Description, Disclaimer, and Authors Note

Isabella is a school teacher and daughter of a powerful lawyer. She is kidnapped and used as a tool to keep her dirty politician of a father in line. She is trained briefly as a slave then given as a gift to a crime lord's favorite employee. Edward Masen is a weapons dealer for the same crime lord. He enjoys his job but wishes for more. He has just gained a promotion. The promotion comes with a gift of a slave to do with whatever he desires. Bella is Edward's gift. How will they cope with being slave and master? What happens when life changes the balance they reach?

I do not own Twilight or its sequels. This is however an original story being posted as a fanfiction (see profile). Main character names and appearances have been made to match the likeness of characters from the Twilight universe. Anything not Twilight (original characters, plot, etc…) belong to me.

Life has kept me from finishing this story, but I am determined to finish it. Chapters are going to be replaced with self-edited ones. Some will be expanded and/or modified. Please beware that chapters will be deleted from this story since I also combined some chapters. New versions of chapter will have "REPLACED DATE" at the end of the chapter. Completely new chapters will be noted in an author's note and by "NEW CHAPTER" at the end of the chapter.

Thank you to my returning readers for their patience. And welcome to any new ones. With approximately 10 chapters left, I hope to finish this story before the end of the year.

WARNING! There is not graphic sex in this story, but due to the subject and the depiction of abuse in early chapters, it is rated M to be safe.

Prologue ~ A Chosen Life

Isabella Marie Swan once appeared to have the perfect life. She was the middle child. Her older brother was born two years before her, and her younger sister was born a month after her third birthday. Her father was an up and coming lawyer at one of the most prestigious law firms in Chicago. Her mother was educated as a nurse but no longer worked. She now kept a presence in social circles and was known for her charity involvement. Both Mr. and Mrs. Swan came from well to do families and expected their children to show a certain level of propriety and ambition. All three had no problem with those expectations. They had the best grades and acted in only the finest manner. It earned them respect from their teachers, friends, and everyone else they encountered.

They were sent to the best school available in the city. Lessons in dance, art, or music were offered to them. They each pursued one-her brother favored music, her sister dance, and she painting and drawing. Both her siblings had a talent and a passion for their chosen artistic outlets. She enjoyed her art but later found a passion for writing. At one point, all of them considered turning their passion into a career, but her brother stopped them from doing so. Their paths had been chosen for them before they graduated middle school. Her brother was to be a lawyer like their father, her sister a pediatrician, and she an accountant. All respectful, well-paid positions that would secure each of them a spouse and a position in the high society they were raised in.

Her brother played along with their father's plan for him. After finishing high school, he left home to attend Harvard. He was also told to forget his music and concentrated on his studies. It was now time to concentrate on the future instead of trivial pursuits that were only meant to well round his interests and knowledge. At nineteen, Isabella had already graduated high school and was preparing to leave for the University of Chicago. Like the subject she would be studying, the school was not her choice.

Her father had promised to pay all her expenses whether they were incurred by necessity or desire-the same deal her brother was living off of in Cambridge, Massachusetts. While away, she would continue to buy the finest clothes, eat at the best restaurants, and stay in the richest apartment complex near the university. She would have a charmed college experience; all that was required of her was a perfect academic record and to not embarrass the family. She had no intentions of becoming drunk, having sexual encounters, or experimenting with drugs. She had not done any of these things in high school and would continue to keep her proverbial nose clean in the morality and propriety department.

It was during her summer vacation between her sophomore and junior years that she was faced with the choice she never wanted to make. While her brother had been able to leave his love of music behind and never touch an instrument after high school, she did not stop her pursuit of art and writing. In her freshman English class, she had met a girl with a similar interest in composing fiction. Angela Webber aspired to be a writer. Not only did she have the connections to be successful through her uncle's publishing company, but she also had the talent. Together the two had assembled a short children's book. While both had written the book, Isabella had drawn the illustrations, and Angela had edited the words. It was truly a partnership.

It was this work along with the beginnings of the teen fiction novel she had been dabbling in that caused her to be faced with the wrath of her father. She had carelessly left the starts of her manuscripts in her sister's room where she had been showing them to her sister and her brother before leaving to finish their Christmas shopping. While away, they both praised her work but warned her to tread carefully. Neither of them wanted to see her disowned from the family and lose all the opportunities their parents' status and money could bring her.

In the end, her siblings could not help her. Her mother, who tried to reason with her husband, had failed. Now determined to follow her dreams, Isabella moved in with the Webber's temporarily. They had offered to pay for her to finish her bachelor's at the University of Chicago with Angela. However, she was not going to accept such a large hand out. Instead, she applied to the University of Illinois near Bloomington. The public university offered the English program she desired with a relatively affordable tuition. The city was also large enough for her to find work.

This is how she found herself working as a high school English teacher at a private school in Northern Chicago near Evanston. That is how she had been forced to focus on taking care of herself above a relationship. That is how she found herself walking by a crime in progress one night.

REPLACED 8/5/2014