A/n: Y'all...81 reviews, 41 follows, and almost 6k views. This is beyond cool; I feel like I should be typing while wearing aviator shades and sipping expensive scotch. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed - I've become one of those people who HAS to check their email as soon as the notification pings. I love reading them...so with that in mind, as soon as I hit 90 reviews, I'll post Chapter 15 (yes, it's written and it's been to my lovely Beta). And I've also made a cyber friend on this very website, she's been such a huge cheerleader and she's writing my all-time favorite story in the 50 Shades realm of FanFiction; if you a fan, WriterDi authors 'After the Fall', it's bitchin'.

Thanks for reading!

The day of Myra Costanza's memorial service was overcast and muggy, and a light, misty rain fell the majority of the morning. Stephanie stood in front of the mirror inside her walk-in closet, contemplating two different black dresses. She nearly jumped out of her skin when two mocha hands came to rest on her shoulders.

"Geez, Ranger, make some noise! One of these days you're – mmmm…Stop! I'm getting dressed for a wake, for cryin' out loud!" she huffed, pretending to be indignant. Ranger only smiled and lifted the dress she had been leaning toward wearing from the hanger.

"This one." He said before kissing her neck and pulling his own shirt over his head.

Stephanie was just putting the finishing touches on her makeup when she heard Ranger's cell phone go off. He answered with his standard "Yo.", and immediately his posture stiffened. His eyes immediately found Stephanie's, who froze and held her breath, waiting for an implication as to what the call was about.

"You're sure?...Who was the source?...It's verified?...Be ready to roll in 10." He hung up turned toward the closet, suiting up for the field.

Stephanie stomped over and said, "Well?", hands on her hips. No way was he just sliding out with no explanation.

Ranger turned to her while buckling his utility belt and said, "We've got a lead, a good one. That was Hector; one of the recruits saw some Asian guys going in and out of a warehouse in Linden, near the docks. He thought they were using it for storage, but noted a few big crates being moved in. Big enough to hold a lot of guns."

Stephanie took a deep breath and said, "So this is the break we've been waiting for. Hector can come home if you end this." His dazzling smile was all the answer she needed, and she threw her arms around him and squeezed him tightly. When he stepped away to lace his boots, she selected some modest black pumps and stepped into them. She raised her eyes to Ranger, intent on telling him to be careful, and saw his blank face in place.

"What?" she asked. She glanced down at herself. The dress was funeral appropriate, she mused, so she looked back at him and said, "What?"

"Babe."

"Uh uh, Ranger, you can't double-whammy me and expect anything back. The blank face and the one-word answer? What's the problem?"

"You're not going." He said, curtly, and continued holstering his weapons.

Stephanie liked to think of herself as a logical person. She was, admittedly, quick to anger, but she thought she was also a fair judge of situations that some found overwhelming. So, she tried counting backwards from ten. When that didn't work, she opted for a cleansing breath. Still not finding peace, she decided to go ahead and flip out.

"I most certainly AM going. We discussed this; I've known Carl since we were kids. His wife was killed, I have to be at that wake, Carlos. If the bad guys are close to Newark, I'm safe going to a funeral here in Trenton. You can't make this decision for me. I'm going." She stated.

"It's not safe."

"It's perfectly –"

"Goddammit, Stephanie, will you listen to me for ONCE?!" Ranger pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, eyes closed. When he opened them, he saw his wife with her eyes wide open, trying not to cry. He stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug, kissing her face over and over.

"They killed Costanza's wife. Just took her out of her own house and strangled her. If anything happened to you, I would kill them all and then I would die. I don't want to live in a world where you don't exist. I can't chance it, Babe, especially not without a guard." They had discussed, at length, a Rangeman showing at Myra's service and decided it was in poor taste, considering the TPD and Rangeman's uncivil parting over the Joint Task Force. Tensions were running high between the police and the Rangemen, and Steph argued that a group of Merry Men seen there would cause bad feelings amongst what was sure to be a strong showing from TPD. Stephanie had planned to go with Giana, accompanied only by Ranger, who would wait outside. Gia offered to go to be a buffer on the off chance that any of the cops became confrontational with Stephanie.

Stephanie relaxed into his embrace and hugged back. "I feel the same way, Carlos." She murmured against his chest. "Would it be alright with you if we took one of the new hires? I'll wear all my trackers and panic buttons, I swear." She tilted her head back and pleaded with her big blue eyes. When she heard her husband sigh, she knew she'd be able to pay her last respects, after all.

Ranger said, "You wear your watch. It has GPS and a panic button, you remember?" She nodded. "I want you to wear the earrings I got you last Valentines, they've got a chip embedded in the posts. You take your gun. You go straight there and come straight back. You follow protocol for entering and exiting the car and building. Agreed?"

She nodded eagerly and they exited seven, hand in hand. They rode to five and exited to find a team assembled, dressed identically to Ranger. As he began barking last minute orders, Stephanie took the opportunity to hug a few of the men and tell them to be careful. After Ranger ordered Roy, one of the new recruits, to drive 'Mrs. Manoso' to her engagement, he grabbed Stephanie and bent her nearly in half, kissed the lipstick off of her, and left en masse with the rest of the men.

Stephanie sighed and said, "All righty, Roy, let's rock and roll."

"Where to, Mrs. Manoso?" He asked as he held the elevator doors for her.

Stephanie wrinkled her nose and said, "Ugh. Call me Stephanie, or Steph. Not Mrs. Manoso, alright?" When Roy didn't answer, she glared at him and said, "You're going to keep calling me 'Mrs. Manoso', aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

After picking Giana up, they made their way to Stiva's. It was, as expected, packed to the gills. Stephanie felt herself tearing up as they parked, grateful for the outpouring of support for Crazy Carl. After allowing Roy to escort them inside, Stephanie was immediately approached by Grandma Mazur.

Edna Mazur was wearing a skin tight black nylon body suit, which accentuated her scrawny frame and low hanging, sagging breasts with disturbing clarity. She covered it with an open, loose fitting cardigan and a short flared skirt at her waist. She clacked her dentures and said, "Boy, this is some turnout! I haven't seen a crowd this big since that Bucky Biablocki got crushed by that elephant he was following in that tiny Shriners car. Those Shriners always have a good turnout, but this is something else!"

After kissing her grandmother and introducing her to Giana and Roy, Grandma asked Giana if she could ask her a question, woman to woman. Gia nervously nodded, and when Grandma asked if it was true about redheads' carpets, Stephanie intervened.

Grandma shook her head and said, "I never really did understand what that meant, I was hoping she could enlighten me on account of she's a redhead. So you never heard the rumor?" She asked a now scarlet Giana, who shook her head frantically and asked where Carl was at so they could pay their respects.

"They've got Myra in Slumber Room 2, I'd imagine he's in there. I gotta go, they were supposed to bring out more cookies. You should always wait for the first tray to go before you snack, they wait to lay out the really good cookies after everyone's stuffed themselves with the cheap ones." She advised Giana and Roy before puttering away.

Roy looked awestruck and said, "That's your grandmother?" When Stephanie nodded, he muttered, "Geez, I thought the guys were pulling my chain. Like, hazing me."

Stephanie sighed and said, "Let's go find Carl and then we can head out." Her companions dutifully followed her and they made their way to Myra's casket. Ranger never had told her the details of how Myra had been found, and she found herself thanking him silently. Hugging Carl while picturing how poor Myra had been 'arranged'…Stephanie shuddered at the thought.

After spending a few tearful moments with a tired looking Carl, reminiscing and consoling him, she stepped away to allow the other mourners their moment with him. Stephanie spotted Joe across the room, and he looked downright miserable when he caught the scathing look she shot him. Good, she thought. He didn't deserve forgiveness. If anything had happened to Hector because Joe hadn't warned them, she thought she could easily have killed him. Stephanie knew Joe's job was very important to him; she just hadn't known how important.

After allowing Roy to lead them to the car, Stephanie and Gia buckled in and settled back.

"Hey, how about we hit the bakery? If I ever needed a donut, it's today." Stephanie said wistfully. Roy kept driving like he hadn't heard anything.

"Roy? Earth to Roy, hello? Listen, I know Ranger said straight there and straight back, but could we maybe take one eensy detour? I'll buy you contraband and I swear I won't tell Ranger!" Stephanie sang cheekily, hoping to elicit a response. When Roy still didn't acknowledge her, Steph's Spidey Sense started to kick in. She glanced uneasily at Giana; Gia returned the look with a wary glance of her own.

Giana tried next. "Hey, Roy, would you mind pulling over at the deli? I'd like to pick up some fruit and I need to use the restroom." Nothing. The two women shared another worried glance, and just as Steph was about to demand he at least answer them, her phone rang.

Pulling it out of her purse, she answered with a "Yo! Everything go okay?". No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Roy picked up speed.

"Where are you?" Ranger's reply was terse, uneasy.

"Heading back to Rangeman with Mr. Congeniality. Hey, slow down, Roy, this is a residential section!" Steph snapped. She figured if she scolded him while Ranger could hear, he might lay off whatever trip he was on. Roy ignored her and, if anything, increased his speed slightly.

She could hear Ranger barking orders on the phone as her Spidey Sense was now clanging loudly. She saw Giana reach into her own purse and slid a small pistol out, eyes not leaving Roy's face.

"Babe, listen, I need you to stay calm. If he stops the car, get out and run. I've got trackers on you and I'm going to get there as quickly as I can." His voice, while calm, held an undertone of anger and fear. Stephanie suddenly felt terrified.

Roy floored it and they shot forward at an alarming speed. Stephanie blurted, "We're headed east on Klockner –" before Roy backhanded her and snatched the phone from her hand. He then flung it out the window, all without taking his eyes off the road.

Giana immediately raised her gun and said, "Stop. The Fucking Car. Asshole." Through gritted teeth. She was shaking and Stephanie found herself scrambling to retrieve her own gun.

Roy laughed mirthlessly, the first time he'd opened his mouth since the funeral home, and said, "You shoot me going 70 down a side street, they're going to bury you in a shoebox, sweetheart. Besides, I'm as good as dead if I let you go, so do what you gotta do."

The two women, now thoroughly terrified, shared another long glance. Both kept their guns at the ready, waiting for the car to slow enough to bail out.

"Child locks are on. I engaged them at the funeral home." Roy said smugly, as if reading their minds.

"What is this? Why are you taking us? You know Ranger's going to find me and he'll be pissed, right?" Stephanie blathered. She'd been in tight situations before, and she found that keeping a dialog going more often than not kept her captors distracted.

"It's not Ranger they're lookin' to piss off, sweet tits." He sang. He sounded out of his head with either joy or adrenaline now, and neither option was less scary than the other.

"Who, then?" Stephanie demanded. She risked a glance at Giana; she had her cell phone at her side, furiously texting someone while trying to keep her eyes up.

"Your partner, Señor Psychopath. It's gonna be a biiiiig to-do." Roy crowed. "See, if they can get to him after they got to the cop's wife –"

"You're taking us to the guy's who killed Myra Costanza?" Stephanie interrupted. The feeling of dread flooded her stomach and she felt tears prick her eyes. Gia, too, was ghostly pale and wore a look of horror on her face.

When Roy only nodded, Giana croaked, "I thought they were after Hec?"

"He's the target, but they want to use the Boss Lady here to send him a message. They gonna use you to let him know he'll never be safe before they take him."

Roy began slowing down and Gia began tapping out a text at warp speed. They were approaching an old industrial park of some kind. There was an 8-foot fence surrounding the buildings and barbed wire woven through the top. It had clearly been empty for some time, judging by the broken windows and equipment that had been stripped to the bare bones, and the women's sense of dread heightened considerably. The gates slid slowly open as the car approached, and Stephanie gave a last-ditch effort to save them.

"If you take us back, I swear I'll have Ranger hide you from them. You can start over somewhere fresh, you can get out of all this. It's not too late, Roy."

Roy snorted. "You have no idea what th–" Roy was cut off by the sound of a gunshot, and then the entire front passenger side was coated with what had formerly been the inside of Roy's head. The women screamed and scrambled to open the doors as the car drifted toward a stripped backhoe.

"Hold on!" Giana cried, and they braced for impact. Seconds after the car crashed into the equipment, the doors were wrenched open and the women were yanked out by the backs of their dresses and relieved of their guns. Stephanie scrambled to gain her footing and raised her head in time to see Giana head-butt an Asian man squarely in the face. He screamed and dropped her, and she made it all of two feet before another man grabbed her. Stephanie did a quick scan of her surroundings and saw 8 men, a large empty industrial park, and zero surrounding houses or businesses.

The women were ushered inside the nearest building and unceremoniously shoved into an office.

"Do you have your phone?" She hissed at Giana.

"Nope. It flew out of my hands when the car crashed. I was trying to text Hec and tell him what was going on." She murmured, dejectedly.

Stephanie scanned herself, taking quick inventory. Purse? Gone. Gun? Gone. Aches and pain? Manageable. Weapons?...

"Thank you, Carlos!" she whispered. She knew the trackers were working, but remembered the panic button on her watch face. She pressed it repeatedly while whispering to Giana, explaining what she was doing.

Their relief lasted all of two seconds before the door was wrenched open and they were frog-marched at gun point to a smelly, dank room. It was empty, save for two pipes coming out of the ceiling in the center of the room. They were cuffed, back to back, and left in a sitting position. After hearing the tell-tale sound of a deadbolt being shot, the two sat in silence for a few moments.

"Steph?" Gia whispered. "Can you pick a lock?"

"Yeah, but I need something to pick it with. Hec and I worked on it for weeks when we partnered, but I need a pin or something. Why?"

"I grabbed two paper clips from that office. I know Hector can do it, I thought I'd take a chance." Gia whispered, sliding the clips into Steph's hand. "Careful, I can't see what I'm doing."

Blessing her forethought, Stephanie made quick work of her own handcuffs and then freed Gia. The assessed the room and immediately made their way to the single, painted over window.

"No bars." Steph murmured. "But how far up is it?"

Gia used her unlocked cuff to scratch away some of the paint and peered outside. "Looks like there's a scaffolding of a catwalk or something running under the window. I can't see where it goes, though."

Steph chewed her lip a moment and said, "Ranger's on his way. I just don't know how far away they all were so it could be a while…but we're sitting ducks here. We go."

Quickly agreeing on a plan of action, the women counted to three and wrenched the window up. Stephanie was boosted through, and turned to pull Gia up and out. Almost immediately, they heard the men below shouting in a foreign language. They darted to the left and scooted as quickly as possible along the narrow scaffolding. As they rounded in corner, both women whimpered in despair. The walway they'd been running along ended abruptly. They were trapped.

"There!" Giana cried, pointing to a building about 15 feet lower than where they were currently standing. They could feel the vibrations of the men on the scaffolding, coming after them.

"It's too far!" Stephanie said, panicking at the thought of jumping. Gia skirted around her, took a deep breath, and made a fantastic leap, landing in a heap on the building's roof. She shakily stood up and hissed, "Do it, now! This building is only a couple stories high, we can probably make it to the ground!"

Taking a shaky breath, Stephanie leapt and braced herself for impact, rolling at the last second, the way Hector taught her during their sparring sessions. Gia yanked Stephanie to her feet and they raced to the edge of the building, looking for a way down.

They heard loud voices and glanced back up in time to see one of their captors preparing to make the same leap they'd made only moments before.

"Shit!" Gia screamed and yanked Stephanie toward the opposite end of the roof, racing around the chained access door. There, on the other side, was an adjacent building. An old, rusted fire escape hung from the side. Not steps or a landing like Stephanie's old apartment building housed; instead, this was a single ladder embedded in the brick's building with steel rings encasing the rungs and forming a sort of tunnel, big enough for a person to climb through. They ran for all they were worth toward the ladder, and it hit Stephanie all at once.

"It's too high, we can't reach that!" she panted.

"I'm going to boost you and you'll turn and grab me, just like how we got through that window." Giana sounded so sure that Stephanie believed, for a few blissful moments, that this would all turn out fine.

They hit the wall without slowing, mindful of the two loud thumps behind them indicating two more men had made the leap. Gia squatted, fingers laced, and just as Steph stepped onto her had Giana gave a groan and shoved upward. Stephanie's hands shot skyward and she cried, "I still can't reach it!"

She looked down at Giana, who held her feet at chest level. With a terse, "Grab it!", she pushed her arms up and lifted Steph's feet over her head. Stephanie grabbed the lowest rung and, bracing her feet against the brick, climbed up until she could securely hook her arm through the steel ring barrier and stretched toward Gia. She risked a glance back; the first man had rounded the access door and was barreling toward them.

"Oh, God, you have to jump!" She screamed at Gia, stretching as far as she could.

It was no use. There was no possible way to reach the ladder without a spotter, and Stephanie watched in horror as the Asian man reached Gia and slammed her into the brick wall. She slumped to the ground and Stephanie screamed, reaching for the gun that wasn't holstered at her hip today.

A great crash distracted everyone as a convoy of black SUVs drove right though the gate.

"Oh, thank God." Steph breathed shakily, and hoisted herself upright. She climbed the ladder as quickly as possible, and, reaching the roof, began screaming and waving her arms, trying to get the Merry Men's attention. She needed help, like, yesterday.

A new noise, different from the crashing fence or the shouts from her friends, drew her attention. It was the purr of a high performance engine, and for a moment, Stephanie dazedly thought, "Why did Ranger bring the Turbo?" before her confusion turned to panic. Over the edge of the building, she could make out 3 white sports cars, idling, waiting. She wasn't a car enthusiast, but she knew what kind these were – the kind that were fucking fast. In the periphery of her vision, a movement caused her to snap her head around, and what she saw made her feel faint.

The three men who'd chased them across two buildings were running toward the side of the roof where the cars were parked below, and they were carrying an unconscious Giana with them.

Stephanie scrambled toward the edge of the roof and down the ladder, but before her feet hit the roof of the building below her she heard the tell-tale whine of a sports car being floored and a saw a cloud of dust. Screaming at them to stop, she ran to the building's edge in time to see them speeding along a narrow access road. Giana was nowhere to be seen.

Arms encircled her, and Stephanie whirled, letting her training take over. She disabled her attacker with a few well-placed punches and a knee to the groin before running blindly across the roof. It was only when she was tackled and her head held stationary that she registered that it was Bobby Brown who had her.

"Stephanie! Bomber, it's me, stop kicking!" When she finally stilled, gasped, and started sobbing, Bobby gathered her up and pressed the button for the microphone that was pinned at his shoulder. "I've got Bomber." He said in a sharp staccato, making his way to the building's edge.

Stephanie shoved her way out of his arms and pressed the mic button, leaning in and shouting, "Get back in the cars, they took her, they knocked her out and took her, they're driving fast white cars and they left through the back-"

"Who, Beautiful?" Lester asked, limping over from the spot where Stephanie had dropped him moments earlier. If that knee got anywhere near his balls again, he figured he could kiss the idea of ever fathering children goodbye.

Her answer made his blood run cold.

"Giana."