Liliana breathed in a sharp breath. This was the last thing that she wanted, but more importantly, Ral was the last thing that Tobias needed. They'd finally found a home and where they both fit in. Ral was part of past that Lili couldn't connect to anymore. She just stood in the awkward lighting of the front porch of the garage with her arms crossed. But you don't know if Ral is Toby's father or not, her mind said. She tried to shake the thought. Toby had her and a male role model in Josu. And Jace, her overactive brain told her. She sighed at herself.

"She's got a name," Jace said, and Liliana glanced over her shoulder at her friend. He wasn't smiling or laughing like she expected him to be. Jace's jaw was clenched and it did strange things to her.

"Yeah, I know, Einstein" Ral said, nothing but contempt in his voice.

"Einstein's IQ, that stands for Intelligence Quotient, in case you didn't know, was 160. Mine's 197."

"Are you some sort of genius, then?" Ral spat at Jace.

"Genius. Prodigy. Computer god, and Liliana's boss. Is there a reason you're here, at my company? Because I don't really like it when people speak to my friends the way you just did."

"You sound like a lot more than her friend, buddy."

"And what's it to you if I am?"

Liliana's heart jumped into her throat. This Jace seemed a 180 degree jump from the one that she had met just a few days ago. Her body was getting warm all over, a feeling she hadn't felt it such a long time. She bit into her lip and shut her eyes.

"I know that face," Ral spit. "Are you shitting me?"

"Don't you dare curse at her," Jace started, but right as he did, the deafening roar of Josu's motorcycle came to a stop behind them. The sound caused Toby to jump and wake up.

"Mommy? Ace? Su?" Toby said, very obviously scared.

Both Liliana and Jace moved to get Tobias out of the back seat of this car. He was already unbuckled and moving as Jace touched Liliana's arm, saying that he'd get him. Jace wanted this prick to know that he had a relationship with Toby.

"You have a kid with this little nerd? You sure forgot about where you came from after that guy let you go. I mean, I always knew you'd run straight back to Josu, but I thought you'd at least spare-" Ral sounded disgusted. But he couldn't get out another word as Josu grabbed his collar.

"Take Toby inside, Jace. This is about to be handled," Josu snarled. Kaalia touched his arm, trying to calm him. "Lia, this is older than we are. I'll explain." Kaalia just nodded.

Liliana had had enough. She looked at her brother and Ral and said, in Spanish, that they both needed to calm down. Toby rubbed his eyes and buried his head in Jace's shoulder. Liliana reached out to him and he came, but he whispered in Jace's ear first. The color drained from Jace's face and his jaw clenched even tighter.

"You don't know what he did when you left, Liliana. What he thought was okay," Josu growled.

"Shut up, Su, you're acting like the overactive drama king you are," Ral said.

"Get stuffed, pretty boy," Kaalia said, not caring who heard her. "She's barely been back a week and he's protecting her from the likes of you. And don't call him Su."

"Awh, you finally got off Karen's jock long enough to hook someone?"

"Leave Karen out of this, Ral," Liliana said. Jace didn't know who Karen was, but Liliana only got this defensive about people she really cared about.

"Look, sweetheart-" Ral started. Jace's eyes glowed a brilliant shade of green in that moment. There was a monster in his chest that took over every part of his mind. Jace didn't have emotions. He'd never felt like this before. It's like his whole body was on fire and it wasn't in the good way.

"I am not your sweetheart," Liliana said in a mixture of Spanish and English. She then switched over to her native language. "If you had wanted to be with me, you would have been with Josu when I got back. The only reason that I am entertaining your presence is that you could be my son's father. I was expecting you to be here and you weren't , Ral. You're nothing but a dead promise."

Tobias translated for Kaalia and Jace. Jace couldn't help but smirk at the last part, but then the smile slid off his face. If he was Tobias' father- then that meant that everything he had been thinking of over the past few days was for naught. Kaalia looked at Jace and then squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"I might be your son's father? Are you aware of how that makes you sound?"

"Raphael Alejandro," Liliana started, but then she stopped. She hugged Toby close to her and walked into the garage.

"I know you didn't call my sister a whore," Josu said, angrily. "You know what happened to her, Ral! How dare you," Josu said.

"Yeah. How do we even know that? I don't. Because she runs off with some geek as soon as she's back-" Ral turned to Jace. "You best hope that boy's not mine. Because if he is, you won't see either of them," He shot an evil glare at Josu. "Neither of you will."

"He has a name too. It's Tobias," Jace growled. "You won't take her son from her," Jace snarled. "Not if any of us can help it. I don't give a damn if you're his dad or not. She raised that boy on her own. And he's not yours to take away. Because even if you created him, Lili, she made Toby."

"Damn son, if you were sucking up any more, your head would be between her legs," Ral said, a fresh wave of contempt washing over him. "This has nothing to do with you, Besides, you know nothing about Liliana."

"I do," Josu said, "And you have no place here. And I've seen my sister smile more in the past two weeks than in the entire two years you dated."

Jace didn't believe that, he was sure that his best friend was padding his feelings while still taking a jab at Ral. However, he couldn't help but think that if it might be true, the feelings that he pushed back might not all be unrequited.

"I didn't need to make her smile when I could make her moan instead," Ral spat at Su. Su had had enough. He picked Ral up by the collar and threw him bodily across the pavement.

"She is more than a piece of ass," Josu said. "She's a sister and she's a friend and she's a damn good mom. So until you can learn how to speak to her with respect, you can leave."

"Or I'll call the police," Jace said. "And have you removed from my company."

"You haven't seen the last of me, Vess," Ral said. "I'll find out if that boy is mine," he started, but Jace cut him off.

"Either call him Toby or don't refer to him at all," Jace said. With that, he turned around and walked into the garage, Josu in his wake.

"Ral and I have some things to solve," Liliana said when they walked in. "But I'm not ready to deal with that right now, Osu. Thank you, and thank you too, Jace. You didn't have to do that."

"You're my friend, Liliana. You're part of our cyclone now," Jace said.

"Cyclone?" Liliana inquired.

"Way back when I first started this, I was looking for names. I was listening to Rock You Like a Hurricane, and we decided that we wanted to be called Scorpion. A group of scorpions is called a cyclone. They are fiercely loyal to their group And that's what we are. Together, we are Scorpion. We're a cyclone."


Josu drummed his fingers on the desk, waiting on Karen to pick up. Due to everything that had been happening, their biweekly Skype call had been postponed. Twice. Karen was supposed to meet Kaalia today. Karen was the only person he'd out and out told about his feelings for the redhead, and she had been begging to meet her for months. Josu was scared that Kaalia and Karen wouldn't get along, so he generally kept his mouth shut.

Karen and Su had been down that road, trying to date. It didn't work out. Their relationship was too reminiscent of his relationship with Liliana. They thought because they had so much in common that they would be a good fit for one another. It was actually the opposite. They loved each other fiercely as friends, but when they tried to be more, painfully awkward was an understatement. Josu texted Karen every day, they were still best friends. Karen had been the only person that stayed with Josu through all of Liliana's disappearance. When they had found out what had happened and who was at fault, Josu told Karen to run. To get herself out of the city, because he knew that they were coming for her, and that they'd use him to track her. Josu couldn't have that on his conscience. If he had just been there, he could have stopped it. Lili would have never been through what she had.

Karen was nervous for a couple of reasons. The first was that ever since she'd moved down South, back to where she was from, she had never went this long without talking to Su. He still texted her daily, and that was the only reason that she hadn't called the police and headed back toward DC. However, she could tell that something was going on. He never went this long without talking to her. It could be something with that girl he liked, she thought. She couldn't bear to think that something had happened to Lili. That was something that Su would keep from her, because he had no idea how to cope with it. He had a hard time talking, even to her and Lili. She couldn't get in touch with Jace, either, but that was not atypical, he could barely keep his head on straight and remember to tell Josu he'd be late. The second reason, was not nearly as serious. She was just nervous that Josu and her boyfriend, Will, wouldn't get along.

She'd only been seeing him for a few months, but she knew that he was the one. In fact, he'd moved in with her last week. Her father and brother approved of him, even if they acted otherwise. Josu was the last person whose "approval" she needed before they could be serious. She knew he was going to be in her life regardless of what Josu thought, but she wanted them to like each other. It was important to her.

Karen missed Liliana every single day. They had grown up like sisters, their mothers had been life long friends. Their fathers owned one of the biggest chain restaurants in the country. They had built the Grits and Groceries franchise from the ground up. Her father still met with Josu. He always made sure that he was taken care of and he had a share of what his father had built. He had lost a daughter, just like Josu and Liliana's parents, Nicolai and Lucille. It had been hard on him. Karen still called Giovanni nightly, because he was so terrified that somehow, the two men that were responsible for Liliana's disappearance, and murder- because Giovanni, like most, didn't believe that Liliana was still alive, that she could endure five years of torment, could still some how hurt Karen, even though she was far away, just having completed law school at Brown University.

So when she received a FaceTime call from Josu, relief showered over her. Will looked nervous sitting there, like he was when he met Silver and her father. She patted his leg reassuringly, which she was sure she'd have to keep doing once Will saw her best friend. Su was not the sweetest-looking person, though his personality made him exactly that.

"What if he doesn't like me? What if something is wrong, like you said it might be? "His eyes were darting all over, like they did when he got nervous.

She'd noticed, in the three short months that they'd been together, that Will was prone to worrying. He couldn't help it. Like Josu, Will was enabled. He could create and spin worlds like no other. Will was published at age fourteen, because his overactive mind couldn't stop writing. He had hypergraphia, which is the innate desire to keep writing. Because of this, he was a highly sought after transcriber. But because his IQ was so high, they couldn't keep him busy enough. He got bored and wrote for leisure, and he had zero people skills. Therefore, he had problems keeping a job. Will had been the professor of a creative writing class Karen had took for her final elective credit. When they had fallen in love, he handed in his resignation and was now on the hunt for a new job as a publicist.

Karen had come to his office one night, clutching a piece that she and Liliana had worked on. She was nervous because no one had seen it; he read it and said that it should be expanded on. When Karen explained it wasn't hers alone, Will had asked about who the coauthor was, and she had unloaded upon him.

Karen didn't know that Will had known Grimsley. But he did, and he vowed right then and there to keep her safe. He had no idea how to keep a girl interested, but he requested a second meeting with her.

When she showed up at his office, he decided to distract her with pieces if his own writing. It worked. She had fallen in love with the way he wove the worlds he did, and they hit it off, just two weeks into the semester.

From that point on, Karen Voss never missed a single office hour. It was the first time she had felt safe since she'd left Josu in DC.

What she didn't know is that Will Sullivan only made the target on her back much larger.

And he couldn't bring himself to tell her.


Kaalia was nervous. She had met Josu's mother, but she was so far gone that it was like they hadn't met at all. She and Liliana had fallen into an easy relationship as well, so why was this so nerve racking to her? Was it because Josu had been in too much pain to talk about Liliana, but he could talk about Karen because she was safe and well? He had always talked about her. Kaalia wasn't jealous per say, it was obvious that they had been nothing more than what Jace and Lia had been. Pushed together by their parents, only to find other people. Lia had never told anyone about Kallist. The only one that knew was Jace. The only one who knew the real reason why she had went so long without speaking to her father, why she had dodged her feelings, and Josu's, for that matter, for the past two years.

Jace couldn't help but smile at Liliana's excitement. She deserved for something to be the same as it used to be, and he hoped that this was it. Every single time he thought about how soft her cheek had been in his hand, he would blush and try to push the desire to kiss her into the back of his mind.

Jace didn't feel like this. As a matter of fact, Jace's first kiss had been Kaalia, and he just did not engage. It was awkward and slimy and he didn't like it at all. But every time he looked at Liliana, he wanted to know how soft her lips would feel against his, if her mouth tasted like the strawberry candy she was obsessed with. She distracted him. His thoughts had never been disjointed, but now they were errant at best, because of the space that Liliana and her little boy had taken up in his mind. He wanted nothing more than to be the source of her smile.

Seeing him, Ral or whatever he was called, come in and try to lead his Liliana away from him… Jace stopped the thought in its tracks. Liliana wasn't his, regardless of what Jace wanted. But seeing Ral try to take her, threaten to take her, made Jace angry. But what made Jace the most angry was the disrespect that he had for her, and the fact that he threw away the truth, and he completely minimalized that Liliana had raised this amazing boy with no help from anyone. She didn't deny his genius, which was something that normals tried to do, but she fostered it and tried to connect with Toby on every single level.

"No reference intended, but what's up, Doc? You've got an awful big smile over there," Liliana said as the Skype call was dialing.

"Nothing, just thinking about the past few weeks. You're such a good Mom," Jace said to her. The grin that crossed Lili's lips was so beautiful, at least to Jace. Before she could say anything, Josu shushed them and patted the seat beside him, so Lia could come sit down.

Karen had an entire diatribe she was going to use to verbally abuse Josu, because he needed to know this- this eerie silence, was not okay, given everything they'd been through with Grimsley and Xenagos- she called them the Greek Freaks in her mind. Even though he was texting, who's to say that they hadn't forced him to send those texts, because they had been intermittent at best. He better have a damn good reason, she thought to herself. She couldn't deal with losing him, too.

Relief washed over Karen when she saw Josu's fair, Spainard features color the screen of her MacBook. If she had been in DC, she would have hugged him, and then slapped him, and then hugged him again. Her brother bear was fine.

"Hey, babycakes. What's up, buttercup?" Jace didn't really raise his head. This is how they always were. Kaalia's eyes, however, got huge, and even though Josu was oblivious to it, Will's hand clenched into a fist.

"Not much, how are you holding up, big sexy?"

Liliana thought that the look on Kaalia's face was priceless. She wanted to laugh, but she couldn't give herself away. However, she couldn't hold it in. She did her trademark giggle-snort-giggle. Karen had heard. She knew her ears were playing tricks on her, though.

"So no offence, William, but I think we should save our introductions," Josu said.

Karen was taken aback. She knew this would be hard for Josu, for both of them, really, but it couldn't be postponed much longer. It was important to her.

"What? Why, Su-Su?" Karen said.

That nickname made Kaalia want to vomit where she stood. Lia had already decided that she couldn't get along with this girl.

Will's eyes were the size of saucers, too. She had told him about how they were beforehand, but it didn't mean he liked it. At least the gentleman wasn't going in blind, like Kaalia was.

"Because you're going to be coming for a visit, soon."

"Yeah?" she swallowed. "Who died?"

"No one," Josu said, a huge grin on his face.

Josu turned his computer around and let Karen see his sister for the first time in five years.

The way they started to jabber warmed both Josu and Will's hearts.

It was like she never left.


Josu was right that his introduction to Will would be made in person. Karen had called Giovanni and Giovanni had set up a plane for all of them to come see Liliana and Toby.

Karen was Toby's godmother. She just didn't know it yet. She had fallen in love with Tobias just like everyone did, with nothing more than a smile and a "hi." Toby had no interest in Skype, he wanted to science with Jace. Karen saw the way that Liliana looked at her brother's best friend. She knew. Even if they didn't, yet.

Kaalia tried to be happy that they were coming, but things had finally been set into some form of order, and now it would be messed up again. It drove her completely bonkers. She tried to be happy, but she was mostly jealous. That was her Su. She didn't mind sharing him with Lili, but this other girl, this girl who had kissed him was completely different story. She didn't understand. She'd never been like this before, with anyone, even Kallist. She was never possessive. Sighing, she tried to set her mind to the task at hand. They had been given files for their next case, one at an art museum, and were told to be reading up on them before they started the new case next week.

Maybe she'd go Skype her dad, Kaalia thought. She really didn't want to, though. Text was fine for now. She just slung her feet over Josu's knees and continued to read. He held onto her ankle, and in that moment, that other bitch didn't matter. She knew Josu was hers.

They'd agreed to do this whilst Tobias was taking his nap. She didn't want to do it in front of anyone, so they'd retired to Jace's room with a shut door. As he was reading to her, she started to tune out and listen to the melodic cadence of his voice.

"Hey, Lili- Liliiiiii-LiliPad!"

The last word had snapped her out of her reverie. She had been listening, but more to the rhythmic sound of his voice.

"LiliPad?"

Jace smiled. "Yeah," he said.

"I love it," Liliana said. "But what did you need?"

"Just wanted to make sure I hadn't lost you. You looked like you had phased out on me."

"No, I just like the sound of your voice. It's almost musical. You're a beautiful reader. And I wish I had that talent."

"You have your own talents," Jace said.

"Like what?" Liliana scoffed at Jace. She wasn't talented.

"You can cook like a mad woman, you're great with people, you're funny, and I don't even get humor." Jace ticked off on his fingers. "I heard you sing to Toby the other day, which brings me to two things. Firstly, when you sing, you made time stand still. It's so beautiful that nightmares don't stand a chance," Jace said. "But you are the best mother I have ever witnessed.. And that's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. If I'm ever one quarter of the parent you are, then my child will be so very, very lucky."

Liliana dropped the file she was holding onto. He was right for her and she knew it. She cupped his face as he had done to her, slowly running her thumb across his cheekbone. She tilted her head slightly as they both leaned in. Was this really going to happen? Jace's mind was going crazy. Her lips, her smell, it was too much. Her nose brushed his and just as their lips were about to meet, the door crashed open.

"Josu! Back up! They were about to kiss!" Emmara's overjoyed, triumphant voice rang out.

Shit, Jace thought to himself. Liliana also thought a very unkind expletive.

"Mommy," Toby said, "I had a bad dream."