I thought of this story while watching Lock, Stock so I thought it'd be an appropriate name. It's kind of a rewrite of Face Down but I renamed it and rewrote it. Not making any money and nobody belongs to me.
Word of warning I tend to use the F word a lot, too many English mob movies.
Chapter one: Batman ReturnsSteph:
I looked over at the man lying next to me and smiled, my life was almost perfect, bounty hunting was going well and I had a little bit of money saved up, I'd joined a gym and gotten fit plus I had a great boyfriend.
Ranger had left about four months ago to go "in the wind" and Joe had joined him a month later for a "secret undercover op". I had heard some rumours that they were working together somewhere but I didn't really care anymore. It had taken 15 tubs of Ben & Jerry's and a convention with Lula, Mary Lou and Connie to get me to take control of my life and the men in my life. This is where Liam came in; I met him when one of his employees went FTA. We'd been dating two months and I had yet to find anything wrong with him. He was 35, owned an accounting firm, strong, handsome, loved me the way I was and didn't disappear for months at a time without notice.
"How am I supposed to sleep when you're staring at me?" He said, his eyes still closed.
"How am I supposed to sleep with someone as hot as you in my bed?"
"Hmmm, I love it when you stroke my ego." He rolled over and pinned me underneath him.
"Stop talking and maybe I'll stroke something else."
*
Four hours later and I was pulling up to the bonds office.
"Where the hell have you been?" Vinnie poked his head out his door when I walked in. "I pay you to be out there catching criminals not playing nookie with your new boyfriend. I'm losing money here."
I dropped the doughnuts on Connie's desk and turned to Vinnie. "You stop spending your money on buying and traumatizing innocent animals and I'll stop losing it."
"Humph" Vinnie went back into his office with a slam of his door.
"Hey skinny white girl." Lula was buffing her nails on the couch wearing a bright red spandex body suit. Both she and Connie were being unusually quiet.
"Hey skinny white girl." I said looking at her. "I come in unusually late, with the "I've-just-been-fucked-real-good" look on my face and all you can say is "hey, skinny white girl."
I looked at Connie; she was overly involved in her nails, looking back at Lula with my hands on my hips. "Okay. What' going on?"
"Hey Babe"
Oh Fuck!
I turned to see that Ranger had walked through the door, I hadn't seen from him in months and all I wanted to do now was pull him to the floor and have my way with him. Stupid Hungarian hormones. I'm supposed to be angry, he left me and didn't even say goodbye.
"I smell something burning Babe." I looked up to his face, the Stupid Fuck found me amusing.
I pulled him into a bear hug. "God Ranger, it's been months. I thought you weren't coming back. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to thank you." I pulled back.
"Thank me for what?" Batman looked at tad confused.
"For leaving, if you hadn't left, I never would have meet Liam. My new boyfriend."
Ranger looked like he'd been slapped. HA, take that Batman, I grabbed my files on Connie's desk and made my escape before the shock wore off.
Ranger:
I was speechless; I looked over at Connie and Lula. They were both sporting a look that I assumed would be similar to mine a few seconds ago. I knew Steph would be angry at me for leaving but I never thought about her finding a new guy.
"Who. The. Fuck. Is. Liam." I said trying to control my anger.
"An accountant." Lula said in a matter of fact voice.
"An accountant." I repeated.
"Yes. Steph took a high bond skip, that would have been yours, and when Steph went to his workplace she met Liam. The owner." Connie explained.
Neither Connie nor Lula were looking at me and I had a feeling that I was getting the cold shoulder from them.
"I wasn't like you were here to take the skip." Lula added. "Or look after White Girl, so now she has a new boy."
"The Fuck she does." I stormed out of the office, I was trying to keep in control but it was fading fast. I wanted to kill someone, preferably Liam. Who the fuck did he think he was moving in on my Babe and why the fuck didn't my men do anything to stop it. I asked them to look out for her while I was away, and they knew she was my woman so why did they let Liam get anywhere near her.
By the time I'd gotten to Rangeman I'd worked myself up to breaking point.
"Ranger, your back." Lester said when I walked into the control room.
All the response he got was a punch in the face.
"Fuck," Lester swore as blood started pouring out of his nose. "Guess you found out about Liam."
"Yeah, you want to explain that to me, I leave for four months and expect my men to look after my woman, but I get back to find her smitten with an accountant."
"Calm down Ranger." Tank entered the Control room with Bobby who went straight to Lester. "It's not like you two were in any sort of a relationship before you left. Steph's aloud to be with someone who loves her."
Taking deep breaths I slowly started to calm down. I looked around the control room, everyone was watching us. "I don't pay you to stand around." I said back to my deadly calm voice.
A chorus of "Yes, Sir" and "Sorry Boss" was heard as they all scattered away.
Steph:
By 4 o'clock, I'd caught 3 skips then headed back to my apartment, Liam and I had a date tonight and I wanted to look my best. We were going to a restaurant called Le Poisson Rouge, which was a very nice place that was defiantly out of the average Joe's price range.
When I opened by apartment door the phone was ringing.
"Hello."
"Hey Beautiful" Lester responded, I'd become really close with all the guys from Rangeman and constantly went out with them after a hard day's work.
"What's up Les? The boss riding you hard now his back?"
"You have no idea. Anyway, we're all going out tonight and were wondering if you wanted to join? Maybe if you get me drunk enough I might just take advantage of you."
"Ha, if you get drunk enough. I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole Les; I don't know where you've been." I joked and was rewarded with a rich, deep laugh. "Anyway, I can't go. Liam and I have a date tonight."
"Where?"
"Le Poisson Rouge"
"Very nice, try the Coq au Vin. It's delicious."
"How many lucky girls have you taking there?" It was common knowledge that Lester was a player, but I knew he was a good guy about it; he always made sure the girls new the deal before hand and had a good time.
"Only the one's I really want to impress."
Laughing, I said goodbye and started getting ready for my date. Lula and I had gone shopping yesterday to find the perfect dress, it was black silk, which stop just on my knees, and had no straps on the top. It was simple yet elegant, well hopefully that's what it looked like. I had a pair of black high heels to go with it, and a matching black clutch. I had been spending way too much time around the Merry Men.
I primped and premed for two hours, getting my hair to fall over my shoulders in soft curls, and putting on some light, natural makeup. At 6 o'clock, there was a knock on my door.
"Come in, I'll just be a sec." I yelled to Liam as I ran around my room getting things for my clutch.
"So what do you think?" I let against the lounge room door in what I tried to be a sexy position only to realise it wasn't Liam.
"Babe, you look beautiful." His eyes turned deep chocolate as he took a step towards me.
I held out my hand in a stop signal. "Ranger what are you doing here?"
"I have a distraction job I need you for. But you're going out with him." His eyes seemed to get harder as he said this.
"Yes, Liam and I are going on a date, he should be here soon, I'm sorry but maybe if you reschedule it for tomorrow, I'll be able to help you." I may be angry at Ranger but I'd been helping the boys out wherever I could while he'd been away and that wasn't going to change now he was back.
"I can't reschedule for tomorrow, he'll be out of town by then. "
A knock on the door interrupted us, when Ranger heard the locks turn he said. "Does he always brake into your apartment?"
"No, he has a key."
"Hey Baby." Liam walked into the lounge room and locked his eyes on Ranger. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine." Ranger relied before I could. His voice was stone cold and I knew he was trying to intimidate Liam.
"Ranger's an old friend who just got back into town and wanted to catch up, but it will have to wait till another time." I was trying to defuse the situation before Ranger decided to take his gun out and shoot Liam.
"Babe, I need you at nine, will you be finished dinner by then?" Ranger still wasn't looking at me, but instead sending what looked a slight smirk Liam's way.
I huffed, part of me really wanted to tell Ranger to stuff it, but there was a bigger part of me that knew I could never say no to Ranger, he needed my help and god help me I was going to help him.
"Sure Ranger, will this outfit be okay for the distraction job?"
Finally Ranger turned his eyes back to me, they were back to being liquid sex. "It's perfect Babe. The Apple Bar, 9 o'clock." And with that he left.
"What was that all about?" Liam asked.
"Ranger is an old friend and my sometimes boss; he just needs some help tonight on a job. I'm sorry but Ranger's done so much for me in the past, I owe him this."
I waited for Liam to blow up about it but he just took in a deep breath and looked back up at me. "Okay, well we've got until 9, let's forget about him and have a good time."
Good god of tastykakes I think I'm falling in love.
*
It was desert time before Ranger got brought up again.
"So, Ranger is the one who owns Rangeman?" Liam asked.
"I thought you wanted to forget about him?"
"So sue me, I'm curious." A man after my own heart and he was eating desert.
"Yes, he's kind of my mentor in the bounty hunting business."
"And a distraction job is what?"
I breathed out a sigh, I had done a few distraction jobs while Liam and I had been dating but I never really explained what they involved, and I wasn't too sure about how he'd take it.
"It effectively what it's named, a distraction. I go in all dressed up and distracted an FTA in a bar then lead him unsuspectingly to the arms of the Rangeman crew." He faced didn't show whether he was mad or not so I continued. "It normally the safest and easiest way to get the FTA. I wear a wire and there are about 3 of the Merry Men inside the bar and another two outside."
"Wow, seems all very secret sleuth spy kind of work."
I laughed out loud. "I don't think anyone has referred to my work as secret sleuth spy kind of work. Normally I just bungle along and try to do as least damage to me and others as possible."
Liam reached over and grabbed my hand, kissing it he said. "You're beautiful Steph, I bet the FTA's would follow you any where even if it meant back to jail."
This time I leaned over and kissed him, "You flatter me."
"Just telling the truth. Do you think that Ranger would let me watch you on a distraction job?"
Absolutely no way in hell. "You wouldn't be allowed to be in the bar, but he might let you listen into the wire, if you stayed in the car."
Looking at his watch, Liam said. "Well we better get going now, it'll take about half an hour to get to The Apple Bar and it's already 8:20"
We paid the bill and left, I had a bad feeling about letting Liam be there but I wanted him to see me work, Joe had never been interested in what I did for Ranger he just got angry about it.
