A/N: I wanted to make sure that I covered all my bases. So here's my blanket disclaimer: I do not own, nor do I profit from the works of JE. Nor am I allowed to take any of the MM home for extended periods of time. Apparently, I have pissed off the Fanfiction Gods somehow and must be supervised whenever within touching distance of said MM. It's sad really. I feel like Grandma Mazur! *sigh*
A/N2: This is the story I have worked on for NaNoWriMo 2015. I hope you all enjoy.
PLEASE READ & REVIEW!
Chapter 1:
I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped out my front door. The wasn't a sound to be heard, no birds chirping, no cars on the street, not even the occasional barking of a dog. It felt off. Turning around with keys in hand, I proceeded to lock my door and head to my car. Squeeling tires broke the uncomfortable silence that permeated the air. I jumped, not knowing what was happening, hiding behind the brick pillar. I watched a beat up brown POS sedan come sliding in a turn around the corner and onto my street. It managed to make the turn, but the driver miscalculated slightly and crashed into my neighbor's new picket fence. The driver was slumped in his seat, resting his head on the steering wheel. I could hear the engine of a second vehicle gunning in our general direction and watched as a blacked out SUV skid to a stop just feet from the brown POS.
A group of musclebound men clad in black surrounded the car, weapons drawn. I shrank back fearful of the situation. What the hell?! This doesn't happen on my street!
"Johnson, we have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up. You are in violation of you bond agreement." The man, clearly the leader barked at the man still sitting in the POS. "Place your hands on the steering wheel. DO NOT MOVE!" I was facinated by the scene unfolding before me. "Santos! Ram! Hal! Take him into custody." With weapons still trained on the man in the car, three men moved forward. The door was jerked open and one of the men in black yanked the man onto the ground. Whipping a pair of cuffs out from the back of his belt, the man in black cuffed the prisoner. As soon as the cuff clicked, the others returned their weapons to their holsters in their belts.
"Son of a bitch! You Fuckers! You woulda never got me if I didn't crash. You gunna to pay fo' this!" The man yelled, clearly pissed. He looked as if he belonged on a street corner in a bad part of town slinging drugs. His mannerisms and clothing screamed ghetto. "Me and my boys gunna cap yo' ass!"
One of the men leading the foul mouthed ghetto rat to the SUV, 'accidentally' bashed his head into the door frame and laughed, "Johnson. Better watch where you walk." The husky laughter from the others felt like music to my ears. I edged out further from the pillar to get a better look at the men in black. In a split second I had five guns pointed straight at my head, five sets of eyes trained on my face and I almost wet myself. Oh, dear GOD!
"Show yourself!" The leader barked. With knees shaking, I dropped my purse and raised my hands to show them I was unarmed. I inched my way out from behind the pillar and stood on my front walkway. "Who are you?" He questioned me.
I swallowed hard and stammered, "I..I..I..uh, I live here." I pointed to my house behind me. "I'm sorry. I was just leaving and saw what happened. I...uh..."
Before I could finish the prisoner screeched at me, "Bitch you as good as dead too. I know where you live. You die too!" I paled at his words. I felt as if I was underwater, the sounds coming into my ears were muffled, everything began to close in and I felt woozy. Then, just before everything went black, I felt strong arms catch me as I fell to the ground.
"Ma'am? Ma'am?" I heard a sexy deep muffled voice through the fog in my mind. "Ma'am. Please, wake up. Ma'am!" I slowly lifted my eyelids and focused on the faces that surrounded me. I realized that five extremely handsome men were staring at me, I felt hot and blushed.
"Wha.. what happened?" I asked sitting up slightly, putting a hand to the side of my head.
"You passed out. Are you okay?" I turned to look into the handsome face of the speaker. He was a huge man, maybe 6'4", gorgeous green eyes, tanned caramel skin, slightly darker caramel hair cut short on the sides, slightly longer on the top, it was slicked back with hair gel. The dimple on his left cheek was so cute, and his lopsided smile was heartstopping.
"I'm fine. I'm sorry." I sat up completely, with the aid of another fine specimine of a man. His medium dark skin was accented by the fact his hair was a warm chocolate brown. His blue eyes were drop dead heavenly. His gentle hands assured me that he knew something about medical care, as they roamed over me checking me for injuries. He asked me, "Do you still feel faint? Did you eat breakfast this morning? Do you have a medical condition that would cause you to lose consciousness?"
"Um... No. Yes, I ate a boston creme doughnut and coffee. And no medical condition." The smirk on his face was cute, but the leader shook his head. I heard one of the men mutter something about doughnuts under his breath.
"Ma'am. I think we better talk." I could tell by the tone of his voice I wasn't going to like what we had to 'talk' about.
I was helped to my feet and I dropped my gaze to the ground. "We can go inside. I can make coffee and I have a coffee cake."
He nodded before he pulled one of the men aside. The second man walked over to the SUV and drove away. The first man with the gorgeous green eyes handed me my purse, I dug around inside and produced my keys. I unlocked the door, disarmed my security alarm and showed them in. One man stood guard at the door, while the leader and the medical guy walked with me into my kitchen, the last guy stood sentry at my back door. I dropped my purse on the counter and proceeded to make an extra strong pot of coffee. The coffeecake was pulled from my cabinet and sliced. I poured cream into a creamer and set it as well as the sugar bowl on the table. They sat in silence watching me until I placed cups of steaming coffee in front of them.
"Ma'am," The leader spoke. "What you witnessed today was a take down of a wanted felon, who has skipped on his bond agreement."
"He's an FTA?" I asked. By the puzzled look from the other man, I was guessing I was speaking lingo that they didn't expect from me.
"What?" I asked. "I know about FTA's." The leader watched me with a blank expression, his dark eyes assessing me. It was odd, it was like I knew him. But I knew I had never met him in person before. It was like I knew all five of the men that had invaded my street not more that 15 minutes before. I had an odd feeling about it.
"Ma'am. I want to introduce myself..." He was cut off from finishing when his phone rang. He held up one finger as he answered. "Yo." Yo? I thought, I know that greeting. "Will be back tomorrow morning, Babe." Upon hearing the word 'Babe', I dropped my coffee cup, it shattered onto my kitchen floor. OMG! OMG! I know who he is! I know who all these guys are. I felt as if I was going to pass out again. The leader watched me pick up the pieces and wipe up the mess. "Babe. Call you tonight." I heard him snap his phone shut, and he asked me, "Ma'am? Are you alright?"
I sat down hard into my chair, the second man pulled out a small penlight and flashed it into my eyes. I batted it away, "Bobby, stop!" Both he and the leader froze.
"What did you say?" The leader whispered. I cringed. DAMN! Now they know, I know.
"Bobby, stop!" I looked defiantly into the leaders eyes. "I know who you are. I know who all of you are." He quirked his one eyebrow and studied me again.
"Damn it!" Bobby swore, and bounced his open palm off of my kitchen table. "How did you know?"
I smiled and shook my head, "Because, Bobby, I've known about you guys for a while." I felt a little flushed at my admission, but knew it would go a long way in helping me get out of this mess.
"Excuse me?" The leader answered, clearly unimpressed. "All of us?" I blushed.
"What can I say? I couldn't stop reading about you."
He shook his head almost imperceptably. He gave an almost sigh, as I had always imaginged he did, "What is your name?"
"I'm Stephanie. Stephanie Wilson." The leader gave an almost smile and looked at Bobby.
Bobby groaned and hung his head in his hands. "Another Stephanie?"
"What? I can't help it if Steph and I share a name." I responded, "I'm not like her." I bit my lip knowing I was getting the eyebrow from the leader. "Okay, maybe that's not true. But, I'm not completely like her." I picked at a nonexistant piece of lint on my jeans.
"Right." Bobby chuckled. "Do you blow up cars? Do you get rolled in garbage? Do you get shot at?"
I gave a weak smile, "Only sometimes." Both men barked with laughter, I looked up to watch the guard at the back door stifle a laugh. "WHAT?"
"CHRIST! I should have guessed as much." The leader turned to me, knelt at my feet and and looked into my eyes. "So, you know who I am?"
"Yes." I paused, and closed my eyes, hoping this wasn't a dream. Upon opening them, I realized it wasn't a dream. This was real. "You're Ricardo Carlos Manoso. AKA Ranger, CEO of Rangeman Inc. You're based out of Trenton, New Jersey." He nodded. "This is Bobby Brown. Rangeman Medic." I pointed to the men standing behind us, "That's Ram. Lester's at the front door and I assume Hal took your FTA to the copshop." Bobby ran his hand through his hair, clearly flustered.
"How did you know it was us?" Bobby asked.
"I didn't at first. It wasn't until I started to put things together when Ranger got his phone call from Stephanie. As soon as he said 'Yo' my brain started to work overtime. But when he called Stephanie, 'Babe', I just knew it was you guys." I rubbed my forehead with my hand. "I still don't understand how you all can be real." I looked at Bobby watching his brows furrow. "I mean, you're all fictional characters in Janet Evanovich's books!"
"No. We're real. Believe me, we're real." Ranger stated flatly, clearly pissed. "Those damn books!" He gave another almost sigh and patted my knee before he rose to his feet. "I don't know how to explain it, other than before the books were published, we didn't exist. Now, we're here. I contacted Ms. Evanovich and we had a long talk. According to her, we were brought to life with a little help from a friend of hers."
"Brought to life? How can that be? You're fictional characters." I shook my head in disbelief. Muttering to myself I wondered, "Wonder if it was Diesel?"
"Diesel is real."
At this point, my jaw dropped open. "Diesel? Real?" I shook my head trying to understand the whole situation.
Ranger nodded and dropped his voice to a whisper, "Yes, he's real. He's the one that got us into this mess. Not that I'm complaining."
"Stephanie? Is there a nickname I can use for you?" Bobby blushed a little. "It's just kinda hard knowing that there's two Steph's and all."
"Uh... I guess you can call me Sassy. Everyone does."
Bobby nodded and patted my hand. "Sassy, I think we need to talk about what happened today."
Ranger resumed his seat at the table, "Sassy. The FTA we apprehended today is really bad news. Marcus Johnson. Arrested for attempted rape, burglary, assault with a deadly weapon and multiple drug charges. Jumped bail a week ago in Trenton and we traced him to California. Fairfield, to be exact. Stormed his place this morning but he was already gone, so we waited for him." He was interupted by a phone call, Ranger nodded at Bobby to continue, while he rose and left the room to answer his call.
"Someone tipped him off about us and he made a run for it. We tracked him down to a small house here in Vacaville, we hit it and he managed to escape. We chased him until he wrecked outside. That's when we found you." Bobby raised his hands in a 'there you go' manner and sat quietly waiting for me to absorb their story.
"So, he's going to be transferred back to Trenton, and I don't have to worry about him anymore, right?" I asked, hoping his answer would be yes.
Bobby frowned, and I knew my little sidetrip into denial land was shortlived. "Sassy... he's going back to Trenton. But it's not over for you."