"Dad!" I squealed and ran towards him before hugging him tightly. "What are you doing here? I mean I thought - I thought you were to stay in Brazil for a few more weeks?" I asked him excitedly. Truth be said, I wasn't complaining because I wasn't in the least bit disappointed with this surprise.

Caleb chuckled and I turned to him, still sporting an excited grin. "Well your mom and I might have asked him to come back for some time," he said, wriggling his brows.

Before I could give them all a stern speech, my dad spoke up. "I had to cut my trip short. You know my mind wouldn't have been there anyway. Plus I needed a break from my break." He winked, slinging an arm around my shoulder.

"A break from break?" My face scrunched up in confusion.

"You know? My job just asks me to have fun and go to new places. So it's a good thing to take a break from that and think about my family." He smiled at me softly.

Pouting, I wrapped my arms around his waist again and his chest rumbled with laughter. "Aww, dad," I mumbled. Jerking my head a bit, I glanced at Caleb with a confused frown but my heart was already in an overdrive. I don't know what news he had this time. One step closer or ten steps back? "Did Caleb tell you?" I whispered, breaking the hug.

"You can't blame me for worrying, Ser," my dad murmured solemnly. "I wanna know everything about him so that we can catch the bastard when he's at his most vulnerable state," he gritted and this time his eyes glinted with a tamed anger.

My mom came from behind me, patting dad's arm gently to calm him down. "Don't worry, Steve. We're not gonna lose our hope, okay?" She told him with an austerity, giving me a sidelong glance.

Dad nodded his head with a heavy sigh.

"Ouch, I am hurt, Young Lewinski. You didn't even give me a second glance." Caleb shook his head with his hand placed on his chest.

"Oh, come on, don't be so dramatic." I rolled my eyes and gave him a side hug. He ruffled my hair and didn't even stop when I glared at him. "So." I cleared my throat and looked at him. "Anything… new?"

That's when I saw Maia appearing from inside the pantry doors, balancing all the food ingredients in her hands. She gave us all a polite smile before going back to cooking breakfast.

"Oh, hey, Maia! Good morning and have a nice day." I said which she returned with another one of her grateful smiles.

Caleb motioned for all of us to sit down on the barstools and I eagerly did so.

Caleb didn't even wait and started speaking at once. "So we're still running a search over him. Every time we try to catch him, it's like he knows it and we end up finding the place empty. As if someone from the inside is tipping him off," he told us agitatedly. "But it won't happen this time. We're gonna block him from all the ways so that there won't be any escape route left for him."

His convincing tone didn't work on me but it did the trick on my parents. I stared at Caleb long and hard because he was just uplifting everyone's hopes by giving false assurance but we both knew it was nothing short of fatal. He met my stare and wavered a bit but ignored me after a second. He was not lying but he was also concealing the half truth.

I stopped listening to what Caleb was saying because I don't think I was ready to let my hopes brim to the surface. Once they were done discussing and talking, I switched off my mind and switched on my actual presence in the room.

"Oh, and Ser, I forgot to tell you this," mom gushed with wide eyes.

I put my chin on my palm and nodded my head. Even my dad seemed genuinely curious with the way he was leaning in to listen as well. Caleb, on the other hand, was typing something furiously on his phone.

"So we are having a family reunion tonight. Even Zach took a leave from college to meet your dad here." She grinned, rolling her eyes at my dad, who just winked complacently.

Zachary's my cousin, Destiny's older brother but he treats me like his real sister. No, not in the way you might be thinking but whenever he's around, he always fights with me for the TV remote. Once he'd placed his bottom on my hand that was clutching the remote and farted so loud on it. Let's just say, my nostrils were damaged for the whole day because the smell wasn't ready to leave my nose.

"Destiny even took it to the next level." Mom laughed to herself. "She's inviting Ashton's friends this time but I am not complaining. It'll be a blast." She was effulgent to have a huge company tonight.

"What? Are we inviting the whole world now?" I muttered, rolling my eyes.

"They are our whole world, Ser." Mom laughed again at her own joke and my dad joined her as well.

"Wait, so Chang's gonna be here too?!" I all but exclaimed with my jaw hanging low. I was pretty sure that he wouldn't be interested in being a part of our "world".

"Who?" Dad asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Never mind." I shook my head quickly and breathed out a sigh of relief when they didn't question me about it any further.

"It'll be a celebratory reunion! Zach and Steve are here plus like Caleb said, we-"

I cut off my mom and looked at Caleb sharply who seemed sort of guilty. "I need to talk to you for a sec, Caleb."

Mom gave me a worried glance and stiffened almost immediately. I wanted to slap myself for not even trying to be discreet about it. My dad, though, just smiled confusedly but didn't seem so fazed about it.

Nodding his head, Caleb stood up. Before leaving the kitchen, I passed an assuring smile to my mom and she seemed to relax a bit.

The moment Caleb and I were alone, I quickly shut the door to the living room and scowled at him. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why don't you believe me, Young Lewinski? It's the truth, we have really found-"

"Oh, I know you're telling the truth." I crossed my arms across my chest. "But I also know that if it were that easy, you'd have caught him by now. However you haven't. So, why are you doing this? Why are you telling my parents that you are so confident this time, huh?" I was breathing heavily by the end of my angry rant.

"Look, I am trying here. You should… you should hope for the best. Just trust me here, okay?" He walked up to me and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

I exhaled a deep breath. "Okay," I mumbled. I wanted to say so much to him. I wanted to say that even if I trusted him, I didn't trust the system. I wanted to say that stop talking to me until you find something relevant to talk about. I wanted to tell him to get lost but I didn't. "Okay," I repeated.

Caleb massaged his temples and that's when I noticed his troubled state as well. I felt bad for giving him a hard time. "I promise you, Young Lewinski, that this time even if shit goes down, I'll hack him without my ID. I'll hack him myself unprofessionally." His words were earnest and this time I actually found myself liking what he said.

"Now you're talking, Detective Caleb. That, right there, ablazed the fire within me." I grinned cheekily and hugged him tightly this time.

His chest reverberated with laughter as he patted my head. "Glad to hear that you want me fired."

"Anything that makes you catch the criminals without obstacles." This time I joined in his laughing fit as well.

~♡☆~♡☆~♡☆~♡☆~♡☆~♡☆~♡☆~

Publishing this 'cause I am happy that I made it to ONC's round two!😭

Word count: 1366
Total count: 15,690