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Previously
"Well, you should start getting creative or your hands are really going to be tied, if you catch my drift," Toby said before turning and blending into the crowd of mourners.
Shit. This doesn't sound like anything I want to be involved in at all. But, I also don't like the sound of prison. Time to pull up my big girl undies and sort this mess out.
—
After my enlightening over hearings at the funeral home, time seemed to move unnaturally fast.
I spent my weekdays working at the personal products plant and most evenings shuttling Grandma to her various social engagements. That only left me nights and odd chunks of time on the weekends to dig into the problem of my arrest.
The going was slow, but four months after my arraignment, I finally felt like I had all of the pieces in place.
E.E. Martin had definitely been laundering money for the mob, specifically the Romano family. Unfortunately for me, most of the laundered money had passed through accounts I was responsible for. I could see how it looked like I was involved.
From what I could tell, multiple suppliers I had managed were actually mob owned shell companies. I would place an order with them, the purchase order would be processed and everything would look fine on my end. The purchase orders were then adjusted to funnel large chunks of the Romano family's illegal earnings through E.E. Martin and back into their shell companies.
Barry Litzki, the E.E. Martin accountant that I'd overheard talking to Toby Romano at a viewing, had been making the adjustments on his end where I never would have seen them. They never came to my attention because my boss never saw them either. The adjustments that should have triggered some sort of internal review were instead approved by the E.E. Martin CEO, Victor Bianchi.
A little digging with my fancy search programs had shown that Bianchi's mother was a cousin to the current head of the Romano family, Enzo Romano.
After spending my first paycheck from the personal product plant on a computer and software, I'd also invested in high end binoculars with night vision, some listening equipment, and a small camera with a powerful zoom. Nancy Drew, eat your heart out.
I'd used all my fancy gear to finally do surveillance on the warehouse associated with Wilstone Discount Textiles. Wilstone was the biggest supplier account I had managed and one of the companies that Romano family money was being sent through. It was also the only one with a physical location.
The warehouse was in Port Paulsboro, on the Delaware River. It was a little under an hour south of Trenton and the commute had made finding time to actually do surveillance difficult. I'd spent a few hours watching the warehouse two weekends ago, but was having trouble making it back down there between work and family.
My limited surveillance had me convinced that they definitely weren't moving granny panties through Wilstone. Based on some things I had seen, I was beginning to suspect they may be moving people.
I eventually gave in and scheduled a few days off from the personal products plant and booked myself a hotel room. I told my parents that I needed some time away before my trial on Friday and that I was going to spend some time alone at the beach.
In truth, I was hoping to gather some solid evidence of what was actually going on. So far, I hadn't forwarded anything I'd found to my lawyer. I wasn't sure of the legality of what I was doing and I didn't know who I could trust. Ideally, I would be able to get everything directly to an FBI agent on the case, but for now, it was just backed up to the cloud so I could access it from wherever I needed.
I had gotten a cheap hotel room about ten minutes away from the warehouse, but had barely used it. I'd been spending most of my time sitting in my car, eating Tastykakes, and losing all sensation in my ass. I'd only gone back to my room for a few hours of sleep in the early mornings and for bathroom breaks. I was willing to do a lot to get the information I was after, but peeing in the nearest gas station bathroom wasn't happening.
My time definitely hadn't been wasted. I'd seen enough that I was pretty confident my human trafficking suspisions were true. I wanted to take a closer look at the photos I'd captured last night and this morning to be sure my bleary eyes weren't fooling me. Then I was going to forward everything to my lawyer and the FBI.
I was just about to head back for a few more hours of surveillance after my most recent pee break when someone knocked on my hotel room door. There was no one there when I checked the peep hole a minute later, so I opened it, ready to head back to my car.
But someone grabbed a hold of my upper arm as soon as I crossed the threshold.
I whipped my head around and my eyes landed on the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. He had shiny black hair that was slicked back in a ponytail, rich chocolate eyes and an impressive muscular build.
He shifted his hold to my wrist, but my upper arm was still tingling where he had first grabbed it.
"Stephanie Plum?" he asked.
"Who wants to know?" I'd spent the last few weeks digging up dirt on some not so nice people. He may be hot, but a muscle bound stranger knowing my name had me a bit on edge.
"Your cousin Vinnie."
"Vinnie?" I asked. What the hell was this guy talking about?
"You missed your court date yesterday and your parents told him you were out of town. He sent me to bring you back."
"My court date isn't until the 21st," I said, narrowing my eyes at him. "And there's no way I'm going with some strange guy that Vinnie may or may not have sent."
"It's not really voluntary," he said.
That made me panic and I did the only thing I could think of. I kicked him in the shin. Hard.
"Fuck! What was that for?" he growled at me, but he didn't let go of my wrist. I think I surprised him. He didn't strike me as the kind of guy that was easy to get a reaction out of.
"Let go of me!"
"Not voluntary. Remember?"
"Not voluntary, my ass," I muttered, reaching into my back pocket for my phone.
Muscle Guy watched me with a bemused look on his face while I fumbled my phone, trying to work it with only my left hand.
I eventually got it unlocked and quickly dialed Vinnie's office. Connie Rosolli, his office manager answered.
"Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, how may I direct your call?" she asked in her nasally, Jersey voice.
"Connie! It's Stephanie Plum. Can you put me through to Vinnie?"
"Sure thing," she said, before the line started ringing again.
"What," snapped the voice on the other end. That's Vinnie, the embodiment of charm.
"Hey, it's Steph," was all I managed to get out before he started yelling.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? I didn't even have your parents put up collateral because I thought I could trust you, being family and all. And you skip your fucking court date?"
"I didn't skip it!" I shouted. "It's not until next week. And who the hell is this guy you sent after me."
"It was yesterday and that's Ranger." The line went dead.
I glared at my phone for a moment before shifting it to focus on Muscle Guy.
"Ranger?" I asked, testing to check that he was actually someone sent by Vinnie, not a mob enforcer planning to drown me in the Delaware.
He lifted one corner of his mouth up into a half smile and gave a small nod. He also passed me some paperwork he had pulled out of one of the pockets of his cargo pants. I glanced over it quickly and saw that my court date really was yesterday. The 12th. Fuck, I must have flipped the numbers when I wrote it down. And here I was trying to get myself out of trouble. Not into more.
"So, how's this work?" I asked Ranger.
"I'll take you back to Trenton. Once we're at the police station, you can get your court date rescheduled. Then you can call Vinnie to come and rebond you."
I just gave a small, resigned nod. Suddenly feeling the exhaustion from my long hours of surveillance.
"Any chance you can let go long enough for me to pack up my stuff?" I asked, flicking my eyes to the wrist he was still holding.
"You're not going to run, are you?"
I rolled my eyes. "Running is something I try to avoid."
Another half smile. I think I amuse him.
He did let go of my arm, so I hurried into my room and started throwing stuff into my bag. I noticed Ranger kept himself in the doorway so he stayed between me and the exit. Jerk.
I'd packed light, so it only took me a few minutes to gather everything up.
"Let's get this show on the road," I said, digging through my purse for my keys only to have them snagged by Ranger.
"Don't think you understand how this works, Babe. I take you in. Then you can come back for your car."
"Fine," I huffed, and tried to stalk around him, but he snagged me by the wrist again. That was getting annoying fast.
"I let you pack up your stuff and I'm not cuffing you because Vinnie told me you're harmless. And for what it's worth, I don't think you had anything to do with the shit you're charged with. I'm still not going to give you a chance to bolt."
Once we were in the parking lot, he beeped open a Porsche Cayenne and nodded his chin towards the back door. "Toss your bag back there. You promise to behave if I let you sit up front?"
I rolled my eyes again and climbed into the passenger seat, letting out a soft moan as the buttery soft leather molded to my body. My sore ass was in heaven.
I opened my eyes to see Ranger giving me his amused look again before his face went blank.
"I'm being a nice guy right now. That's not normal for me. You cause any trouble and you'll be cuffed and secured in the back. Understand?"
"Yeah, yeah," I said, waving his warning away. I wasn't planning on causing any trouble. All I was interested in doing was enjoying every minute of the ride back to the TPD because I was pretty sure I was going to find myself sitting on a hard bench waiting for Vinnie. The weasel would probably make me wait longer than necessary just to be an ass.
We'd almost made it to the freeway when I heard something hit the car. Ranger swore, I screamed, tires screeched, and I came to the terrifying realization that we were being shot at.
—-
A/N: Yay, Ranger's here! For some reason my muse wanted to see him go after FTA Steph, so this story was born. Thoughts so far?