Saving Stephanie

Sequel to Saving all my Women

If you haven't read Saving all my Women, you should read it before this story.

Credit for all main characters goes to JE. We thank her for creating them even if we don't like what she is currently doing with them.

Warning spoilers for all books up to 22.

Saving Stephanie

Chapter 1 Lula Says

Tuesday June 1 05:00

It was nice to wake at my regular time, in my own bed with Stephanie lying on top of me. I tried to scoot out from underneath her but she latched on and I had to chuckle to myself. She would hate me for waking her every day at five am, but I had to figure out a way to get her to let go. I grabbed my pillow, tucked it between us, then scooted away and she clutched at that pillow like a lifeline.

I ran five miles and began my rotating workout, maxing out on chest, biceps, abs and quads today. I went up to seven to see if Stephanie was awake and would shower with me but she was still sound asleep. I accepted that she needed more sleep than me on any given day but I was hoping a few times a week she might get up earlier to shower and eat breakfast with me.

I called Ella and told her I would have breakfast when Stephanie got up. I left a note for Stephanie that I was waiting on her for breakfast and to call me when she got up. I went down to my office and started digging through the pile of paperwork I knew was there waiting for me. I then went to the 08:00 meeting so I could start to get caught up with the routine of what was going on in the building.

When the meeting was over I went upstairs to find Babe was in the shower and probably hadn't seen my note. I called Ella for breakfast and waited for Stephanie to come out. She burst from the bathroom on a blast of steam and drew up short when she saw me.

"Oh, I didn't think you were in the apartment." She gushed.

"Just got back up here." I offered. "I called Ella for breakfast about five minutes ago." I warned her.

"Okay" she responded and disappeared into the closet.

I wanted to go into the closet and change clothes just so I could see her naked, hot and pink skinned from her shower.

We ate in companionable silence, me methodically making my way through my lox bagel with sliced avocado, her moaning her way through waffles and eggs. After breakfast we retired to my home office and I started to go through what I considered to be our business.

"Babe we need to get you a car. For now you can take any vehicle from the fleet or if you want my Porsche Cayenne to pick up skips in. Later we can go car shopping for you. Is there a certain type of car you would like?"

"A smaller SUV. Something with four doors that is easy to get in and out of. I don't need anything new. In fact with my track record with cars I'd rather it not be new."

"Any reason you don't want a new car?"

"It just hurts too much when they get destroyed." She responded.

"I'd like to stop by my attorney's office today and get these signed." I lifted the pages of paperwork we had read through yesterday. "Other than that, there is one very important thing for us to discuss today." I offered.

"What?" She was curious.

"Your safety going forward."

"What about my safety going forward?" She already had her hackles coming up.

"My enemies are going to come after you to get to me. It's going to be worse right up front for a while so I want to error on the side of caution."

"What do you mean?" Stephanie asked.

"I have already set up a warning system of threat levels. The level of threat we have going on a daily basis will determine the level of protection you get."

"Like what exactly are you talking about?"

"There are four threat levels: yellow, orange, red and red alert statuses. Yellow is a moderate threat level of danger and means you will have two guys with you whenever you leave the building. Orange is a little higher threat level and requires a team with you and a team following you. Red is a very high or critical threat level and means a team with you, two teams following you and Tank or me with you every time you leave the building."

"Wait a minute, that's crazy. With that much threat level and that many personnel you aren't going to let me leave the building. Not to go out and do my job or live my life."

"You would only leave if absolutely necessary. You're right you wouldn't be able to do your job or run around doing errands or shopping."

"Ranger you can't expect me to live like that." She was frustrated.

"Not every day, just when the threat is high enough. The last threat level is Red Alert and it means extreme and imminent danger and you will be totally confined to the building."

"Ranger seriously, that is ridiculous. I'm not going to agree to this. You must think I'm crazy if I'm going to agree to a four man team following me everywhere and having you or Tank with me all the time. It's not happening!" She was up pacing back and forth in my little office, waving her arms as she spoke and punctuating her points with her hands.

She glared at me for a moment then continued her rant.

"Forget me being the crazy one! You're the crazy one if you think for one moment I'm going to agree to all of that. 'Cause I'm not. You're not going to lock me up because you think I'm too delicate. I'm not a wilting flower you have to protect at every turn. I have to go live my life and then if there is some threat we can talk about some possible safety precautions but I have never run from my problems or from danger or from crazy people and I'm not going to start now!"

She kept going, explaining about how she didn't need anyone to protect her and this wasn't any more threat than what she was used to and how just because we were engaged she wasn't going to let me run her life.

She may as well have been arguing with the wall, cause I sure as hell wasn't going to budge on her safety. For an hour she kept going and I was letting her talk and pace till she ran out of steam when she finally got to two critical flaws in my plan.

"Wait a minute," she declared, "where is the green on your chart? The low level threat where all I have to do is carry a panic button and a tracker? I still have the watch you gave me. You're already tracking me everywhere I go and it has a built-in panic button too so I should be free to go and do what I want and when there is a threat we can discuss possible protection options."

"Babe." I say, meaning that is not enough protection and it is not happening.

"Besides who or what determines what the threat level is on any given day? Are you just going to make it up based on what you perceive the threat to be?"

I knew this needed an answer. "The threat level on any given day is founded on the information I have available based on known threats in the area."

"That's not an answer. That is a guess. You will always think there is a big threat to my safety and always want at least two guys with me all the time. I think that we are at a green, nobody even knows we are together yet. I have my watch, if there is a problem I will push the button."

"Stephanie as my wife there is no more green for you. I have dangerous enemies that would love to hurt you to get to me. That would kidnap you to get me to do things for them. I carry two guns and a knife every day for a reason, even while in my own building, and you need the same level of protection all the time as well."

"Fine. I'll carry my gun and it will even be loaded." She agreed.

"You carrying your baby Glock with six bullets is not going to be enough. You are not even aware enough of your surroundings to go out alone." I was determined to make her see sense.

"Fine." She slammed out of the office door. I figured I would let her cool down then we could talk about it more later.

Minutes later I heard her knocking around in the closet. Then the front door to the apartment very quietly opened and closed. I turned on the camera to the elevator only to find it empty and on five. The stairwell camera showed her flying down all seven flights of stairs and out the garage door. She got into the Cayenne and left with a screech of tires. I turned on her watch tracker and in a separate window the Cayenne tracker. Then I dispatched a team to follow her.

She went to Tasty Pastry and then to the bonds office where she parked for a while. I turned on the bonds office cameras and for the first time regretted that there was no sound. Normally with Vinnie's barnyard animal noises and Connie and Lula gossiping about everyone it wasn't a sound track I wanted to hear but today would be different. Today, I wished I could be a fly on those walls and listen to everything being said because surely, she would complain to the girls. Then I remembered her watch.

Of course I had the watch programmed to broadcast on demand. If ever she was kidnapped and didn't think to turn it on or couldn't turn it on I could turn it on remotely and listen to what was happening. If she happened to look down at the watch she would see the red plus sign and know her watch had been activated but she is not that aware of her surroundings, at least I hoped she wasn't today.

All I heard was Connie telling her there was no backlog of skips because RangeMan had been taking them all. Then I heard her reading a file out loud and asking Lula if she wanted to ride along. Once she was settled in the car, I parked myself in my office on five and closed myself in, hoping I could get some paperwork done while I listened to her bitch to Lula about the wrongness of it all.

"Lula you don't understand. He wants me to agree to this level of security all the time. Every day! Two men following me around. Sitting with me in the car on a stakeout waiting for some low level skip to appear."

"What did he say exactly?"

"That he determines the threat level and depending on the threat level I will have two or more guards with me every day." Damn straight two men to make sure she is safe.

"Huh. That's rather pushy of him but really what's so bad 'bout having those fine men taggin' along with you everywhere you go? At least you'll have something to look at." She better NOT be looking at my men.

"Lula it's not just that, he wants me to agree to be locked up in the building. To agree that if he deems the threat high enough I'm going to let him confine me to the RangeMan building." If it's needed, no matter what I'm going to keep her safe.

"Now that's no good. How are you suppose' to be livin' your life if he got you all locked up and shit?"

"I know! I don't know what he is thinking. When have I ever run and hid from a threat. I mean with the Slayers I was hiding out in his apartment at night but I was still going out during the day doing my job." Wearing a flack vest and scared out of her mind.

"What about the guy with the snakes and spiders and shit. You was scared then." Oh Abruzzi, she wasn't nearly as afraid as she should have been.

"Yeah Abruzzi was a whole other crazy. He wasn't a skip or anything. I don't know why he fixated on me like that." She does seem to attract a level of crazy to her all the time.

"So girl who's we lookin' fo?"

"Carl Blackwell."

"What's he look like?"

"He is a 78 year old white guy who stole a bottle of vodka from Rose's Liquor store. Said his social security ran out and he had to have some liquor, said he would pay it back when he got his next check. But they caught him on tape and the police went to his house and arrested him. He probably just forgot his court date."

I heard them getting out of the car and walking up to the door.

"You knock and I'll stun him." Lula suggested.

"You can't stun him, he's old he'll probably have a heart attack. Let's just talk to him and see if he will come with us nicely."

"Fine I know I got my gun in here somewhere," She said as she rummaged through her purse. "I'll threaten to shoot him." Lula offered.

"No, no gun and no threatening him. We're just going to talk to him." Stephanie was firm.

"Fine, you know you sure have a lot of rules." Lula sounded disgusted.

I heard a knock on the door.

"Gonna have ta knock louder than that he's probably deaf and needs hearin' aides. You hear that TV? It sounds like it's at full volume upstairs."

I hear another knock and Stephanie yell, "Mr. Blackwell, Carl Blackwell I need to speak to you."

After a few minutes of silence I heard Lula speak, "Someone's comin'. The TV got turned down and I can hear footsteps on the stairs." I heard a door open.

"Mr. Blackwell," I hear Stephanie start her spiel, "I'm Stephanie Plum, I represent your bail bondsman, you missed your court date. I need to take you down town and get you rescheduled."

"I went back to the liquor store and paid them." I hear an old warbly voice speaking. "They said they would drop the charges."

"That's fine, that's all you need to tell the judge. If you'll just come with me." Stephanie encouraged.

"I'm not going nowhere missy, I'm watching my TV and I'm not missing my Judge Judy so I can go deal with something I've already dealt with."

"Mr. Blackwell, you missed your court date. I need to take you in and get you rescheduled." I heard the click of a cuff being put on.

"Hey, hey! You can't do this to me. I have rights. Police! Police! Somebody call the police!"

"There is no need for all of that. I'll take you down to the police station and they will get you straightened out." I hear the click of the other cuff and then a Whumpf as he sat down.

"Mr. Blackwell, you can walk or we can drag you but you are going to come with us." Stephanie insisted.

"I'm not going with you. I told you I'm not missing my court TV. Next is Judge Mathis and he is really good."

I hear dragging and the opening of a car door.

"He lost a shoe." Lula said.

"Grab it, we don't want him shoeless. Mr. Blackwell you might as well stand up. It will be less painful for you just to get into the car. I have an idea, we'll go by the liquor store and talk to the manager. If you have paid for the liquor we will have him come down and talk to the judge. Then you'll have your own real live court TV."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Of course Mr. Blackwell. We just need to get your case resolved."

I heard the car door slam.

While I am listening, I am working. Checking on the Columbian account and making sure payroll is going to be paid. I emailed Hector and ask him to hack into Sergio's emails and find the ones from Boris. To follow the trail and find out where they are coming from.

A few minutes later I hear the car door open again.

"Stay here with Mr. Blackwell. I'll go talk to the manager." Stephanie said.

"Hi, where is the manager?"

"The owner is in his office in the back."

"Hi Mr. Rose, my name is Stephanie Plum. I have Mr. Blackwell with me. He stole a bottle of vodka from you last month and you pressed charges. Now he said he came back and paid for it and you haven't dropped the charges."

"He has come in and bought more but he hasn't paid for the bottle he stole so I haven't dropped the charges."

"If I bring him in now can he pay for the bottle?"

"Young lady I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I'm afraid if I let him off that easy he'll just come back and steal from me again. This was the fourth time in a row he has stolen from here. I want him to go to court and realize this is serious business, that he can't just steal anytime he needs something."

"Fine I'll take him in and get his court date rescheduled." Stephanie didn't sound happy.

I heard walking. She is such a good and caring person to have a job like this but she is nothing if not fair and willing to uphold the law. I hear the car start but there is a knock at my office door. I knew I should take my work upstairs and work from my home office but everyone in the control room knows Stephanie has left the building and there is a team following her. So I have no more excuse not to be down here working.

"Enter" I order.

"Just more paperwork for you to sign off on." Tank says as he brings a stack of folders and puts them down on the corner of my desk. He leaves immediately and I turn the volume back up on my computer.

"Mr. Blackwell, I'm sure you know what I'm going to say."

I hear some mumbling.

"Yes you haven't paid for the liquor bottle and it's the fourth one you have stolen. He wants you to pay for the ones you have taken and to stop taking them anymore."

I hear more mumbling. I wonder if there is a more sensitive mic that is small and can be put in the watch.

I hear doors open and close.

"I'm here to turn in Carl Blackwell." I hear Stephanie say. "Here is his file. I just need a body receipt."

"Thank you. Mr. Blackwell pay the liquor store, show up to court and you won't find me on your doorstep again."

I hear walking and doors opening and closing.

"So where to now?" Stephanie asks.

"I didn't really have any breakfast and that worked me up an appetite. I say we go to Cluck-n-a-Bucket." Lula declared.

They drove in silence and I hear Stephanie order a bucket of extra crispy chicken with the works and two large Cokes. I hear her pay and the rustling of bags. Good, they are staying in the car to eat and talk and not air all this out in the restaurant.

Then I hear eating. I am starting to wonder if they are ever going to get back to discussing Stephanie's problem.

"So girl, what exactly is the problem again? Big man in black wants to protect you and you just want to live your life. Is there a reason he is being so over protective?" Besides the fact I'm in love with you?

"You don't know this but the guys that kidnapped me before we left for our little vacation, made a video of a woman."

"Yeah everyone has heard of the video. Her name was Crystal or something and she was a ho and they hired her for the night and then they did all those nasty things to her, tied her down and everything and then killed her. Glad I ain't a ho no more."

"Yeah, well in the video they make it look like it was me they are doing all those things to. I guess she had curly hair like me and they didn't show her face only showing her from behind." That video took years off my life!

"Yeah they tied her up face down on a bed."

"Anyway, they threatened to do the same thing to all the women in his family. That's why he took everyone away."

"So it was like a forced vacation?"

"With thirty three of his men to guard us."

"Oh man, Batman in charge! So where did he take you?"

"First to someplace in Florida, but then the bad guys found us there in the middle of the night and he packed everyone up and moved us to California." Good way to keep it vague, I always worry about her talking to Lula because Lula is a big gossip and Stephanie is always good subject matter that people want to hear about.

"I've always wanted to go to California."

"Yeah he put us all up in three houses on the beach there."

"Do you have pictures?"

"Not with me. He gave us phones to use on the trip only to call each other, the other people on the trip, and I took pictures on it but I left it back at the apartment."

"You're going to have to bring it in tomorrow and show us the pictures of this vacation." Lula demanded.

"Well it was like a vacation with big men in black following us everywhere we went."

"So what did Mr. Tall Dark and Mysterious let you do in California or did he lock you all away?"

"Honestly no one could have blamed him for locking us away but I went out with his family with two men on every woman. Oshanna, that's his youngest sister, and Julio his brother and Angelia one of his older sisters and I went on a LA Star's tour with a bunch of his men."

"Bet that was awesome."

"They showed us all the famous sights around the city, took us to the boardwalk and showed us lots of mansions. Then the next day Oshanna and I went on a fashion tour. It was amazing and I got several new outfits."

I was distracted as I tried to do paperwork and listen to the women talk.

"Girl where did you get the money to be shoppin' in LA?"

"He gave me a Rangeman credit card with no limit and told me to buy something nice."

"He didn't!"

"He gave one to everyone in the family, course unlike me, they all had limits."

"Huh, that be crazy. Why he be givin' everybody money like that?"

"He had to because he took all our cards away, all our debit cards and all of our credit cards and gave everyone a RangeMan card we could use for the trip."

"Damn. Why did he do that?"

"Because with the right program you can be tracked using your credit cards and people can find out where you used them and find you."

"Oh I didn't know that."

"Yeah I've tracked down people using their credit cards before and he didn't want us to leave any electronic trail. He even gave me a fake ID to use. Look."

"Bonito 'Bonnie' Guerrero." Lula read.

"Yeah, we couldn't use our own IDs. It's Spanish it means beautiful fighter."

"Wow he went to some strange excesses to keep you safe." I will do everything I have to do to keep her safe.

"He was doing everything he could think of but the bad guys found us again."

"What?"

"Yeah he took us all to Universal Studios Hollywood one day and they found us and kidnapped six of us from the bathroom?"

"Oh my god girl, what did you do?"

"He has a tracker on me and he tracked me down in minutes."

"He has a tracker on you?"

"Yeah he gave me this watch."

"Oh my god girl! Is that what I think that is? You are talkin' 'bout a watch but what about the rock on your finger? You got engaged to Batman and didn't tell me?"

"Oh yeah, that's what this whole thing is about. We got engaged in Florida. It was so romantic, he took me out on the beach, with the waves crashing, the wind blowing, the sun was shining it was beautiful and he got down on one knee and proposed to me." From the wistful tone of her voice it sounds like she still loves me, even if she is mad at me; good to know.

"What happened to Officer Hottie? I thought you two were together when this whole thing started." Of course Lula would have to bring him up.

"We were. I got kidnapped out of his bed, but Ranger clued me into the fact that Morelli has been sleeping around on me."

"Well girl we've all heard the rumors, but I thought that was only when you two were broken up and you were broken up as much as you were together so nobody thought too much about it."

"I called Joe and asked him and he told me that it's been going on since Hawaii. That's when he knew I was sleeping with Ranger and so he felt like he should be getting some on the side too."

"You can't blame a man for wanting to get some while you were broken up."

"Except that it wasn't only when we were broken up. A while back he asked me to have an open relationship with him, that we could see who ever we wanted. So he has been seeing some of these women even while we have been together and I can't take that. I know I agreed to an open relationship but I didn't think he was sleeping around. It is too much like cheating and what Dickie did to me. So I broke up with him for good."

"Huh. That's harsh, so he was cheating on you like for real and you weren't takin' advantage of Ranger on the side?"

"No, Ranger and I were together in Hawaii but we haven't maintained a personal relationship like that. Not that he didn't want to, it's just that I have been trying to keep him at arm's length. He made it clear a long time ago that he didn't want any kind of real relationship and I made it clear I wasn't really a one night stand kind of girl so we have been dancing around each other but not actually doing any dancing if you know what I mean."

"Girl I know what you are talkin' bout. So what changed? Cause now you're wearing his ring."

"Me getting kidnapped from Morelli's bed was an eye opener. It showed Ranger that I truly wasn't safe anywhere but with him and it showed him that he has gotten too close to me. That his enemies know about me now and I'm going to be in danger whether I am in his bed or not so he decided that he would rather have me in his bed."

"So he gave you that ring?"

"Yes, as soon as I broke up with Morelli he got the ring out and gave it to me."

"And he gave you the watch as well. Are those real diamonds?" I thought about turning the sound off but the light flashing off may draw her attention.

"He says they are real, but this is a special watch. It is a tracker and a panic alarm. All I have to do is push this button on the side and hey the plus sign is already lit. I guess I hit it and didn't notice."

She must have leaned down really close to the watch because really loudly I heard, "Sorry I accidentally hit the button. I'm sure you could tell nothing was wrong." And the sound went dead.

Damn she shut me off. I was going to wait a minute and turn it back on.

I stared at the screen and waited for two minutes, finally I couldn't wait anymore and turned it back on.

"So then we went to Hawaii." Stephanie was saying.

"He took you to Hawaii?"

"For a week long cruise, and it was great, but one morning, he didn't get off the boat with us and the killer who had been hiring all the bad guys found us and shot at us. All of our guards threw us against some cars and pinned us in with their bodies. The shooting went on forever. There was a cop with us who was supposed to be protecting us but he just pulled his gun and hid. Lester stole the cop's gun and went and got the bad guy and the shooting stopped. The police finally showed up and they arrested Lester for stealing the cop's gun."

"Girl you know I don't like cops and that is one reason why; they don't got to follow the law themselves and will arrest you for any reason they make up, even when you don't deserve it."

"Yeah well, Ranger got him released quickly then he came back to the boat. Told us we were all safe and took us to go look at a volcano at night."

"A volcano?"

"Yeah there is this really cool volcano there. Remember Brody Logan, the guy with the tiki?"

"Yeah you stole his tiki hoping to catch him." Lula remembered.

"Well this volcano is where Pele the goddess lives and that's where he stole the tiki from. Anyway Ranger took the whole family to see the volcano at night, it glows and you can see the lava spewing out. Then the next day we took a tour of a seahorse farm and then we got back on the cruise ship."

"Wow it seems like you did a lot."

"Yeah Ranger always made sure we had plenty to do. There were three more days left and he took me ziplining and snorkeling with turtles and on the last day he took me skydiving."

"Skydiving? Like you jumped out of a perfectly good plane?"

"Yeah tandem, I was attached to this guy Grace, and he did all the work. When we stepped out on the ledge I was like, 'nope not going let's go back in' and then he jumped off and we were falling and flipping through the air and he spun us around and around and then Ranger caught up with us and was falling with me and that was so cool, then he pulled the chute and it was so peaceful and beautiful and you could see the whole island and we just floated down and then the ground was rushing up at us and I thought we were going to crash and Grace landed us really easy on our feet and there we were on the ground safe and sound." It was really nice to hear exactly what she thought about the whole experience.

"That's crazy, that's some shit! I would never jump out of a perfectly good plane."

"It was such a rush. I can't say it was fun, fun is not the word for it. But it is exciting and you kinda think you are going to die, but you are strapped to this guy who is like all chill and like 'no worries I do this all day'. And then you are going and it is so beautiful and the flipping was fun, but my heart was beating so fast and I really thought we were going to crash, but then he brings you safely to the ground and you are like okay."

"Damn girl that's something else."

"So anyway we got back Sunday and he moved me into his apartment yesterday, and my grannie moved into my apartment so it's not like I can go back there and now he is demanding I have a bodyguard 24/7. Not just one bodyguard, two bodyguards."

"Wait a minute, hold the phone! Girl you tellin' me that you moved into the Batcave?" Lula sounded more excited than she had about us getting engaged.

"Well I moved in with Ranger but it is not the Batcave, it's just a nice apartment in town." Dios I hoped she didn't tell Lula too much!

"Where is it?"

"I can't really tell you that, it's still a secret and it won't be secure if everybody knows where he lives." Good at least she knows this.

"So tell me 'bout this apartment."

"It's nice, decorated masculine but clean. There is no clutter anywhere and no pictures, no books, no magazines. Ella, the lady that cleans his office building, maintains his apartment too. But it's nothing too fancy, it does have a large walk in closet but it's nothing compared to your closet." Stephanie offered.

"Yeah girl my closet is the shit. So you moved into his apartment and he what? Thinks he owns you?" Lula demanded.

"No he just thinks I need at least two bodyguards all the time."

"Why do you need two bodyguards?"

"Because he has enemies and like the guys that kidnapped the woman and killed her they would kidnap me and hurt me to get at him." Stephanie sounded resigned. At least she logically understands the danger even if emotionally she can't conceptualize it right now.

"Cupcake" I heard quietly, like it was said from a distance.

"Uh oh, looks like Officer Hottie wants to talk." Lula said. Fuck! I knew he would want to talk to her again but I was hoping it would be when she was in a better mood and not so mad at me. I worried what she would say to him while we are having our first argument.

To be continued…

Here we go again! I am excited to welcome you on another ride. I thank you all for reading, favoriting and following. I look forward to hearing what you all think. Be gentle, Ranger's and Steph's first fight and my first time writing Lula. Thank you for reading and all your reviews. I love them all!

Thank you to my Beta Sassysaint for signing up to do it again. You are my coach and cheerleader and I am grateful! Thank you!

My sister Jonelle has never read a single FanFiction story. She is just too busy as a RN and manager at a local hospital. But she is overly logical and left brained and she has volunteered to edit for me. She is a nurse but she could have been an editor or an English teacher in another life because she catches all my comma's, apostrophes and most of my spelling mistakes so you don't have to read them. I am very grateful she is willing to take time out of her busy schedule to review and edit my work. Thank you Jonelle.