Chapter 10, enjoy!

Warnings: none

Disclaimer in chapter 1

Have fun!

The Mercenary's Daughter

Chapter 10

Schedules

Stephanie let out a sleepy moan, hearing her phone go off. Stephanie turned to the clock and mumbled, "4:00 Am…who is calling me now?"

Stephanie looked at the caller ID and saw that it was her Grandma Mazur. Stephanie answered the phone with a sleep muddled, "Hey, Grandma, are you dead?"

"Nope, but I called to tell you that your sister Valarie decided on a surprise visit with the girls," Grandma Mazur said, making Stephanie sit up in the bed in shock.

"What in the hell?" Stephanie asked, looking into her dark room, "It's 4 in the morning, where did she go?"

"Your parents house," Grandma Mazur said, making Stephanie roll her eyes, "Helen called me early this morning and told me that Valarie was standing on the front porch, with suitcases and the girl's things, took a bus across the country to get here."

"You know what that means?" Stephanie asked, laying back down in the bed and looking up at the ceiling, "Steve was doing something bad…."

"I think so too, but Valarie was tight lipped to your mother," Grandma Mazur said, "She's not cracking…yet."

"There's two extra bedrooms in my condo, they can move in with you, and away from the 'Burg," Stephanie said, turning her head to her closed door, "Look, let's hash this out in the morning, Heidi has a sleeping schedule and I don't want to deviate from it, four months old are finicky as hell! If she wakes up now, she's never going back to sleep, we just got her sleeping through the night."

"So is the baby's father hot, does he have a nice package?" Grandma Mazur asked, earning a groan from Stephanie.

"Goodnight, Grandma!" Stephanie said, hanging the phone up and laying back on the bed, her eyes closing for slumber, but Heidi's cried rang out through the baby monitor. Stephanie covered her eyes and sat up saying, "Shit…."

"Don't worry, Babe, Papi's got Heidi," Carlos said, making Stephanie sigh and lay back down on the bed, "You can sleep."

"Good," Stephanie sighed, turning the monitor down and turning to go back to sleep, "Wake me up at normal people time…"
(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

Carlos turned on the side lamp of beside his bed and fed Heidi the bottle she was demanding from him. She went silent as she ate her early morning meal, looking up at Carlos with sleepy eyes. Carlos smiled and said, "I think you're going to go right to sleep after this bottle, Quedria."

Heidi gave him a giggle and a smile around her bottle, her fist swinging up to grab at Carlos's hair. Carlos looked around the room, as if someone was spying on him and then began to make faces down at Heidi. Heidi let out a squeal and reached to grab at Carlos again, a smile on her face and her bottle forgotten. Carlos smiled and said, "You're not going to back to sleep anytime soon and your nanny is going to kill me, since you'll be sleeping all day long."

Heidi gurgled and gave her father a smile, before latching onto the nipple of her bottle again. Carlos poked her nose and then leaned back in his bed. He knew Stephanie was working hard to get Heidi on a sleeping schedule and the baby was just getting into it but sometimes little things set the baby off. At four months old, Heidi was becoming more aware of things and she could focus on Stephanie and himself, with her eyes. Every time she saw either adults, she would smile and kick her legs. Her motor skills were still developing but she would try to reach out for them. He could still recall the moments he caught Stephanie singing softly to his child, the sight of her, whispering sweet songs, made his heart stir and a smile form on his face.

Carlos smiled and pulled the empty bottle from Heidi's mouth and said, "Okay, Quedria time to do some work outs, I'll tell you a bit about your real mother."

Carlos placed Heidi on the bed and got up, slipping on a pair of sweats and nothing else. He tossed a blanket out on the floor and placed Heidi on it, on her back. He got down and began to do push ups above her talking softly to her.

"Your mother was a beautiful woman, you look just like her it hurts sometimes," Carlos said softly, as Heidi looked up at him, "She was strong and full of courage, even in the face of danger, she wasn't afraid, and I admired her for that. She used to tell me that cowards were lesser than scum and didn't have her respect. I used to wonder why she hated cowards so much…she never did tell me, she told me several things about her home life, and none of them were pretty. Her father…if you could call him that, was abusive, tried to rape her, I shouldn't be telling you this, but you can't understand me, She fought back, she always did fight back. Anyways, she told me that at the age of 16, her father…."

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"My dad sold me for drug money, when I was 16," Roxanna said ,as she sat on Carlos's back, watching his muscles work as he did pushups, "Thought he could get a good deal for me, since I wasn't putting out and he couldn't catch me long enough to fuck me."

Carlos paused in doing his pushups and turned his head to look at the woman on top of him. She gave him a small smile and said, "I don't know what you were expecting from my home life, it was never rainbows and butterflies."

"Something a little better than a crack head father who tries to abuse his child and then sells her off," Carlos said, motioning for Roxanna to get off him, "Who bought you?"

"The government did," Roxanna said with a smirk, climbing on Carlos's bed and laying on it, "Of course, they're not going to tell you that, they have the sale written down as something like computers or equipment, because you know, human trafficking and all that jazz."

"Why did the government buy you, Roxanna," Carlos asked, grabbing the bar that was mounted to the closet doorway and began to do pull-ups.

"Because, I had potential, they were looking for people who had the potential to become freaks or something like that," Roxanna said, with a shrug, playing with her hair, "They wanted to turn us into freaks, Unmentionables, as they called it, people with special powers, like fire or some shit…they placed the people with potential in labs, injecting us with things that either killed us, or turned us into what they wanted us to be, Unmentionables."

"Do you consider yourself lucky that you survived their experimentation?" Carlos asked, as he finished doing pull ups.

"No, I wanted to die, we weren't given that option, the first batch was allowed that option, but we had to suffer through pain and agony, and once you survived that round of pain, another round was waiting for you, until we became their perfect unmentionables," Roxanna said, looking over to Carlos as he stripped in front of her, "I don't think I'll ever feel normal again…after what they did to me, I'm a monster now, I'm too powerful, too deadly."

Carlos leaned forward and grabbed Roxanna's chin saying, "You're not a monster, not by a long shot, we've both done terrible things in our lives, but we did it only to protect ourselves and those we care for."

"You're right, Carlos," Roxanna whispered, before the door to Carlos's room opened and a man came in.

Carlos grabbed Roxanna's hair and snarled, "Who told you to stop sucking my dick! Get back to it, whore!"

"Roberto, the boss is expecting you and your luscious pet tonight at dinner, we have a guest that wants to test out your pet…."A man said, earning a growl from Carlos.

"I don't share, tell Xavier that he can find a different pet to give up," Carlos grunted, earning a smirk from the man.

"I feel you, that's one hot piece of ass, I'll tell him about the new shipment of young girls from Ethiopia, I think the guest likes them on the young side."

The man slammed the door behind him, and Roxanna lifted her head whispering, "You can't protect me all the time, Carlos."

"I know I can't, but I'll try to," Carlos said softly, earning a frown, "What?"

"Why do you insist on protecting me? I don't need it, and you can't have the extra stress on your back," Roxanna said, as Carlos pulled away from her and walked into his bathroom.

"I can too, and besides, I want to protect you, my gut is telling me to protect you, and I always listen to my gut," Carlos said, giving Roxanna a half smile, "Let me handle this, now, I need a shower, you should join to make our covers more credible."

Roxanna rolled her eyes but got up and followed Carlos into the opulent bathroom.

(~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~)

"Who's the kid?" Lula asked, as Stephanie led Diesel into her condo, Heidi attached to her front with the sling, "I think he's too white to be the offspring of your boss."

"He's not Carlos's son, this is our neighbor's kid, Diesel, Diesel, this is Lula, say hi!" Stephanie said, placing a hand on Diesel's blond hair.

"Hi Lady," Diesel said, holding on tight to his helmet, "You're Ms. Stephanie's friend?"

"I sure am, I make her panties," Lula said, earning a hiss from Stephanie, but causing Diesel to perk up.

"Panties, what are those?" Diesel asked, going over to Lula and sitting down beside her and Brittany, who was given Heidi.

"Well, they're girl underwear, I make them, because Stephanie wants to open a store selling them," Lula said, making Diesel's eyes get big.

"Will Ms. Stephanie sell boy underwear too, cause I like to wear my underwear outside of my pants and so they get torn and dirty all the time. Mommy hates when I do that, cause she has to go out and buy more!"

Stephanie rolled her eyes, thinking of the time Diesel appeared on the front porch, wearing nothing but underwear, cowboy boots, a blue cape and his helmet shouting lines from the movie 300. Maybe she and Lula could create a pair of boy's underwear that can handle even the craziest of three year olds.

Stephanie looked at the two women and said, "I thought we were meeting at my parent's house to get Valerie and the girls?"

"Your grandma did it," Brittany said, looking down at Heidi and making faces at her, "She did it early this morning, got your sister, and the girls out of your parent's house, just before the crack of dawn, they're out now, grocery shopping, which is why I called you over here."

"And why are you out of Lester's place?" Stephanie asked, sitting down beside Brittany and Heidi, "You're in a full body cast, how are you moving around?"

"Lester, I told him your family needed me and he was on it like a hornet," Brittany said, as she bounced Heidi in her arms, "By the way, have I told you that your grandma was cool?"

"Man, she's the shit, she got all Alpha and shit and was snapping at that Stepford Wife you call a mom, had the three of them in Lester's SUV and out the door, without much fuss," Lula said as Diesel talked in her other ear about Sparta or something of the sort.

"Oh good," Stephanie sighed, laying back in the seat and looking at Heidi and Brittany interact, "I've kind of gotten this Nanny thing down, I mean, she's a little baby, she's only just gotten rolling over down, now we're working on sitting up and junk."

"Wait until she's crawling and shit," Lula said, as Heidi reached out and tugged hard at Brittany's hair, making the woman yelp with pain, "She'll be in everything and when she starts walking, it's game over to your sanity…"

"What?!" Stephanie yelped looking over to Heidi, who smiled and reached out for her, "Sanity?!"

Stephanie turned to Lula and then Brittany and then Heidi and then back to Brittany and then back to Heidi, frowning. Brittany had Heidi's face squished against hers and with their faces together, Stephanie could see that Heidi had the same cheek bones as Brittany and the same colored eyes. If Stephanie looked hard at Brittany and Heidi, she could even see that they had the same skin tone and the weird little second dimple in their chin. It made Stephanie's gut churn with an odd feeling. There was no way in hell Brittany and Heidi could-

"We're back from the grocery store, with goodies," Grandma Mazur's voice broke through Stephanie's thoughts, "We got lots of junk food, for the kiddies and Brittany, and Brittany, when do you want to talk about killing Steve?"

"Now if you want," Brittany said, her eyes on Stephanie's turned face, "Come on, Valarie, tell me what in the hell happened to you."

Stephanie gave Brittany a smile and then got up to help her grandma, there was no way in hell that could be possible!

TBC…

Hmm...Stephanie remember, always listen your gut, please leave a review!