All familiar characters and referenced events belong to Janet. The mistakes are solely mine.
Olivia had been all smiles throughout our Miami weekend, but anyone could see that she lit up from the inside out when her Godfather Tank entirely filled the surroundings she saw from where she was sitting inside her car seat. Her 'Auuuwwwk' cry broke sound barriers, and she grinned so enthusiastically her cheeks met her brown eyes.
"Afternoon to you too, Miss Olive," he told Olivia, not afraid to take the handle of her seat away from me in order to hog my daughter's attention. "We missed you."
"In case you haven't noticed, Ranger and I were also gone. Did you miss us too?" Steph teased.
Not one to be forced to admit feelings he doesn't care to share, Tank had a ready answer. "Not as much as her," he said, letting Olive curl five fingers around only one of his as part of their usual greeting.
"I'd be offended, but I completely understand that," Steph said to him. "Which is why I'm not calling shotgun for the drive back home. I really enjoy hanging out with my little partner in crime and our backup canines."
"Do I have to separate you two now?" I asked her, reminding her of her time spent with Julie.
The smile she gave me was so sweet ... the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. "You can try," she warned, but she knew I was joking so she didn't pull out either of her guns ... the stun or bullet-filled one.
Although I trust Tank with my life, I still double-checked how he secured the car seat into the base in the back of his fleet vehicle. Because my ladies were watching, I didn't punch the stupid grin off his face. When he finds who he can't live without, he'll be far less amused with my actions and precautions.
All traces of humor were removed from our faces when I turned down Haywood and spotted Mooch's shitbox parked on the curb on the opposite side of the street from the Rangeman gate. Seems someone's being careful to keep his ass off my property to try to avoid arrest.
"I wasn't kidding about being ready to tell Mooch, or anyone else, off," Steph said from the back seat, "but I was kinda hoping I'd at least get our baby, our dogs, and the bags, into our apartment before that happened."
"Now I am glad you're back," Tank said to distract her from what she could see in my eyes if she chose that moment to look at the rearview mirror. "It's been too quiet here with you in Miami."
A plush dolphin rattle came sailing from the back seat, hitting its mark ... Tank's head. Steph's aim has improved dramatically since moving into a building with its own gun range, but Tank's head is so large, even Olivia could've easily nailed him.
"That was from Olive," Steph's voice floated up to us, trying to be heard over Mo and Gunny who now want a game of fetch after watching the rattle take flight. "Your Goddaughter said to be nice to me."
"You've been gone for a weekend and she's suddenly talkin' now?" He replied.
"To me she talks. It's a Mommy/Daughter thing. We've understood each other since she was in the womb."
While I appreciated their attempt at normalcy, I hit a button on the steering wheel and got Gene on the line. "Tell whoever's in the lobby to meet us in the garage to take Gunner and Ammo into the building."
I met Steph's eyes in the mirror as I hit the fob to open the gate protecting our corner of Trenton. I'll deal with Mooch, but first I want space, a gate, and a building full of armed men, between Olivia and Stephanie. I sailed past the close-to-trespassing asshole and into the underground garage. The reassuring clank of two pieces of metal coming back together to lock up behind us gave me a sense of satisfaction. If Mooch tries to jump it ... I can legally shoot him. As ordered, Bobby was standing by Tank's space, ready to take the dogs' leashes out of my hand and let the hounds loose back in our apartment.
"Take Stephanie and Olive inside. Now," I told Tank, and then went to go clear the excrement that's threatening to spread onto my property.
What I heard Steph say effectively stopped me before I got more than two feet away from her.
"Tank, can you take Olive inside and monitor all the cuddling she's gonna be subjected to so she doesn't get baby-drunk on her own power?"
His body went still one centimeter at a time from head to boot heel before he spoke. "I'm not leaving you with that asshole," he impressed me by stating. "You can take Olive inside."
Without question or hesitation, he has my back. That he feels the same about Stephanie despite having little history and no battles to survive alongside her, speaks to how unique a person she really is.
"I'm not alone. And I can handle Mooch even if I were. Please. I don't want Olive to feel how angry I am right now ... and my grip on it is in danger of slipping. Olive doesn't need to hear what's going to be said, but I need to say it. And Ranger deserves to hear exactly how I feel. Please," she repeated.
Tank's eyes flicked to me and I nodded. Mooch can't say anything that Stephanie hasn't already thought of or told herself, and this seems to be something she needs to do for her own peace of mind ... not just for my benefit.
"I'll take the girl," Tank answered, like a seasoned pro tackling the buckles keeping Olive secure, "but you can keep her seat in case you need to hit that fucker with something that'll cause some damage."
Steph grinned at him. "I have Ranger for that ... if hitting becomes required."
He tried to grin back, but Olivia caught it in her hands once he got her out of her car seat and into his arms again.
"I'll be watching and I'll be ready if I'm needed," Tank warned Steph.
"Got it, Terminator-Tank," she responded, "but Ranger and I got this. Just keep Olive happy."
"Like there's another option than that one," he said, turning towards the building.
Olivia flashed her palm at us as she waved over the shoulder she summitted in order to see us standing behind them. Her outfit looked like a graffiti-garden purposely splashed across Tank's somber all-black uniform.
I love having my wife in my arms, but this time I dropped an arm across her shoulders just so I can stop her if she tries to choke the bastard when we confronted him. I have less fear of getting arrested than Mooch does, and not only because the Chief is very aware of our Morelli-issues.
Mooch got out in a rage and charged us as soon as we neared his car. My finger was already on the trigger of my Glock that will be pulled if he even thought about attacking my wife. Lucky for him, his anger was directed at me ... though Steph took offense to it as though he had shouted at her.
"You son of a bitch! You killed my cousin!
Although he did somehow manage to refrain from using the standard 'Morelli angry-arm-flap', his outburst didn't impress me.
"First off," Steph began, "my mother-in-law is nothing of the kind, so don't ever refer to her as any kind of a bitch. And second, JOE killed Joe. "
"Save your breath, Steph. Everybody knows you'll defend this fucker until the end even though he's been making you stupid from day one. I know he killed Joe. He threatened to, almost did by trying to blow him up, and then he did follow through on murdering him when we were away from here so no one would suspect him."
"If I wanted him to explode, he would've been turned into human-confetti at the time. This sounds like guilt talking," I pointed out, subtly shifting so my body was between his and Stephanie's. "That appears to be the Morelli's M.O. When you do anything wrong, everyone else gets blamed for it."
His pause let me know I hit a nerve. If those involved in the investigation did their jobs correctly, Mooch would've been told at the hospital that Morelli could've possibly survived if he'd been eased back up to the surface after having toxic levels of Nitrogen flooding his system, rather than immediately propelled to 'safety' by an inexperienced idiot who's in a state of sheer panic.
"YOU killed him," Mooch repeated. "Everybody knows you did. You never got over that he had Stephanie first."
My fist and my patience showed him no mercy. I drew blood when my knuckles connect with his mouth, but Stephanie was after tears. She got in a gut punch while Mooch was still trying to recover. She had him doubled over in tangible pain.
"Don't you fucking dare go there!" She ordered, her fury rising to the forefront of her already prepared 'fuck you' speech. "You have some nerve to come to our home, provoke me and my husband by bringing up the sexcapades your perverted cousin engaged in with every under eight-year-old girl in his neighborhood and high school virgin in the Burg. Have you already forgotten that he was such a man-whore, he was actually questioning if he got his own freakin' cousin pregnant? Not you ... since you lack a lot of things, mostly the equipment necessary to make that possible, but Zook's mom Loretta? And I bet I'd have recurring nightmares if I knew even half of what he and psycho cousin-Kenny did when they were left unsupervised."
"Talk about a gene pool that should've been drained," I said, trying to keep her mind from going down darker roads, but Stephanie wasn't finished.
While Mooch was wiping away another trickle of blood, she poked him in the chest to get his attention. "I'm getting real tired of this. Despite the number of assholes in your own family ... Morelli, Kenny, Anthony, you, Bella ... you all continue to insult me or Ranger every chance you get, when he's a genuinely good guy who takes care of his kids, protects his country, and now keeps our community safer. I wouldn't have guessed you had a pair of balls, but it takes something to camp out here just to preach how perfect your cousin was while insulting those of us who are trying to make a difference in people's lives for the better ... not in the way the Morelli's are known for, which results in years of therapy being needed. Admit it, you're here spouting shit to try to distract you from your own participation in Joe's death."
"I was trying to save him ..."
"Oh really?" She said in that particular tone I know to be wary of. "So you and Morelli were with a group at the time, all listening to the instructions provided by a licensed diving instructor?"
"The guy we got the diving gear from had a certificate ..." he said with a definite defensive tone.
Stephanie has made me feel proud of her many times now, but how easily she got Mooch on the defensive is pretty remarkable. Maybe she should look into a career prosecuting assholes.
"I heard the details from Grandma Mazur and Mary Lou. You and Joe went diving alone ... not to mention after having a some fun and a few drinks. And at frickin' night! What were you thinking? That's right," she answered for him, "you weren't thinking at all. I'm not a diving expert, but I would've warned even Joe, that a dive like that was a 911 call waiting to happen."
"He told me Ranger was going to kill him, that's why he agreed to come with me without me asking twice," Mooch continued. "He was even scared to go home at night because he didn't know who'd be in it waiting for him."
My wife wasn't feeling sympathetic. "Did Joe happen to tell you why he was so paranoid? Because your cousin's new hobby was stalking me? That his bar-bimbo rammed my car when my baby girl could've been inside it with me and gotten hurt? That a tracking device was found on my car that was NOT Rangeman or husband-issued? Hmmm, who do you think was responsible for that one? Possibly the guy who was deathly afraid of my husband coming after him for what he was doing to me?"
"He was so over you," Mooch told her, hoping to hit a similar nerve as the one she stomped on. "Was over you looong before he officially cut you loose."
Steph had put her nerves on ice and actually appeared to be enjoying this 'conversation'. People heal in different ways, and Steph's is saying out loud everything she used to keep inside.
"If you're hoping to hurt me by admitting that Joe cheated the whole time, I wouldn't waste your breath or the energy. It could only hurt if I cared ... and I don't. I may have been stupid at the time, but I grew up. I realized that I never really liked or respected Joe ... as a person, a cop, or a boyfriend. It took experiencing how a real man treats and loves those he cares about, for me to fully understand what a horrible, selfish, and dare I say abusive, manipulative, narcissistic, jerk Joe was to everyone in his life ... not just me."
"Blaming others for your mistakes does seem to be a inherited trait," I added, pulling my wife tighter against me, as if just Morelli's name could somehow harm her.
The way Stephanie wound her arms around me buried that fear right next to the man who continues to insinuate himself into our lives. Joe tried to be an obstacle between Steph and I, but he ultimately just made our relationship then marriage that much stronger.
"Tuck your tail where the sun don't shine, Mooch, and go back to the Burg where you belong," Steph ordered him. "I suggest you start dealing with your own guilt and stop trying to add to ours, because I promise you … you won't find any remorse or sympathy here." Her scary-sweet smile reappeared. "Oh ... and if you come near my husband again, I'll shoot you myself."
