Disclaimer: I love the Stephanie Plum series, but I don't own them and I don't make anything off of them.
Warning: Those that like the Cupcake ending will not be happy with this story. No physical harm comes to Morelli, but his ego definitely gets beaten to a pulp. Not sure if this is a HEA story at this point, but let me know if you have any suggestions. This is my first FanFiction attempt and I Promise to complete it. I am having a lot of fun with the story so far. Thank you in advance for reading and please let me know what you think.
Thank you to suedesigns101 for reading this ahead of time and giving me the encouragement I needed to get up the nerve to post the story. I truly appreciate it.
You Think You Know Me
Prologue
As I sit outside the mansion of my latest target in the dark of night I let my mind wander back to a time not so long ago that it still sends chills up and down my spine and makes me want to just scream at the top of my lungs. I realize that after this particular mission I will be heading back to deal with some unpleasantness, but it needs to be done. As my mind drifts I start to think about what it used to feel like growing up in the "burg".
Have you ever felt uncomfortable in your own skin? Have you ever thought that there was something that you were meant for, but didn't know what that thing was? I have always had big dreams, like wanting to fly. However, when I jumped off the roof at the age of 6 years and broke my leg that was the beginning of the end as far as my mother was concerned. Anything that I wanted to do she made sure that it didn't happen. I was a hyper active kid, so she decided to place me into gymnastics to use up the extra energy. She never stayed to watch, so I was able to convince my coaches to teach me things that were for much older students. I had to beg them not to tell my mom, and explained that she would pull me out if she felt I was doing anything other than what she expected in the lessons. She forced me to take dance classes which I hated at first, till I convinced my teachers to let me learn all the ballroom dances, including the Latin dances. I loved the music and was able to learn everything very quickly. She never stayed to watch these either. Hey what can I say, she wanted me out of her hair. My mother also forced me into Home-EC classes until I blew up the kitchen at the community center. Hey, it wasn't my fault! She had all of these expectations of her next "burg" clone, but to tell you the truth it just wasn't me. Where was my dad in all of this you ask, well he worked at the post office and didn't talk much. My mother dealt with us kids and we weren't to disturb him. I honestly don't remember him being around all that much as a kid other than at the dinner table and in front of the TV.
Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, you know my name as Stephanie Plum and I am not currently in Trenton, NJ. I have been gone for over 18 months and have enjoyed every minute of it. I no longer live by the "burg" standards, not that I did that much while I was there, but now I am almost nothing like it. In the "burg" women were housewives, with 2.5 kids, white picket fence and stayed home to take care of their husbands. You could be educated, but not too much, if you know what I mean. You were never to exceed your husband. For the most part you were to be seen and to help spread the rumors of the neighborhood, otherwise not heard. You accepted your life as status quo and even if your husband cheated you were to keep your mouth shut. You were to marry your high school sweetheart and only sleep with that one person for the rest of your life. (Ha the standard for the men was to bed any and as many women you could before you got married. See the double standard there?) That was never in the cards for me and I fought with everything that I had against it, even though I still wanted to please those that said they loved me. What can I say, with my personality as a people person I try to make those around me happy even if at that time it made me unhappy, but not anymore.
You see after an incident 18 months before I left Trenton I was changed forever. My loyalties had almost completely changed. But we will get to that later. I no longer look to certain people for support and found my calling. And it is definitely not what my mother had planned for me. Yeah me, but too bad, so sad for my mother. Hey what can I say, I am still a bit bitter.
One thing I will never understand is that because you come from a certain area and because of whom your parents are that people automatically seem to think that they know who you are. In the "burg" you are expected to be this nice little square peg to fit into this nice little square hole. Well, I've got news for everyone there, I am not square and I don't intend to change. Looking back at my life I can see where they think by my outward appearance you could picture what I used to look like actually going along with the plan, but they never took into account my brain. Everyone thought that I had a difficult time in college, ha, that is a laugh and a half. My grades may not have been that great, but that was only because I took more than my share of classes, some of which they never knew about. If you were to look at my transcripts you would see the types of classes were not all for a business major. You see I also took Psychology classes, Chemistry classes, Physics classes, classes on Terrorism and many Histories of the world. The only thing that I was lacking in was languages. I have always had an easy time talking to people and finding out more information than they had planned on telling me. I also made friends with what some people would consider unsavory characters due to my special talent. Along with my "spidey sense" that tells me when things just do not add up I have come into some pretty interesting information over the years. Some would say that this could be deadly, but these people also know how loyal I am and that they can trust me.
That loyalty is why I find myself sitting out in front of the Mansion of one Anthony Giambucchi of the Giambucchi Crime Family waiting for him to arrive so I can have a rather important discussion with him and set some things straight between his family and the ones I am doing this favor for. As I look at my watch and realize that it is now 8:30pm in Chicago and I have been sitting here for only about 30 minutes I sit back and stare out the window as the rain slowly covers my windshield and ponder what used to be before I return to what I used to call home.
