Not mine, I'm just doing this for fun.

Jenny (JenRar) – thank you for all you've done as the beta, error corrector, cheerleader, and plot consultant. This story is better because of you.

Chapter 10 – Binkie – The Wolves at the Door

Why do we squint when we are having trouble seeing something? Does making our eyes smaller somehow help them to focus more clearly? Despite the fact that the logic there doesn't make sense to me, I narrowed my eyes, trying to bring an object in focus. I'd seen some movement on the other side of a window in a non-descript two room storage shed that had an unobstructed view of the parking lot of the warehouse where Stephanie was being held. It would make an ideal hideout for someone wanting to see all the comings and goings for that building.

Zip touched my shoulder and squatted down by my side with a questioning expression. I nodded my head toward the building, and Zip stood, looked, and then squinted. Were we all losing our eyesight? Just before I grabbed his shirt to haul him back down out of sight, a sneer came over his face. He slowly lowered himself back to my side, and then hit the comm. link to be heard across the closed circuit. "Target in sight. Holding for directions."

I raised an eyebrow, questioning if Zip was sure. He seemed so confident, but the side view I had made it impossible to remove all doubt, even though my instincts were screaming that we were on top of the bastard that had hurt Stephanie, and despite having fired three times already today, my trigger finger was majorly itching to pull one more time.

Ranger's voice came across the unit, causing both of us to straighten our backs like an officer had just come on deck. "Keep him in your sights, even if by force, but you do not kill him."

We looked at each other, and I could see the silent thought pass over Zip's face. We needed to hold each other to that command. Knowing we had the son of a bitch that had hurt our Bomber so close made it really tempting to go in there and give him a taste of his own medicine.

"I'll be to you in ninety seconds," Ranger spoke once more, the sound of him moving in the background. "Confirm you will keep your eyes on him, but not your bullets."

Zip looked at me, and I glanced over my shoulder through the window once more, confirming that Juarez was still there. I looked back at Zip and nodded. Only my respect for Ranger was holding me back. Well, if I were honest, respect and a little fear over pissing him off if I went against a direct order was keeping my hand off my gun at the moment.

Zip spoke for us both. "Target in sight. We will stand down unless forced."

The response that came was in our ears, not the receivers, as Ranger proved why his skills were so much more lethal than anyone could imagine. We never even heard him approach. He gave us both the slip to say, "You two will hold the parameter. No one goes in or out of the building except me."

He looked us both in the eye until we nodded that we understood. "Call the rest of the pack to secure the perimeter and do not move out until I give the word."

Again, we nodded, as though we were either mute, or too dumb to speak. Honestly, I'd served on missions with Ranger, so I was accustomed to his highly focused commanding presence, but this was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Hell, even if I didn't know what he was capable of, I'd be on edge. Ranger looked like death himself, ready to deliver that final blow.

I knew I needed to keep my eyes and ears open to be sure none of Juarez's men managed to sneak up on us, but I wanted to keep looking in the window to see the look of horror on the bastard's face. He didn't know it yet, but the number of breaths he had left to take were at their end.

After Hector and Junior arrived, Zip told them what was happening, and we each took a side of the building, with Hector at the door. I stayed where I'd been, which gave me the best view of what was happening inside. I stretched up just enough to look inside once more and definitely didn't need to squint this time. Ranger had entered the building silently and was standing directly behind Juarez, completely undetected. The man was like a smoke vapor, traveling wherever he wanted to be, leaving no clues of his existence.

I knew I was taking an unnecessary risk, but I couldn't help it, I reached up and put my fingers under the unlocked window, pushing it up slightly, allowing me to hear the sounds inside.

I knew Ranger had announced his presence when I heard the action on his Glock sliding back, before a voice as cold as I'd ever heard announced, "I warned you ten years ago to run and not look back, and this is how you repay me?"

"Manoso," Juarez said, pretending to be unaffected by the gun at the back of his head. "How nice of you to join me, and with an hour left to spare."

"You crossed a line I won't overlook," Ranger told him, making me wonder why they were even having a discussion. It was time to pull the trigger so we could get to saving Stephanie.

"And you elected not to follow my instructions." Juarez sounded disappointed, which only proved how far off his rocker this guy was. "You are wasting your time threatening me, when we both know you can't follow through on this threat. You were supposed to save your lady friend."

Ranger's voice came out through his teeth, bringing home the fact that he was furious beyond anything I'd ever seen in him. "Make no doubt over the fact that I'll save Stephanie, but I needed to make an example out of you first so that other people wouldn't think they could use her to get to me."

"Yet, clearly that is exactly all they need to do. I got the mighty Manoso to jump, just by taking an insignificant girl and dangling her in front of him," Juarez taunted stupidly.

I heard the blow as though it were right next to my head, so I risked Ranger's fury and looked inside once more. Juarez was on the floor, and Ranger had his knee digging into the man's back. He had traded out the gun he'd been holding for a knife that caught the little light in the shed and reflected it toward me.

"Where's the key?"

"I'm afraid I can't think very clearly like this," Juarez returned, struggling to speak at all.

What was Ranger talking about? No one had mentioned a key to us. Did we need to break up and search for something else? Dammit, I knew this had been too easy.

"Maybe you could think more clearly if you had fewer fingers to pretend to ball up into a fist," Ranger said, before the screams of Juarez drowned out whatever else he might have said.

After the noise calmed down, I looked once more and heard Ranger ask again, "Now, where is the key?"

"You don't think me foolish enough to have it on me, do you?" Juarez asked, his voice not as smooth or confident as it had been.

"You've proven yourself to be foolish, but no, I didn't expect it to be hanging around your neck." Ranger replied confusing me. "So whose life did you shorten by giving them the key."

"I can give you the name, but it will be useless, as you'll never find him," Juarez boasted, his voice growing softer from the lack of air with Ranger's knee still pressing hard into his back.

"You have underestimated me for the last time, Hernando," Ranger growled, before more screaming covered up anything else he might have said.

"Remember," Juarez panted out, "you did this to her."

Then, there was total silence, the kind that makes you think the world is about to be hit by a meteor and life as you know it is being wiped out of existence.

The calm before the storm was broken by the cold sound of Ranger chuckling. He wasn't one to laugh, and this sound definitely didn't ring of true humor. "What?" he asked, interrupting his chortle. "Did you honestly think I'd come after you before I protected what was mine? I learned what your brother did not. He never cared for his wife, but you did, didn't you?"

A whimper forced me to look once more, to see Ranger had Juarez by the hair and had jerked his head backward, still restricting his air with a knee in his back.

"I never laid a hand on Maria. I put her in the pit, and I let your brother believe she had told me everything I needed to know to expose his business, but I never touched her. The damage you discovered was all done by your brother as he beat her to her death."

"You!" Juarez found his balls once more. "You have no right to speak of her. Even if what you said was true, you are still just as guilty for letting him do it. You may as well have killed her yourself to have prevented her from suffering. You deserve to see the woman you protect suffer the same fate."

"Maria called out for you," Ranger taunted. "She told your brother that she never loved him, that the child she was carrying was yours and not his. She died wondering why you didn't save her." Ranger was practically roaring this information, forcing Juarez to hear it, even if he didn't want to listen.

"You never came for her, even though I gave you everything you needed to know to save her. You chose fear of your brother over the love of your woman. I should kill you for that failure alone," Ranger threatened.

"You have no idea what you're talking about." Juarez was breaking; his voice showed he'd already accepted his defeat.

"I understand that when people know they are dying, there is a form of brutal honestly that takes over. The confessions of a dying man are always more believable than those of one who is merely being threatened."

He was right. I'd seen the same thing when I'd been hunting information, too. Since my gun was often the last thing people saw, I heard those final breath confessions and knew they spoke their deepest truths as their last words in this world.

"You set up this whole thing to punish me for things that happened because you were too weak to stop your brother's evil."

Ranger was continuing to wear him down. I'd never seen someone as adept at torture with every possible weapon. He could continue to cut off fingers or randomly stab to weaken him, but apparently, Maria was Juarez's Achilles heel. Ranger would continue pounding his head and his memories instead of wasting his strength.

"You'll never save her. You should be with her, if you have a heart at all," Juarez replied weakly, as though he could turn the tables on the boss.

"I have a lifetime to spend with her, but when she sees me again, it will be as her savior. The man who did what had to be done and who didn't hesitate to think about his own safety when her life was on the line. That's something you'll never be able to say," Ranger pushed again.

"You can't be her savior. You need the key, and I don't have it," Juarez gloated with enough confidence, I began to worry.

I heard another scream and knew Ranger's knife had slipped once more. After the noises of agony died down, Ranger laid all the cards on the table. "I found your no good cousins. They squealed like pigs, more than willing to give you up. They died begging for their own lives and telling us to take yours instead. They didn't have the key. That only leaves one more person that could have it. Now that I have my man, I no longer need your services."

I was glad we'd done the work that gave Ranger the confidence he was using against Juarez.

"No, wait," Juarez cried out, getting my attention.

If we had to go hunting once more, I didn't want to miss any details.

"How do you know who to go after?" Juarez was desperate; his question was laced with the proof of that.

"Because you were stupid enough to drug Stephanie to get her out of her apartment. She fought you, and there was a hypodermic needle on the floor in her apartment. But when she described the people who tried to torture her for information on me, she only described three men – you and the two muscles I've already had eliminated. There is only one more person you have contact with in the States that you would trust enough to help you in kidnapping my woman. And he's not known around here as the Pharmacist for nothing," Ranger informed Juarez, briefing me at the same time.

"You'll never find him," Hernando boasted.

Once again, that eerie sound of humor escaped Ranger's mouth. "I've already got him. I'm handing him over to an associate a gift to one of my men. This is the second and last time this man has hurt someone dear to my family."

I had no idea what that meant, but figured the drug dealer on the streets we knew as the Pharmacist had hurt somebody else at RangeMan, at least indirectly, which meant he wasn't going to see the sunset either, based on Ranger's words.

"You'll regret this, Manoso," Juarez tried to threaten, but it sounded more like a plea to my ears.

"I only regret not doing this the first time we met. I thought seeing the woman you loved dead and disgraced would be enough, but apparently, you need the experience of seeing her face to face to answer her question of why you abandoned her when she screamed for you." The sound of Ranger's gun being pulled got my attention, and I knew Juarez was at the end of his life.

"Tell Maria what you did as a coward's response to her dying. Tell her how you refused to take the second chance offered to you, and instead, you proved you were every bit as evil as your brother. And then…"—Ranger's voice softened—"…you can join him in hell."

The sound of the gun shot made me jump, even though I knew it was coming. Juarez deserved what he got, and more. I had no emotional response to Ranger taking his life. But I'd always jumped at gunfire, unless I was the one pulling the trigger. That was a confession I'd never make and hoped no one ever noticed about me.

Who was I kidding... There were tons of confessions I'd never make. Some things were from the past and didn't need to be brought up, and others would never be spoken of, because I wasn't sure how people would react. I was a freaking exterminator – death in the package of a baby faced man called Binkie, for crying out loud. But I had fears just like everyone else dressed in black.

I was afraid that despite all we'd done, we'd still lose Stephanie. I was afraid that after everything that had happened today, Ranger might use it as an excuse to leave her forever, citing some foolish reasoning like he was only doing it to keep her safe. But mostly, I was afraid that after everything had been resolved, to whatever end this day brought, that I would go back to my room alone and have to go through another night of seeing the faces of the people I'd failed in my life. The ones I couldn't protect. The ones I was sure would haunt me until I went to my reward.

The only time I felt the ghosts of my past pull away was when I was around Cal. He had a way about him that I didn't understand, but felt drawn to. He had a tattoo branded on his forehead that basically warned people to stay the hell away from him, yet he loved being around the guys, hanging out and shooting the shit. He was one of the best hand-to-hand fighters I'd ever sparred against, yet when we were doing security for the governor at the fair last year, I'd caught him holding a rabbit at a petting zoo. He was looking at it so strangely, as though he wanted to hate it, but his hands had betrayed him by holding it so gently.

I knew he'd caught me staring at him over the last few months. At first, I was just trying to figure him out. What made him tick, what made him the bundle of contradictions, but then it became more than just a puzzle to solve. When I watched him, I felt different. He never asked me how I was, but he always seemed to know, and I found myself searching out ways to be near him. I felt lighter just from the closeness of our bodies, enough that I began to wonder what it would be like to be with him as more than just two co-workers.

But that, too, was on my list of confessions I'd never make. Short of him walking up to me and spelling it out—"Binkie, I've got a thing for you and I want us to be together"—I didn't see that happening.

I heard the door to the shed open, and Ranger walked out, wiping his hands on a once white handkerchief. He tossed it back inside and said, "I want this place burned to the ground with nothing left standing. I don't care if you have to shoot the fire department that attempts to put out the fire, I want nothing but rubble and unidentifiable ashes left when it's all over."

"Understood," Junior replied, his jaw set firm.

"Jefe," Hector called out. "You need help with the Pharmacist?"

"Negative," Ranger replied, reiterating his point with a shake of his head. "That job is Tank's alone." He looked over our heads to the parking lot of the warehouse. "They have some unfinished business."

I didn't understand what that meant, but I knew better than to question him.

"Burn it down, and then come to the warehouse," Ranger called out, leaving so quickly, it was almost like he'd vanished.

We didn't waste any time getting started, and due to the owner of the shack leaving it full of old gas and oil cans, we got a hot blaze going in no time. We stood guard and protected the fire we'd set until the roof collapsed and the walls began to crumble. There was no stopping this mini-inferno now, so we began to relax.

"What was Ranger talking about with Maria and Hernando? I thought Maria was married to his brother," Junior asked, voicing the same confusion I had.

Zip ran his hands through his hair and said, "Old mission. We were called in to put a stop to a human trafficking ring from Columbia after they took an ambassador's daughter. All the intel gave us Alberto as the mastermind. He used his wife to get the girls and forced her to do the work he couldn't do. Hernando wasn't implicated as an active partner, but from time to time, he would help them politically when coming in or out of the country. He never got his hands dirty enough to be fully implicated, but the guys pulling the strings thought he still needed to understand we could get to him if we wanted to. It was like there was some leverage Alberto had over his brother's head that he used to get whatever favor he needed when it was necessary. We were to take out Alberto, bring Maria back to the States for prosecution, and use that as a message for Hernando that we knew he wasn't clean and could come back for him at any time if he didn't walk the straight and narrow."

"What does that have to do with the traps in the warehouse?" Junior asked.

"Ranger needed Maria as bait, so we took her first, put her in a storage shed, and left a message for Alberto and Hernando similar to what Juarez left with the control room this morning. We set a couple of easy to identify traps so that Alberto would think he'd beaten the Americans at their own game and saved his woman. Unfortunately, we had no idea he'd blame her for getting caught, and instead of giving them a chance to say goodbye before we took Alberto out, he turned on his wife and began beating her. We were about to break it up and put an end to it, when Maria realized she wasn't going to escape from her husband, and she told him basically what Ranger had said – that she'd been in love with his brother and the only reason Hernando helped them was as a favor to her. Alberto snapped and killed her before we could get to them and save her. We'd rigged her with a metal lined vest and an electric circuit probably similar to what Juarez has on Stephanie, but ours was more high tech. In the end, we hit the button to give her a small charge to get Alberto off of her. It shouldn't have killed her, but it did. She was too weak between the pregnancy and her husband strangling her. She died on the spot. Ranger waited for Alberto to regain consciousness, and then killed him point blank."

"Shit," Junior said, taking in how screwed up that mission must have been.

"Yeah…" Zip agreed. "Ranger gave the command to fall out, and for the three days it took to get back stateside, he didn't say another word. Any dipshit that thinks Ranger is a heartless killer hasn't been with him after he's done a job no one else is man enough to do. Alberto needed to die, but it was crystal clear to the rest of us there that Ranger blamed himself for Maria's death. Our intel said they were a loving couple, so we had no idea he would turn on her like that. It was the last time Ranger went in blind without verifying intel on his own, prior to acting. He swore he'd never do the government's dirty work without confirming their reports again."

Zip's story took most of the burn time of the building, so when he was done, we felt it was ash enough to walk away. All the chemicals had made the fire burn hotter – and therefore faster – than usual, so our work here was done as far as we were concerned.

"Where to now?" Hector asked.

We looked between us, an unlikely group forged by Ranger for the sole purpose of hunting, knowing there was strength in numbers when you picked the right group members. This unlikely band was more than co-workers. Hell, they were more than my brothers; they were my pack. It took an experience like this one to remind me what was important.

Zip bumped my shoulder with his as we started walking down the hill to get to the warehouse parking lot once more. I punched his shoulder, just hard enough to make him rub it, but not enough to leave a bruise, and he smiled. This was why I couldn't be with a woman. It's not that I didn't enjoy being around them, but I needed the ability to show affection like this and not worry about being arrested for abuse. I was a hard man, despite my apparently cuddly exterior.

As much as I hated my nickname at RangeMan, it was still a big step up from the moniker Bunny, which was what my baby brother had called me with such frequency growing up that it had stuck with everyone else. I figured I'd know the love of my life when I found a man that could love someone called Bunny whenever he went home.

When we got to the parking lot, it seemed as though every guy from RangeMan was there, save one; Tank was nowhere to be found, which would have been odd, considering the fact that he'd been there to give us our orders a half hour ago, if we hadn't known he was exacting a little justice of his own.

We bumped fists and disbanded, realizing our work here was done and knowing it was easier to let go of what we'd done this day if we began acting normal as quickly as possible. I turned away from the guys just in time to see Cal walking out of the warehouse. He was holding his right hand close to his chest, and there was blood dripping down his arm, so I instinctively walked toward him, wondering what had happened and hoping there was someone I could punish for hurting him.

I shook my head, cursing the damn territorial impulse that forced that thought into my mind. I might be a part of the wolf pack, but I wasn't a dog, and I couldn't go around acting like one. Our eyes locked, and any thoughts of wildlife quickly left my brain. Something was pulling me to the man in front of me, and I was tired of fighting whatever it was.

He stopped walking when there was only a couple of feet between us. "Did you hear the conversation when I was in there with Stephanie?"

I shook my head no, wondering why he was asking such a strange question right now.

He rubbed his uninjured hand over his face, scrubbing his forehead as though he were frustrated and didn't know what to say now. In the process of him moving, I noticed the sleeve on his right arm was pushed up so I glanced at his shoulder, hoping he wasn't hurt there, too.

Strangely enough, I'd been in a high stress situation most of the day, and it barely registered. My training had taught me how to keep myself calm, despite the tension around me. But when I looked at Cal's shoulder and saw a small bunny on his skin, I swear I could hear my own heart beating. There's no way he knew what my family called me – no way.

"Hell," he said as he dropped his hand from his face. "Binkie, I just spent an hour coming face to face with losing a person I know I need in my life, and it forced me to look at the fact that she isn't the only person I can't live without. If you'll have me…I'd like to be yours."

I put my hand on his tattoo and traced it lightly. It was adorable and completely out of place on his hard body, except that it was just one more thing to add to my list of contrasts when it came to Cal. I knew he'd just taken a huge risk saying what he had to me and that I needed to say something in return, but my eyes couldn't let go of the image under my fingers.

"It's a bunny," he said, breaking the silence with distain dripping from his voice for the image I was focused on.

"My brother," I began, before stopping to clear my throat to make my voice strong enough that he wouldn't misunderstand me. "My baby brother called me Bunny for years when I was growing up. When I go home, it's what everyone in my family still calls me. Until I saw this, I hated the word, but on you…it's hot."

"You're…" He stopped, letting the question hang out there.

I guessed there were a million different possibilities for what he was asking, but I went with the most likely and immediate, given his confession.

"Yeah, I am," I assured him, realizing it probably answered most any question he might have intended, not the least of which was that I most certainly was gay.

He let out a long breath, proving how much of a risk he'd taken to just walk up to me and tell me he had a thing for me, not even knowing if there was a chance I could return his feelings. As far as he knew, I might be straight and he could be picking up his teeth right now.

I liked strength in a man. It was power and muscle that did it for me, not softness and lace. Cal was exactly what I wanted, but figured I could never have. Somehow, this day had the potential for being my worst nightmare combined with a dream come true.

Cal looked down at his shoulder where my hand was still covering the unexpected tattoo and smiled. "Bunny, huh?"

I could feel my face color and hated that I had no ability to cover it up or stop the blush. "There are some things I don't want the guys to know." I hoped he could understand why I wouldn't want that to get out.

Cal reached out to me and touched the back of my neck with his calloused hand. I swore I felt more heat from his skin against mine than what the destructive fire we'd set earlier had generated. I blinked when there was a snapping sound and realized he'd pulled the mic off my neck. It hadn't been on – our team had a special unit that didn't auto engage when we spoke – but I respected the hell out of him for wanting to protect the illusion of us having a private moment.

I returned the gesture, wrapping his neck unit around my hand, still feeling his warmth around the band when I pulled it away. It wasn't until I looked in his eyes and saw the uncertainty that I realized I'd never answered his question.

"Mine, huh?" I repeated his offer, trying to be sure the idiotic way I'd reacted, getting sidetracked by a damn tattoo, hadn't made him rethink his offer.

"If you'll have me," he replied, proving he was still willing to take a chance on me.

"Fuck, yeah," I finally answered, returning my hand to his neck and pulling him toward me.

Life was an uncertain mess on its best day, and the hell of today proved Cal was right. I needed what only he could bring to me, and I wasn't going to hide in fear and risk never knowing what we could be to each other. There might have been a whistle or someone telling us to get a room, but it was in a fuzzy part of my brain that wasn't online enough to care.

The moment my lips touched Cal's, I knew I was home.