Disclaimer: This a Stephanie Plum FanFiction Story. All recognizable characters belong to the fabulous Janet Evanovich. I am just borrowing her amazing characters for a while. I'm grateful she allows us to play with her characters.

Warning: Adult language, adult situations, some violence, some smut.

A/N: This story picks-up a year after the conclusion of For Love and Redemption.

For Folly and Forgiveness

Chapter One

It was a beautiful spring day and I was wandering down Main Street in Annapolis Maryland, with the vague goal of getting coffee and sitting at the city dock to watch the boats. I swear I was minding my own business and not looking for trouble.

In retrospect that was probably the flaw in my plan. Trouble often comes looking for me.

My name is Stephanie Plum. I am a former lingerie buyer, turned bounty hunter, turned CEO of my own company. I am perpetually engaged to a seriously hot man, but I can't quite manage to get myself down the aisle.

The perpetual fiancée part is mostly my fault. Ok, if I am being honest, it is completely my fault.

Ricardo Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger. Former special forces, turned bounty hunter, turned business man. Over the years our relationship had been many things. Ranger had been my mentor, protector, employer, lover, and he is now my perpetual fiancée.

And, that is why I was here alone wandering the streets. My almost husband had been called back to DC to handle a RangeMan client issue. Since Ranger owns RangeMan, sadly a RangeMan problem is his problem.

It is funny how things change. When I'd first met Ranger, I was completely smitten. I was in love with that man from the first 'Yo'. Ranger didn't do marriage and I didn't do casual sex. At the time I thought the no ring thing was a deal breaker, and Ranger thought his life didn't lend itself to marriage. Ranger had been right. Ranger is always right.

After circling around each other for years, I was abducted by a stalker. Turns out control was just an illusion and life is inherently uncertain. We gave up the crazy pretext of trying to deny how we felt. We got engaged and I pledged to love all of him. The good, the bad and the gray. Turns out I wasn't quite prepared for the gray.

We moved to DC so Ranger could open a new RangeMan office. RangeMan DC provides personal and corporate security and sits in a non-descript building on K Street in DC. It caters to the rich and powerful.

We bought a little weekend house on the water, and planned our wedding. We pretended to be normal. Then fate decided we were too cocky and intervened. Ranger took a contract to bring down the head of a drug cartel. A government mole outed the whole operation, and Ranger let me think he was dead. I know he did it to protect us both, but that is where things went off the rail.

A lot can happen in one year, nine months, and twenty-one days, and that is how long I thought Ranger was dead.

I'd changed. I'd grown up and found a purpose. I had become a full-fledge adult even though I'd done it kicking and screaming, and I fell in love with another man. A good man.

After his Lazarus moment, Ranger and I have been working through things ever since. I have to admit I was angry and I felt betrayed. I usually think it is a good thing that Ranger is a patient man, but sometimes it is also the problem. I want him to yell and wave his arms around. Be mad so we can just have it out. But that is not Ranger. He's a Zen kind of guy while I'm more an Italian hand gesture kind of woman.

Ranger loves me and wants to marry me. I love Ranger, but I'm not quite so sure about the marriage thing anymore. Ironic when you think about it. There is a lot of water under the bridge between us, and I have refused to meet Ranger halfway on that bridge for reasons I can't quite name.

Things have gotten better, but I remain unable, or maybe it is unwilling, to forgive him completely and trust him. I trust Ranger with my life, but I don't know if I will ever fully trust Ranger again with my heart.

A few months after he got back, I put my engagement ring back on. In the year since I've made tons of excuses about why I won't set a date. But the bald truth is I no longer trust that Ranger won't leave me one day to run off and save the world. I blamed the reluctance on a thousand other things, but we both knew the truth.

There were also good things that happened while Ranger was gone. I had taken the helm of RangeMan and I learned a thing or two about the security business. I'd also learned a thing or two about myself. I finally found my passion.

After Ranger got back, it didn't make sense for me to stay on at RangeMan. We both couldn't be the boss and I was no longer willing to be a bit player. While I was running RangeMan, I'd branched into personal security for female Senators and dignitaries, and discovered a niche.

I left RangeMan and started a security firm called Athena Consulting and Security Services. I'd briefly toyed with making Athena a division of RangeMan, but ultimately decided against it. I wanted something that was all mine. Something separate from Ranger. While Athena shared space at the K Street office, I ran Athena and Ranger ran RangeMan. That part of our relationship worked.

Athena is an all-female security firm that only takes on female clients. I'd almost named it Athena Security Services, but then realized the acronym would be ASS. While I thought that was hilarious and somewhat fitting, I figured the uptight Washington types might not.

I snorted out loud at the memory. Given the looks I got from the other people on the street, I'm pretty sure I'm still the only one that thinks it is funny.

My first client was Senator Angela Lashley. I'd protected her while I was at RangeMan and saved her from a deranged stalker. She had become my client and one of my best friends. The Senator is passionate about women's issues and she and I work together on a combined task force that takes down child predators and sex traffickers. This is where my real passion lies. I had finally found my Ark of the Covenant.

And that is what led to today. I was minding my own business strolling down Main Street from Church Circle doing a little window shopping. Suddenly a man burst from the alley and stumbled into me. I looked up stunned. I quickly looked away and mumbled an apology, and the man moved off.

I swear that looked like Sergi Petrov. But it couldn't be, right? Here in sleepy little Annapolis in broad daylight on Main Street?

Petrov was a known sex trafficker that had been on the radar of the task force for months. He was a middle man for Alexi Kovac. Rumor was he brought in girls through the Port of Baltimore, but it had never been much more than a rumor. Interest in Petrov had increased since Kovac had moved beyond girls, guns, and drugs to supplying terrorist organizations with weapons. Rumor was Kovac was in the market for a bio-weapon. Kovac wasn't a true believer he was just a business man in it for the money and power, which made him doubly dangerous in my book.

I quickly crossed the street and took a few snaps of the possible Petrov, then tailed him. I pretended to window shop while watching him in the glass. His movements were furtive and he keep looking over his shoulder. Not the behavior of a tourist.

I keep pace with him on the other side of the street. Ducking into the shop entrances and watching him in the glass. He turned onto Dock Street and headed up Ego Alley. I thought he might have a boat docked, but he surprised me by hopping on a water taxi. It was a smart move.

I watched as the water taxi took off across Spa Creek, and the lone passenger got off at the Yacht Club and disappeared. The Yacht Club was private, so I knew it would be too obvious if I tried to talk my way in and check out the boats in the middle of the day.

It made sense though that he would have a boat. It made it easy for him to navigate and hide. Of course, that was a big if I told myself. I had no idea if it really was Petrov. Maybe my work with the task force had me seeing bad guys around every corner and it was really just some bored rich guy. I decided I'd see if I could identify him from the pictures.

I would run him through the Athena search programs, and figured I would send them to Antonio Reyes to see what he could find out as well. Reyes worked at Kincaid Securities, which made RangeMan and Athena look like the Junior Varsity team. They dealt in the shadowy world of private government contracting and had access to data and programs that Athena didn't. Reyes worked with me on the human trafficking task force and he was a friend.

Reyes and I had a short but complicated history. Suffice it to say, I had saved his life and he had saved mine. That sort of thing tends to create a unique and unbreakable bond. Reyes is my friend and sometimes business partner. I'd like to say I think of him as a brother, but the thing is he is gorgeous and sometimes the thoughts I have are not thoughts you would ever have about your brother.

Dark hair, brown eyes, and caramel skin. He is tall, with broad shoulders and perfectly proportioned muscles. I have to admit I like the view. He is also wicked smart and funny as hell.

I couldn't shake the feeling, so I decided to pack up and head back to the K Street office and do some research on Petrov.