There Will Be Freedom (not mine)

1. Prologue

Two Years Later

Aro Anthis tapped his long, pale fingers on the hardwood of the massive table in the room. Of course, being the man that he was, he took the head seat for himself. The eyes of the all the major crime families were staring at him with waiting expressions. Well, almost all of them. One family was purposefully absent from today's festivities.

He looked out of the large window at the January snow that was falling softly around the house. It was just another reminder of the gray days that had become Aro's life.

Things were changing in the underground world of crime. Aro inspected all of the young faces around the table and scratched his jaw. It was easy to see why this generation got so much out of life. They were the 'shoot first, ask questionslater' type. It wasn't necessarily Aro's style, but if it got the job done...

They had the look of youth that Aro envied: the shiny hair, the chiseled faces, the bright eyes, the enthusiasm for life. Those features had long left him. He now had white, ashy hair, a sunken face, and a snappy attitude. He was revered as the older, wise grandfather of the group.

It had been four, hard years for Aro Anthis and on some days, he didn't know how he was still living. He didn't even want to live anymore.

His sons were gone. One of the only things that Aro was proud of was his offspring, Felix and Demetri, and they were erased from this earth like nothing more than dust. They were taken by the cold hands of his enemies and things would never really be the same for him. The Anthis line had ended. Of course, his brothers had sons, but they were worth shit. Who was going to take over the family when Aro passed? It was up in the air and caused massive disputes at every gathering.

Every day for the past four years, Aro had thought about his sons and who was responsible for their demise.

Bieber.

The word had been engrained in his brain since he was born. His father had hated them, his grandfather had hated them, and Aro hated them. Hedespised them. They caused him so much strife, and it was because of them that he was never truly successful-as much as he should have been, anyway. This was a race and he always came in second.

The Biebers had taken everything from him and he would never forgot it.

"Why are we here?" Shinobu Moioka asked from down the table.

"I have a proposition for you all," Aro's old voice croaked. He was pushing sixty-five and a lifetime of smoking had definitely taken its toll on him.

"We don't have all day." James Denali impatiently checked his watch. "I have things to do."

Aro sometimes forgot that these guys moved fast in life. In and out; that was the way of the world now.

"I need help," he confessed. "As you know, I'm in a... slight predicament."

It was no secret that the Anthis' had lost a lot of their standing within this group. Aro hated admitting it, though.

"Help?" Sinhobu asked, obviously irritated that he had been pulled away from his daily dealings with the scum of the earth trafficking drugs, shipping slaves from country to country, disrupting foreign governments; whatever the hell he did.

"Yes." Aro's joints creaked as he stood up from his seat. "Gentlemen, I think that the time has come for a revolution of sorts."

All the men around the table sat up a little more in question.

"The Biebers," he said the name with disdain, "have taken too much. Not just from me, but from all of us. Jeremy has set up a network that's impossible to penetrate and I'm tired of him taking control of what's rightfully ours."