Everything recognizable belongs to the author – I'm not her –I'd have more Naked Ranger in the books – so I just took her characters out to play.

Last Chapter was where I almost gave them an HEA with forgiveness and kisses and Naked Ranger time but as I was editing it, I just couldn't do it. My characters weren't there so the story is going to stretch out a little longer, I want them to have an HEA but at this point they've taken over and anything is possible once the dust settles and the blood is washed away.

Sophie…

I moved through the halls of the asylum quickly and stopped at her door, pushing it open I slipped in silently.

"Good Morning Alice."

She didn't respond, didn't move at all, I walked over to her and sat down across from her. "It's Sophie, David's coming soon to check on you. I'm helping a new person disappear now, just like daddy used to, you remember how we'd help him come up with different identities?" I tucked her hair behind her head. "You remember his patient, Stephanie Plum? She's better now. No more delusion, she's hurt everyone lied to her, it's like you could see the way her heart was breaking, jagged shards of trust damaging her soul. I wonder if in her case, facing reality wouldn't have been better. David just can bear the idea of how we hurt you, making you see the truth, he thought we could give her love like it would make up for her being hurt." Alice just stared, unseeing out the window. I sighed, "I miss you Ali." I kissed her temple and left the room. David was standing outside. "David?" It was part greeting and part question.

"Lana?"

I shrugged, "Still out there somewhere."

"We have to find her. If Manoso finds her."

"Stephanie wont let him hurt her David."

He sighed, "How is she?" He nodded to their sister's room.

I shrug, "The same as always."

"Why would Lana think Morelli was her father?"

"He is."

"What?" David growled.

"Just not that Morelli." I told him with a sad sigh.

"Which Morelli?"

"Does it matter?"

"If I kill the wrong one it will!"

"David."

"Look at her!" He shouted.

"He didn't do this to her David. Mother did. Having Lana while chained in the basement did."

"Insanity is hereditary."

I snorted, "Guess we better neither of us have kids."

"This isn't a joke Sophie!"

"I know that David! I was the one in the warehouse after that girl got shot, I was the one who cleaned it all up, the one who saw what those people had to suffer while she was fighting to live and I was the one who called you in. You're the one that stopped giving her the fucking drug to confuse her dreams with reality."

"You're the one that insisted she and Manoso were in love and the delusion was all but reality!"

"All but, the but being the operative word David."

"It doesn't matter now. They'll work it out or be to distracted by their issues to focus on finding Lana."

"Morelli's nothing but focused on finding Lana." I reminded him.

"Who is the man helping her?"

"I don't know."

"She tells you everything!"

"Not everything." I hissed back. "I have no idea what caused this!"

"Lana freaked out because she's unbalanced Sophie, the trigger to this episode doesn't matter."

"She was so happy for a while." I reminded him staring at our sister's door.

"I know." He agreed sadly. "Are you sure of the father even? Could it have been part of the delusion?"

"I'm sure." I nodded.

"Sophie?"

"Alice only ever slept with one man David."

"I wish I knew how to help her. What all happened to her."

I hugged him, "You are helping her David."

"I should check on her." He nodded to the door.

"Stephanie and Manoso will be ok wont they?" I asked him hesitantly.

"Lana is fixated on Morelli. Until we can find her, he's not safe." I nodded in agreement and for him to continue. "Stephanie and Manoso aren't part of that fixation."

"She shot Stephanie because she thought he was in love with her."

"She wants to punish him for Alice being like this."

"She wants to punish any Morelli but Joe has nothing to do with Alice and Lana's father never knew she existed. He was only with Alice the one time."

"Lana's focusing blame the only place she feels she can, on the man who wasn't there to protect her or her mother."

"This all started because mother finally died didn't it?"

David nodded, "Lana was finally free."

"I thought Alice might get better with her gone." I admitted biting back tears.

"I know." He hugged me again. "Do what you can to find Lana, try to convince her she has the wrong target. Leave Alice to me. I'll take care of her. At least this thing with Stephanie and Manoso is finished, we don't have to worry about them anymore, not if you're sure Lana is safe from Manoso and his men."

I nodded and pulled away. "I'm sure. Thanks for helping with Stephanie."

He nodded, "You're sure you cleaned up after Lana at the scene?"

"Yes and Stephanie wont point her finger."

He nodded, "Even if she did we can make Lana disappear, we just need to find her first and get her medicated."

"Of course." I agreed with him. He kissed my temple and I watched him disappear into our sisters room before I turned and hurried out of the asylum. I wouldn't let Lana be medicated again though, I wouldn't let her be brought back into an asylum to waste away like Alice. Lana had lived all her life locked away, with mother dead, I'd do right by my sister, I'd see her daughter free.

Darrow and Lana pulled up in an SUV as soon as I hit the sidewalk. "How's mother?" Lana asked quietly.

"The same." I answered sadly.

"Uncle David's angry with me."

"You hurt that woman very badly."

"Grandmother said Morelli was the devil and he got inside Mother, she said the devil made Mother broken."

"Joe Morelli isn't your father Lana."

She nodded, her voice became whisper soft and filled with childlike fear, "I don't want to go back to the ward."

"You don't have to baby."

"I'm sorry I hurt her."

"I know."

"I wanted to punish him." Just the idea turned her voice from innocent child to angry woman. Mostly Lana was stuck at a mental and emotional range of about five, she was soft spoke, gentle and afraid but when it came to this she was a vengeful woman twice her age, her words clear, her eyes hard, showing the hardness life had taught her.

"I know."

"He should pay for my mother." I could see the violence in her ice cold eyes and if it were any but my sweet niece looking at me the expression would scare me.

"Your father isn't why she's broken Lana."

I saw her expression soft, the ice in her eyes melting as her voice turned soft and childlike once more, "Why is mother broken?"

"Grandmother hurt her."

"Grandmothers gone now though."

I knew, I'd covered up the murder for Lana, something else David didn't need to know because he'd lock her up for good then and I couldn't allow that. "Darrow is going to take you somewhere safe now ok baby."

"Will you come?"

"Soon. First I have to make sure Uncle David is taking good care of your mother and Stephanie is ok."

"Aunt Sophie?"

"Yes baby?"

"Why wouldn't my father love my mother?"

"Grandmother only said those things to hurt your mother through you Lana. Your father would have loved her. Any one would have loved her."

"Did my mother not love him?"

"No baby, she didn't."

"Grandmother said it was evil what they did."

"Grandmother was a bitch."

She nodded and curled up in the seat. I turned to Darrow, "Keep her safe."

He nodded, "Sophie?"

I sent him a grim smile, swallowing, I'd do anything for Alice and Lana, "I just have a couple things to take care of. Make sure no one comes looking for her." He nodded, "Don't drug her." It was half plea, we both knew he might have to, it was the one thing David and I disagreed on about Lana but the one thing I couldn't protect her from was herself. I didn't think she needed to be medicated and locked away, she'd lived like that most of her life, now she needed to be free, to learn to fly and hopefully once this was past us and the cage was far behind us, she'd be free of the depression and the violent rages that would occasionally consume her.

I watched them drive off and then took one last look at the building before hurrying to my own car. I drove to Trenton and stopped outside Morelli's, I watched him through the window. I'd do this for Lana. I'd set her free of him and give them all Toshiro to blame. I parked and got out and walked up to the house and knocked.

"Hello?"

"Mooch Morelli?" I asked.

"Do I know you?"

"You knew my sister."

"Alice?"

"You remember her." We looked enough a like it didn't surprise me that he'd made a connection. He'd never been the player Joe Morelli had been; he'd remember the notches he made on his bedpost. I doubt there were very many more now than before Lana was born. Lucky Lana looked nothing like my sister and I or it could have been trouble but Lana was the image of my father with dark brown hair and ice blue eyes, eyes so similar to our distant cousin, her victim, Stephanie Plum, our great grandmothers sisters child.

"I lost my… um, yeah, I remember her." I almost laughed. He and Alice had fumbled through their first time together, they'd created my beautiful wounded niece in what I could only imagine was a one pump hump. So many lives scarred over a careless drunken moment.

I tried to refocus my thoughts, I'd covered up death before but never taken a life, I braced myself, I'd do anything for Alice, my sweet baby sister, irreparably broken and for her daughter, for Lana, so the fractures in her soul didn't consume her and leave her locked in an asylum forever "She had a daughter. Your daughter." I told him.

"What. Huh? No. That was like thirteen years ago."

"Twelve years, seven months, nine days" I told him. "Her name is Lana and she's going to be free now." He frowned at me in confusion until he saw the gun. I aimed it for his forehead and pulled the trigger.

I dropped the note on his body and walked out fighting back the nasea. I'd meet Darrow and Lana in Thailand in a couple days. First I had to make sure everything here was left clean and I'd have to give them Toshi, he deserved to die less than Mooch, but Stephanie had seen him, would recognize him and since she'd never let them blame Lana, all those angry, scarred, dangerous killers would blame Toshiro. If they found him, they'd be able to connect the dots, it would lead them to Lana, to David and I and to Alice. I'd protect my family at any cost. Toshiro had helped Lana escape the asylum, he'd followed her everywhere, his mind forever stalled at four. He was a beast of a man, two hundred and seventy six pounds following my scrap of a niece everywhere like a lost puppy. They were best friends. He did everything she said and when she was in a rage he was the only one besides me that could go near her and when she was depressed she'd let him hold her and rock her. David never liked the connection they had, I was grateful for it but now I'd have to kill him, to protect her. Why couldn't he have stayed at the asylum?

When I found him, waiting where I'd told him to wait, he smiled at me, "Lana ok? No more sad?"

I smiled at him sadly, "Lana's safe now. Lana's almost free."

"Lana happy?"

I nodded, "Lana will be happy."

"If you help her."

He nodded, "Toshi always help Lana."

I blinked at the tears and handed him the gun. "You just have to…" Oh god, give me strength, if they find him, they'll trace him to the asylum, to David, to Alice, to Lana. I lifted my hand to my head as though it were a gun, "Make the toy go boom."

"Pretty red make Lana sad for pretty girl. Toy goes boom."

I nodded, "Toy goes…" He pulled the trigger.

My throat caught on a sob as bile rose in my mouth.

I pulled the envelope out with my gloved hand and dropped it on the ground.

Now I'd just wait and when the dust settled, when the blood washed away, I'd go find Lana and Darrow in Thailand, where we could all forget the past and start over, a family, maybe I could even love Darrow like he loved me. Now that I was free to love. Now that I'd done everything I could for Alice, now that Lana was free. Anything was possible now that my debt for not protecting my baby sister was paid.