Grant carried me down to my wheelchair, then walked beside me as we entered the large living room where Ranger was sitting with the five enforcers. I wheeled myself up to the side of Ranger and smiled at the other enforcers. "Good afternoon", I said with a smile.
"Did you have a good sleep, Steph?" said Harry.
"While I was asleep, it was a great sleep."
"It was a short sleep", said Ranger.
"Steve and Val woke me up."
Ranger froze. "Excuse me?" he said.
"I had two guards on the door. Don't know who they were. One went to the washroom and the other was distracted by my grandmother streaking down the hall. The guard left to make sure that Grandma covered up and didn't expose her nudity to our guests."
Ranger looked furious. "Excuse me a minute", he said. He got up and left the room.
"I like a little nudity", said one of the Californian enforcers.
I laughed. "Maybe not in this case. My grandmother needs a good ironing." I paused. "I'm Steph."
"Tony, Stavros, and me, Phil", he said as he pointed to them. "How did you end up in the wheelchair?"
"I ran into a burning building to save someone. Cliché I know. I ended up with severe second-degree and third-degree burns from my toes to my knees. I'm not up to applying pressure on my burns yet."
"Was the person worth saving?"
"He was the head of MI6 and was the target of the terrorist attack."
"Did you know that beforehand?"
I smiled. "It was just luck of the draw. However, we are now friends. He is a good man, and I am very happy that I saved his life."
Harry turned to Phil. "I actually own a bail bonds office, and for years Steph was my bounty hunter on staff. She does an excellent job on the less violent bonds and, on the more violent bonds, she would set up the capture and hire Rangeman, Ranger's security operation, to do the retrieval. We found that with Rangeman doing the captures and Steph setting them up, we had over a ninety-nine percent capture rate. Steph insisted that people were captured and treated with respect and caring and because of that, people like using our services. Steph no longer works as a bounty hunter but instead is Ranger's Executive Vice-President of Research and Investigative Services."
"Do you have many people on staff?"
I smiled. "World-wide, we have over three hundred research staff on payroll. But then Rangeman has slightly over fifty thousand staff on payroll when you consider everyone in all the different divisions."
"It sounds like it would be good for us to get a share of your company."
I grinned. "I'm sorry, it's not for sale. A lot of people have tried, but even if they did have the billion dollars to buy a portion, it's not available."
"A billion dollars?"
"We are a multibillion-dollar company."
"My son would do well as a researcher."
"Really? I only hire people with doctorates or masters' degrees in areas that I need – forensic psychology, criminology, library science, accounting, financial management and so on. Of my staff, over half have doctoral degrees, about half are former military, and all staff have some mix of post-grad degrees and practical experience. If your son has that sort of experience under his belt, I would be happy to look at his resume. If he doesn't and still wants to work for us, tell him to work on pumping up his resume with practical experience and a relevant college degree and we'll talk."
"I don't think you understand. My son would be a good addition to your staff."
"Yes, I heard you. And I am telling you that I would love to have him on my staff if he qualifies. I do not want him on staff if he doesn't qualify. When someone is ill-prepared to do the work, they feel useless, stupid, and their mental health unnecessarily goes down. They end up feeling terrible about themselves and, quite frankly, no job is worth that. Then you add in the staff reaction to hiring someone who isn't qualified? The new employee gets ostracized and treated as though they are stupid. People talk about them and make fun of them and through it all, you have created a very big problem, a problem that simply isn't fair to the employee. When you add in that my work is extremely intolerant of mistakes being made? If you don't know what you are doing, the job becomes one of high stress and, when the job stresses you out, as an employee you start to break down. If your son is interested, have him contact me and I'll talk to him about things he can do to tailor his resume to the position." I smiled. "My sister wanted a position with me. She too thought she would be good. I disagreed and I refused to hire her. Now that she has a few criminal charges under her belt, she is even less qualified for the job. All employees on the research staff are not allowed to have a criminal past."
"Why are you so stringent, Steph?" said Harry.
"We work a lot for various security organizations around the world, and those organizations wouldn't hire us if they thought that people with a record were working for us. It kind of sucks, as there are a lot of great people who have just made mistakes in their past. However, we need that transparency to be able to market ourselves."
"What kind of security organizations?" said Tony.
"Governmental, non-governmental. I'm sorry, but I signed a confidentiality agreement and can't give more details than that."
"So if we killed everyone in the castle?" said Stavros.
"Not such a great idea unless you want retribution."
Stavros looked steadily at me, and I looked steadily back. After we faced each other down for a moment, Stavros smiled. "Sounds like that would be a career-limiting move."
I smiled as well. "And possibly a life-limiting one."
Stavros nodded. "Good to know."
I relaxed a bit. I hated confrontation and being forced to have a confrontation was not my idea of fun. All I could say was that I was glad that I was still wearing diapers. My panties, dress and wheelchair would have been wet otherwise.
"What do you think about your sister and your brother-in-law?" said Stavros. I decided that he was probably the chief in the three-man contingent.
I sighed. "I have a checkered past with Val and Steve. Has Ranger told you about them?"
"No", said Stavros. "We were just getting to it."
"Steve is a sleezeball. When my sister was engaged to him, he assaulted me twice. When we were interrupted, he blamed it on me and, despite being caught holding me down while I struggled to get free, my family blamed me. I was glad when he moved to California. Although my sister bullied me as we were growing up, I basically got along with her. She broke up with Steve when he went into jail, and she came home to Trenton. Unfortunately, she had developed a crush on Ranger and was furious when I married him. She bullied me again, was verbally abusive on a regular basis and, since I was fighting depression at the time, I believed her and came very close to committing suicide. Things then just bubbled along and we didn't see her much as per my doctor's orders. When I did see her, she would snipe at me and try to pull me down and make me feel bad about myself. She wanted me to give her a job but she wasn't qualified. About two years ago she had become physically and verbally abusive towards me and to try to break the cycle and help her, we offered her a monthly stipend so that she could go back to school and learn some marketable skills. The key was that she had to maintain a minimum of a B- average, she had to quit drinking, she had to work at a part-time job and so on. We offered to pay for counseling and medication to help her quit drinking in addition to the monthly stipend.
"She skipped classes, her average was a D-, and she didn't quit drinking, and when we talked to her about it she swore and threw something at me. We pulled her funding, and she was furious. Her view is that she is my sister and I should fund her so that she doesn't have to work. Then, when she was talking to Steve, she told him that I could be brought to heel and I would fund both of them. Since then, she has fought hard for me to give her money and has been furious when I wouldn't play along. A month ago she assaulted me so severely that I am now going to have to undergo a very painful operation to fully recover from the damage." I smiled. "In other words, they aren't my favorite people."
"What do you think we should do?"
"They want me to support them, set up shop somewhere – don't know where – have Steve work as an accountant for the mob again, and live the life they want to live – fancy cars and houses, maids and gardeners and pool boys. They don't understand that every spare penny we have is rolled back into either the company or the charities that we support. And they don't care. They put themselves and their comfort as higher priority than starving kids."
"You sound like you don't have a lot of respect for them."
I sighed. "I don't. Yet, at the same time, they are family and it would break my mother's heart if something happened to them. And I do have a lot of respect for my mom and dad."
The three Californian mobsters thought about that for a moment. "What do you suggest?"
"Honestly? Steve thinks that he is above the mob to the point where he has refused the witness protection that the government suggested for him. He has come back to Val because Val told him that I was an easy mark, and I would support them. That doesn't sit right with me. As I said, Steve is an arrogant sleeze and Val is a sponge. So what I'd suggest is give them what they have set themselves up for. They want to live without witness protection? Great, they can. And when they do, they will realize that there is a price on their heads and every city with a mob in it will be looking for them. Steve wants a good job? Go for it. He is a convicted felon and his CA designation has been stripped. Being a chartered accountant is now closed to him. Val wants a good job? Go for it. But it isn't likely. She dropped out of school and is an alcoholic. She is also a compulsive shopper and that million dollars that they have saved up will not carry them for very long. And, of course, we will not fund them. We are cutting them free and subjecting them to the life they chose, and we could never get in trouble with that. But by giving them the life that they chose, we are punishing them in our own way."
The men thought about it for a moment. "Can you let us consider it for a while?" said Stavros. "We'd like to talk to Jimmy and Harry about it as well."
"Certainly. Would you like me to leave you alone?"
"Thank you", said Harry.
I smiled at them. "Come get us when you are done talking. I will be in my study."
I rolled out of the room and down the hall. I met Ranger on the way. He still looked angry. "Do we have a full strike team going home with us? Or have we added another ghost or two to the castle?"
Ranger laughed. "Thanks, babe. I needed that."
"What did you do?"
"Made them wish that they had become ghosts."
I laughed.
"We're going to my study. The various enforcers are considering their options and what we suggested."
"You overviewed the options?"
"I did."
"Thank you." He walked beside me into my office and sat on the sofa. I sat to the side of Ranger.
"Where are Steve and Val right now?" I said.
"The man who went to the washroom is now standing guard on a bedroom on the third floor. Steve and Val are in there, and they are too high up to escape. I have added another guard in the bedroom to listen in on their conversation, and to monitor them. When they complained, I told them that they obviously had no understanding of the danger they were in and our men were there to protect them. I then left. How can your parents be so nice and your sister be such an idiot?"
"Sense of entitlement", I said. "My parents don't expect for it to be handed to them, and they have too much pride to accept it if it is." I sighed. "Should we talk to my parents?"
"Let's talk to the enforcers first. While I think your dad will approve what is going on, I'm not so sure about your mother."
I smiled. "She is a very soft person. Perhaps when we present it, we'll be able to explain to her that it is the only option that keeps Val alive."
"That's true."
"It is, also, the granting of all their dreams that they have worked towards. On another note, I have asked Grant whether we can switch to acetaminophen with codeine at night. It takes the pain down to a manageable two or three, and it would be good to switch from the more addictive meds. I notice that I now look forward to going to bed for both the pain relief as well as the emotional feelings of well-being, and that scares the hell out of me."
"Are you sure that level of pain relief is strong enough?"
"No, but I would like to try it. I can always go back up in a few days if the codeine option isn't strong enough. But I think it makes sense to try. It works in the afternoon, so I don't know why it shouldn't work in the nighttime."
"That makes sense. What did Grant say?"
"He said it makes sense to him and that it was worth a try. After being addicted to caffeine, I really don't want to have to go through another withdrawal."
Ranger smiled, cupped my cheek in his palm, and smoothed his thumb over my cheekbone. He leaned forward and kissed my nose. "I don't want you to either. You suffered when you were going through it."
"It certainly made an impression."
Ranger laughed quietly. He kissed me again and sat back as the enforcers all trooped into the study. They sat facing us and smiled. "What did you decide?" said Ranger.
"When I was growing up", said Harry, "the one time I threw my food at my brother, I didn't get more, and I went hungry. My empty belly taught me never to do it again. When I left my bike outside and it was stolen, I didn't get another bike. Not being able to ride my bike with my friends taught me to better take care of my things. There are consequences to everything in life and sometimes the best lessons are the ones that happen naturally. As you said, you let them boil in their own juices."
"So you are leaning to the 'set them free' option, where they are allowed to go back to the States, set up shop and live their lives – at the same time as knowing they have only a million to their names, they will get killed if they settle in an area with a branch of the mob, Steve cannot work as an accountant and will be relegated to low-level jobs, and they are not funded by Steph and me?"
"Yes. It will be their last chance. The key to this is that they cannot be funded by you."
"Agreed", said Ranger and I at the same time. "To tell you the truth, Val hasn't been funded by us for the last six months, which is one of the reasons she is so abusive to us", I said. "We cut her off when she was trying to proposition her profs for marks rather than go to class, and she was consuming a thousand dollars worth of wine a month rather than feeding her kids, and then taking her kids to my parents' for dinner and telling my mother that it was my fault because I was not providing enough money for food."
"Poor kids", said Harry.
"That was a situation that we created by funding her", said Ranger, "and that is a decision that we are now trying to rectify. We will not make that mistake again."
Stavros looked at us for a long moment, then smiled. "I don't think I'd want to play chicken with you."
I grinned.
