So sorry this story is taking so much longer than Forget Berlin did - when I was writing Berlin I had a squishy baby who slept on my lap while I wrote. Now I've got a toddler who empties cereal boxes and draws on the furniture while I write. Little slower going but I promise the story is going somewhere. Thanks for all the reviews, hearing what all of you think is so great & gives me a million new ideas for the directions the story should go.

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Dom's knees threatened to give out as he stood staring at Letty, fast asleep but very much alive. The room was dark but the moon shone in through the open window, highlighting her tiny frame's uncanny ability to take over a bed that should be able to accommodate three more people. Before he could form a coherent thought Dom's body betrayed him, falling into the same routine he had every time Letty had a nightmare. He was across the room in an instant, pulling her onto his chest as he was climbing into the bed. He was careful to restrain her arms to protect himself but gentle enough not to startle her awake. Even years later his body remembered how to lessen the impact of her dreams.

"You're okay," he whispered into her hair, making the same soothing noises he did on the rare occasions that he looked after one of his nephews. "I'm right here, baby, it's okay."

He waited, motionless, as Letty's body tensed for a split second. He waited for her eyes to flutter open but they never did - she did the same thing she always did, the same thing he had been dreaming about for three years - she smiled sleepily, snuggled closer to him and buried her face in his neck, forcing his chin into the same awkward position that had given him a sore neck every morning since the day he got out of prison.
As soon as Letty's heavy breathing turned into soft snoring Dom readjusted her tiny body just enough so that he could look down at her face. His eyes passed over every inch, taking in the familiar details like the long lashes that flared over her cheeks and the way her chin jutted out ever so slightly, as though she was angry even when she was sleeping. He smiled ruefully as he reminded himself that she probably was - it was a rare occasion that he saw a smile on her face without at least a small undercurrent of instinctual anger behind it. There were things that were different, too, he noted, his eyes jumping between carefully pencilled freckles smattering the cheeks of the girl he had never even seen wear blush and the shiny silver ring through her bottom lip. He leaned forward to kiss her lips gently, his brow furrowed at the shock of cold metal marring the warm lips that he dreamed about every night.

It was when Letty shifted slightly to wrap one of her tiny hands around his much larger bicep that he saw the tiny tattoo on her shoulder: an ornate cross, identical to the one that was all of the sudden heavy around his own neck, with the initials 'D.T.' in crooked, scratchy text that he recognized as his own writing. Dom's jaw clenched and his comfortable appraisal of the woman in his arms turned to a confused, angry stream of thoughts. How was Letty alive, where had she been for three years, and how the hell did she end up sleeping down the hall from him in Rosa's house. Rosa who had never met Letty, who kept a shrine to a woman she didn't know out of respect for her own lost love's wishes. Dom struggled to piece together a story that he didn't know any of the parts to.

As much as he wanted answers, though, Dom resisted his urge to wake Letty up and demand an explanation for her absence, for disappearing and taking his only reason to try to be a good person with her. He knew instinctively that she did not know he was there and that when she woke up there would be more questions and anger, probably from both of them given her ability to be angry solely because it was her only defence mechanism when someone was angry at her, than he was prepared for right then. Instead he watched her sleep, tears pouring down his cheeks for the first time since he got that fateful phone call from Mia.

They laid that way for hours - Letty snoring softly, sleeping just as soundly as she ever had, and Dom lying awake and watching her, alternately trying to figure out if what was happening was real and scolding himself for trying to ruin what was probably just the most realistic dream he'd ever had. By the time the sun began to stream through the window, though, exhaustion took over and Dom was fast asleep. He didn't even flinch when Letty stirred and then woke with a start when she realized that she wasn't alone.

"Dom?" Letty whispered, staring incredulously at the man sleeping silently beside her. Her eyes widened and she clamped her free hand over her mouth, waiting to see if she had woken him. When he didn't stir she gingerly extracted herself from his grip and slid off of the bed as quietly as she could. With one hand still over her mouth, as if she could keep herself from even breathing, Letty let herself drop to the floor, crumpled beside the bed with her face on her knees and her eyes screwed shut, fighting burning tears. She had no idea how he had ended up in Rosa's house with her, let alone in bed with her, but the only thing on Letty's mind was how the most volatile person she had ever met had fallen asleep beside her rather than wake her up and demand answers. She wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or relieved so instead she focused on making her escape. Luckily her backpack was still packed and resting by the bedroom door, so all she had to do was pull on the dirty jeans that were on the floor beside her and she could disappear from Dominic's life for a second time.

it wasn't until she reached the kitchen that Letty allowed herself to take a breath. When she did all she could smell was Dom. The combination of sweat, motor oil, and the same soap he'd been using since it was still his mother buying it for him overwhelmed her. She had spent every night in Rosa's house trying to glean the slightest bit of it from a freshly laundered shirt or a pillow he hadn't used in a month, but now it filled her nose and overwhelmed her senses. With a pang of guilt Letty realized that he didn't even get that chance, the chance to survive on the knowledge that she was alive and still out there the way that she did. With a sigh Letty scrounged in her bag for a sharpie and scrawled a note on a napkin she found on the counter. She left it on the nightstand of her room, not allowing herself to stop and kiss him goodbye in case he woke up before she left the apartment.

Dom woke up to the sound of the front door closing. He reached for Letty with his eyes still closed but only grasped the still-warm sheets instead.

"Letty?" he called out, his brow furrowed as he tried to push the knowledge that she was already gone out of his mind. "Let, are you here?"

Dom sat up and his eyes fell on the note on the nightstand. The sinking feeling in his stomach as he realized how she must have felt when he left her alone in the Dominican threatened to make him sick. He grasped blindly for the bottle of water on the edge of the small table, unable to tear his eyes away from the folded napkin that taunted him. He took a sip and tasted her Dr Pepper lip smackers, the same sickly sweet flavor she'd been wearing since she and Mia started shoplifting them in elementary school, before he picked up the torn napkin.

I'm so sorry Dom.

"That's it?" he said aloud, brow furrowed. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Despite his certainty that she was gone Dom stalked through the large apartment, checking every room for signs of Letty. His mind was reeling as he put together small bits of information that he had taken in over the last few months without ever really examining them: the single Corona in Rosa's fridge, though she didn't drink and the fact that Dom and Brian never left any beer behind after a visit because of it. Rosa's hesitation at allowing him to stay alone in her apartment. Her insistence on Dom switching to the back bedroom after he had been sleeping in the front room for months, the room that Letty had obviously made herself at home in.

As Dom realized that there were people in his life, people he loved, who knew that Letty was alive, his despair over the note that was still crumpled in his fist turned to rage. His mind raced as he struggled to piece together who in his family betrayed him by keeping Letty a secret and why. Dom grabbed his cellphone off of the kitchen counter and angrily punched in Rosa's number but before he pressed send he paused. He shook his head as if he could shake off the effects of the last few hours and then sent Brian a text message instead of completing his call.

- Bring the girls back to Rio. I need some help.

It only took seconds for Brian to reply.

- Boys arrive for Carnivale tomorrow. We'll see you then too.

Dom grimaced at the thought of how much harder the thousands of tourists flooding into Rio for Carnivale would make it to try and find Letty. The arrival of his friends was worrying too, as he realized that he wasn't sure who he could trust anymore. Obviously Rosa knew Letty was alive and, since the two of them had not, to the best of his knowledge, ever met, there had to be someone else who knew Letty was alive.

At Mia & Brian's house in Fiji Rosa was leaning on the kitchen counter, brow furrowed, when Brian's voice jolted her from her thoughts.

"What's up, Rosa? Packed already?" Brian asked, smirking at Mia's mild cursing while she hurriedly packed in the other room.

"How did Dom sound on the phone?" Rosa asked, ignoring Brian's question entirely.

"He texted me, why?"

"No reason," she replied hurriedly, frowning at his answer. Rosa tried to reassure herself that a lack of a raging phone call from Dom meant that nothing strange had happened to inspire him to ask them all to meet him in Rio but she couldn't help but worry that Letty had been there and hadn't cleaned up well enough, making Dom suspicious. Rosa cursed herself for giving the housekeeper the week off – what if Dom was worried that someone had been in Rosa's house in her absence? How would she explain that there really wasn't a threat to her safety. Oblivious to Brian's curious eyes appraising her strange mood Rosa pulled out her own cellphone and sent a text to a number Letty had made her save months ago but hoped she would never have to use.

- Keep her out of Rio.

The reply came almost instantly, sending a shiver down Rosa's spine.

- She's been there since midnight last night.