Disclaimer: I don't own anything expect the plot. I just playing with the characters.

THE MAFIA MISTRESS.

Chapter Fifteen: The Clash of the Titans.

Three weeks, four days, seventeen hours, thirty-three minutes and twenty- three seconds.

That was the exact amount of time that had passed since Isabella Marie Swan uttered a single word to Edward Anthony Masen Cullen.

He knew the infractions he had committed against her were great and far too numerous but he had hoped against all hope that when she had softly spoke those words of forgiveness that all was well but he was wrong.

She did not forgive him. He saw it every time he looked into her eyes. He saw the anger, resentment and disgust that had taken their place in her soulful brown eyes.

Like any man who had had the great misfortune of incurring the wrath of a woman wrong, Edward had taken it upon himself to shower Isabella with lavish gifts ranging from flawless diamond bracelets and exotic flowers to soft, stuffed bears and the sweet words of poetry but nothing swayed her because at the end of the day his gifts found themselves back in his possession.

As his task of winning Isabella over seemed more out of reach with each passing day, he finally decided to seek out the advice of the one man who had never led him astray.

"She hates me." Edward stated quite bluntly as he stomped his way into his father's office reminding Carlisle immediately of the legendary temper tantrums that were found to have been littered across his son's childhood and teenaged years.

"Hate is a very strong word, son." Carlisle responded smoothly as he sat back in his one of a kind high back chair. "I think it is more appropriate to say that she does not seem to be very fond of you at the moment."

"I don't know what else to do." Edward huffed continuing as if his father had said nothing.

"Maybe you should try grovelling." Carlisle suggested and had it not been for the lightness in his voice and the mischievous twinkle in his eye, Edward would have thought that his father actually cared.

"Dad, I need your help." Edward pleaded softly finally meeting his father's gaze.

"What do you expect me to do? Wave a wand and make it better? You fucked up. You insulted Isabella. She isn't willing to forgive as easy. Man up and do whatever the fuck you need to do and if you are lucky she will forgive you." Carlisle scuffed.

"She said she forgave me that night." Edward said childishly.

"She was sleeping." Carlisle laughed.

"Fuck!" Edward roared as he punched the wall. "Stop making a mockery out of this."

"Mockery?" Carlisle hissed in outrage. "Boy, this is your fuck up. Not mine."

"Well help me find a way out of this." Edward said coldly.

"Why should I?" Carlisle spat back.

"You were the one who caused this!" Edward said hurling a crystal glass at his father.

Smoothly ducking the crystal missile, Carlisle lunged at Edward, grabbing him by the neck and slamming him into the wall just as the glass shattered across the floor.

"One move, boy. Just make one make and I will end you right now. I will not be disrespected in my own home by my own son." Carlisle growled menacingly. "I have enough blood on my hand that will stain the sea red. I do not need my son's blood on my hand."

"Let go off me." Edward said calmly.

"So that you may still act like a child whose favourite toy got taken away?" Carlisle responded though the hold he had on Edward relaxed a bit.

Growling, Edward shoved his father a way to leave the room but Carlisle was not having any of that. Quickly, he grabbed Edward by the back of his shirt and threw him onto the couch in his office.

"You are going to figure this out now Edward. No more running away." Carlisle said soothingly.

"I remembered watching you and Elizabeth growing up and thinking that my parents were so in love. I remembered boasting to my classmates that my father would do anything for my mother and now I remember a marriage that was once so perfect, fell into disrepair and nothingness with the flip of a switch." Edward sighed as he looked towards his father but not truly seeing him. "Then Esme came into our lives and I saw all the gifts my father showered her with. My mother was still his wife. She knew their marriage was shaky but for her husband to do that to her, dishonour and disrespect her like that was torture. She would come into my room at night when she thought I was asleep and hold me while she cried. Did you know why she wore white all the time after that? In India, widows wear white on her husband's passing. Finally she couldn't take it anymore and killed herself. You married Esme six months later. I promised myself I would never do what you did, dad and as much as I love you I was still a boy when I walked in on my mother dead in her bath tub with her wrist slit."

"Esme is kind and accepted us and loved us as her own children but I had promised myself never to do what you did but I did. I hurt Tanya the same way you hurt mother."

"But your mother never hit you or abused you or left you without food. Tanya and your mother are two different people. I always regretted how things ended with your mother but Tanya was cruel and vile. In hindsight I should have not done the things I did. Maybe then you would still have your mother." Carlisle said softly as he felt the weight of his son's confession settle on his shoulders.

"I was a little boy. I shouldn't have had to deal with that." Edward said so softly.

"Son…" Carlisle started to say but Edward's voice stopped him yet again.

"I never loved Tanya but the relationship we had was comfortable. I never wanted to fall in love. I saw what love did. I'm a grown man now but I was a child then when it all went to hell. I need my father to tell me it will be alright; that I don't need to fear this as much as I do."

"Fear what son?" Carlisle asked softly, his own throat feeling uncomfortable tight as he saw the pain in his son's eyes.

"I need to know that it isn't wrong to be in love with Isabella. You all assume that I loved Tanya. I didn't. I love Isabella. I know about paternal love but this want I feel for Isabella is so foreign that I don't know what to do." And that was when the walls around Edward's heart crumbled and Carlisle saw his son. Not the Don but the child who would sit on his knee eating cookies that he had stolen from the jar while Elizabeth stared at them with a soft smile from the doorway.

"Love as pure as the love you share with the woman you love is never wrong." Carlisle sighed.

Carlisle stayed silent waiting on Edward's next move.

"Did you love my biological mother? Did you love Elizabeth?" Edward asked, stunning his father into silence.

"In the beginning, I did love your mother but after a while things changed. She changed and the marriage fell apart." Carlisle said softy.

"Where is Isabella?" Edward asked.

"In the library. Don't do anything rash Edward."

"I won't dad. I just want forgiveness." As the door closed behind Edward as he left, Esme finally surfaced from the secret room Carlisle had installed for her.

With tears in her own eyes, she fell into Carlisle's arms with a sob.

"What did we do?" Esme cried out. "How did we not see that we were hurting him? He was always Elizabeth's favourite."

As Esme's tears stained his shirt all Carlisle could think of was his son because even though Edward was a feared Don, he was still his son and while he would never admit it to anyone else, Edward was his favoured son. His golden prince.