This is my first fan fiction story so be gentle please. Fist I want to thank Basketcase for her amazing stories Redemption and Absolution. Her version of Ranger opened the door to delve in to the mind of the dark and mysterious man. She made me want to get in to his head and figure out what made him tick. Was he truly a psycho , did he have an appetite for blood and violence? The darkness that he projected does it go always to his soul , or is he simply a man with a good heart that does bad things. This story opens up with Ranger after he has gone to prison.
El Diablo viste de rojo no negro
Chapter 1
The loud metal clang of the cell door echoed through my cell. For most men, being closed up in a 4x6 cell would have been distressing, to say the least, but for me, it was a piece cake. After being held by Columbian rebels and tortured for three days, prison would seem like summer camp. I was Ranger Manoso and I could get used to anything,well, just about anything. One thing I was never able to get used to was the calming of the inner beast that left me when once my Babe had exited my life. But hey shit happens and you keep it moving.
After Bobby took that bullet nothing was ever the same again. I never blamed Steph for what happened, it was my fault. There were half a dozen different things I could have done that day to change what happened. Picking up the phone and calling Morelli would have been better, he could have sent a black and white down there to deal with her. I could have gone with Bobby and had his back, a team is always better than flying solo. Making sure he was wearing his vest before he left for stark street could have also saved the day. Instead, I did nothing, I sat back and allowed a friend, a brother to go running toward danger to save my woman, and it wasn't the first time. For that, I will never forgive myself. From the moment I saw Bobby lying there, I was consumed with guilt. This was my fault I should have known better, I should have done better.
I wondered if I would ever again hold the respect of my men due to my failure as a leader, they were going to hate me. When I saw Lester yank open the door to the police cruiser where Babe was sitting and go nuclear on her ass, I realized how much damage my actions had caused. The spill over was going to muddy every relationship at Rangeman. By indulging her recklessness and using my men to frequently keep tabs on her, I opened the door for them to become jaded with her behavior and resent her presence. By bringing her into Rangeman to work, I broke up the fraternity we had going on by introducing estrogen into our testosterone filled space. I paraded her around with a look but don't touch rule, It was selfish and fucked up big time. It put everyone one on both sides between a rock in a hard place. It was no secret at Rangeman that if anything ever happened to her if I returned from a mission and they had allowed any harm to come to Steph, someone might become hard to find. Yeah, we both had made a mess of things and it had cost us both dearly. When I saw Lester lay into her and heard the pain in his voice, I knew I had to cut her loose. Not only because she had played a part in what happened, but because it was time for me to pay the price for my actions and selfishness. I could not longer have my cake and eat it too. I was leaving nothing but carnage in my path. My entertainment and my calm were gone. Losing the amusement did not bother me, in my line of work laughing was a luxury and a reason to smile was a had been a rarity. There had been plenty of times in my life before that I did not have shit to laugh or smile about and I got through them just fine. The one thing that did concern me was what would happen when that damaged primal animal reemerged? When my anger was truly piqued it could become explosive, I was not always the cool even-tempered man everyone knows now. The army taught me to keep my emotions in check. After difficult missions and seeing things that now human should ever experience, that temper started to bubble back towards the surface and threatened to burst, though. Then I met her my Babe, the smile in her eyes did something unexplainable to me. It made me want to smile again, to relax and allow anger and awful images of the missions I had been on to dissipate.
Now, I was forced to let her go, this was the penance, it was time for me to pay