now, that isn’t even on my top list of things to do.

It all becomes a little more clear to me why Charlie Swan is doing what he is doing. It really is hard to look at this beautiful girl and not give her whatever she wants and when she looks like this, I have to admit, I would agree to do anything she asked. I can see the genuine empathy on her face, the anguish for people she doesn’t even know. She is fighting for people who can’t fight for themselves. Who didn’t stand a chance. I am starting to suspect that none of it is about the money or the power that would come to Swan when he takes over it. If he isn’t involved in those kinds of business then what type of organization would he be running? One like my own? I have questions but now isn’t the time. I can see she is tired and so am I, not to mention hungry.

I walk over and stand in front of her, she steps back and I feel like shit that she does. I reach out so slow to show her I mean her no harm, and I lift her chin to look at me. She looks weary and I know the feeling. I am just as tired also.

“We can’t save everyone Bella, but I promise, we can at least make some sort of impact if we have the manpower. You did it once, show us how and we will help you do it again, but you need to remember, this is a much bigger scale you are talking about. There are a lot of them, and once they realize they are under attack, they are going to be ready to fight back. That means people we know and love are going to die, but I get it. No child should be sold.”

Her shoulders drop and her eyes blink back tears.

There is something that she isn’t telling me. Something much deeper. I can see it in her eyes. She is wounded because I don’t know anyone that looks this upset over people they don’t even know. Something had to have happened to make this woman go balls out to think she can take down the drug cartels.  

“Ba cheart duit a dúradh liom go raibh tú ag teacht! Ba mhaith liom a raibh rud éigin déanta le déanamh agat!”

{ You should have told me you were coming! I would have had something made for you!}

Maggie interrupts us as she enters the kitchen. I turn my head to look at her, when I feel Bella step back abruptly. When I look back she has the knife in her hand as if she is about to stab my family’s housekeeper.

“Bella, it’s alright, this is Maggie. She lives here year round.” I gently take the knife away from her and apologize to Maggie.

“Tá brón orainn , Maggie , tá tú ag an ceart , gur cheart a bheith ar a dtugtar , ach bhí sé déanach. Ní raibh muid i gceist a osclaíonn tú .”

{Sorry, Maggie, you are right, I should have called, but it was late. We didn't mean to wake you.}

“Nonsense, at least let me clean up.” She nods towards the mess on the counter as she walks over and grabs a couple of plates to put the sandwiches Bella made on. Maggie looks up at me and puts her hand on my cheek, “You look tired Little E, eat, and go get some rest, I shall clean up for you. It is so late.”

Bella giggles and I glance over at her wondering what in the hell is so damn funny.

“She calls you Little E?”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Yeah, there are two of us remember, and yes she calls my father Big E.” I shake my head and grab my plate and start to pile it into my mouth.

“I am Maggie, welcome to the Masen’s home, if there is anything I can get you, please ask.”

With a mouth full of bread I manage an introduction, “Maggie this is Bella Swan, Bella this is Maggie.”

“Please to meet you, sorry about the knife...I didn’t know anyone else was here.”

“No worries child. You are quick on your toes. No harm no foul.” She pats Bella’s cheek and continues to clean up. I love this woman. She has been with us for years, but it has been a while since I have been here.

After we eat and grab a drink, I lead her upstairs to a guest room.  “You can stay in here, you have your own bathroom in here, I will be right back.” I head down to my room and go for my drawers and find a clean t-shirt that she can sleep in. I take it back and hand it to her. “It is all I have for right now, we can pick up our luggage tomorrow, but you are welcome to sleep in this if you want.” I turn to leave but she calls out to me.

“Masen?”

I turn and face her, “Yeah?”

“Why didn’t we go to Sienna’s?”

“Do you really think I would sleep in a stranger’s house being who I am?”

She is thinking about it, but I don’t stick around to wait for a response, as I turn around and head down to my bedroom but before I close my door, I hear her call out, “Thanks for the shirt, but I sleep naked,” and the sound of her door closes.

I shake my head and close my door cursing her under my breath.

For the first time since I arrived in Los Angeles, I relax but now I need to head straight into my bathroom take a cold shower.

RobsHandMonkey