Chapter 58

I was sat against the headboard of our bed trying to focus on the laptop and emails in front of me but finding it very hard. My eyes kept wandering over to Steph and the small child suckling quite contentedly at her breast. Gabriel Carlos Manoso, Gabe when he was quiet and playful but Gabriel when Steph found herself exasperated when trying to placate him, not that that happened very often. He was usually a very placid baby.

Seeing his eyes closing and his mouth stilling I closed the laptop and moved it to one side. It was my time with my son, a time that I relished, as I leant over and lifted him into my arms. With his head resting on my shoulder, I rubbed his back gently as I got up from the bed. His soft downy hair brushing against my cheek and that smell so unique to him giving me that feeling of great peace.

"Go back to sleep"

I told Steph as I kissed her on her head before moving from the room to the nursery next door. I smiled as the movement brought forth a loud belch from my son, if nothing else he certainly had his mother's love for food. He'd taken to breast feeding like a duck to water, though his appetite had driven Steph to near exhaustion to start with. In the nursery I placed him on the changing mat, his eyes still closed, and his little arms held high above his head. As I started to undo the sleep suit I watched those blue eyes open and look at me. I'd been told that they might change color as he got older but to be honest, I loved those eyes as much as I loved his mother's.

I had changing a nappy down to precision, and was soon dressing him in the small dungarees, covering his mocha latte colored skin. This kid was going to be a heart breaker when he grew up though his disposition was still up for debate. He certainly had his mother's curiosity as I watched his eyes tracking me.

Once downstairs I sat in the leather chair by the window, the sunlight accentuating the straight hair on his head, though the final color was something else that was up for debate. Steph was just glad that he didn't seem to have inherited her curls. Resting him in the crook of my arm I picked up the soft toy from beside me and listened to his gurgles as his arms legs began to move about. Yes, this was my alone time to play with my son.

An hour later Gabe was fast asleep in his small reclining seat when Steph made an appearance. Her hair was wet from showering and her face was glowing as she poured herself a coffee. I admired her body as she moved around the kitchen, before she sat down on the edge of the seat opposite me. Her sister Val had almost gloated when Steph had started to put more weight on which had the desired of effect of Steph iincreasing her exercising and being more careful with what she ate. Now, two months after Gabe was born, Steph had managed to return to her precious size. Maybe it was her high metabolic rate, but I knew it was it was from the hard work that she did with exercising.

"We have that zoom meeting this morning, don't we?"

I nodded my head, knowing how much Steph looked forward to talking to Lizbeth and the guys. Yes, we had participated in some of the jobs that Seraphin had taken on. Steph had found the research both rewarding and enjoyable, a welcome focus for when she was pregnant and now as she settled into a new routine. I'd been away from home three times since that meeting with Lizbeth to discuss her proposal. The first one had been after a summons to Washington. That had caused Steph some anxiety, not something that she needed being pregnant, so I was to say the least pissed off.

As I'd expected Colonel Raynor was gloating over the success of an interagency success for stopping Lukavic. I remembered the details of that meeting because on returning home Steph had wanted to know exactly what had been said.

"A job well done Manoso. I knew that you'd get to the bottom of it"

I wasn't sure that he had ever realized just how complex and dangerous that job had been. I was also annoyed that he seemed to be taking credit for it.

"So you handing the detonator over to Markovic was a good decision on your part"

I knew that him doing that had resulted in Lukavic taking control of it.

"How was I to know that Gregson had an ulterior motive. He told me that you had it and where you would be. It was just a simple matter of using the sat images to pin point where you were. I was of the impression that if the people who had his daughter knew that he was in possession of it then they'd show their hand making it easier for you to find her"

As always, the answer of a bureaucrat trying to deflect any responsibility for what he had inadvertently done. That Raynor fell for the shit that Gregson told him not only annoyed me but also had me questioning his judgement.

"So about your contract. I know that you were feeling a bit frustrated at the time so am sure that you regret what you asked"

And there it was. Raynor expected me to continue my jobs for him. Did he think that because the danger had been averted and the mission was seen as a resounding success that it would make me want to continue? I didn't need that feeling of success that those jobs had provided, I wanted more control over what I did.

"No, if nothing else that mission highlighted to me how flawed the organization and people were when I undertook them. Lambert, one of your people who provided intel, he falsified data that extended that first mission down in Venezuela. Then there was you. You didn't have a finger on the pulse to know what the hell was going on and trusted people without considering what they were telling you"

"That's not true. I was overseeing that job, I knew what was going on"

I raised an eyebrow as though to say, yeah right. It had taken some finding out about Lambert, but the timing of that intel had delayed my mission by weeks and had coincided with when Steph had first started to look for Lainey. Maybe it was Gregson who would have known that Steph would have come to me for help. When we ignored the intel and started to use our initiative was when he had applied for a job with Rangeman, another way of keeping tabs on what I was doing.

I was still looking at Raynor and began to realize that I was making him uncomfortable.

The one thing that I had come to understand from everything that had happened was that trust was one of the most important things. Steph had helped me to see that, and I no longer trusted the system that Raynor was a part of.

"Colonel, I will be leaving here with the documents to verify that I'm no longer obligated to you or the government"

I watched as he deflated, yeah, he knew that he had no choice. From what Correll had told me it was being rumored that Raynor was being pushed to resign so someone somewhere knew that he was a liability.

I'd left that office three hours later with his signature on my end of service file.

Movement from the corner of my eye had me refocusing as Steph lifted Gabe from his chair. He was wide awake now and I knew that we needed to be ready for our meeting. The interior renovations for the house were complete now and the room downstairs had been refurbished to serve as an office as well so that was where we headed to.

As the screen came to life, I was seeing the images of the people that we'd come to work so closely with. CJ was obviously with Lizbeth at a home that they'd purchased further south near Miami and Ethan and Stanley had a view of the beach and sea behind them, so they were obviously in Belize.

"Oh my, he's grown so much since I last saw him"

Turning I watched as Steph held Gabe on her knee, facing the screen. His arms and legs were doing their usual marathon and he was gurgling as he watched the screen.

"Well, he should be, he eats like a horse"

Came from Steph as she lifted him and bounced him, letting his feet kick against her knees.

"Good outcome from that last job Carlos"

To everyone here I was now Carlos. Even within the Rangeman organization the name of Ranger had been dropped. Yes, I still went into the office at Trenton two or three times a week and to feed the urge of being active I helped out with the occasional takedown but a lot of my time had been managing the new security system for the facility used by the Wall Street financial district. In fact the second time that I'd been away from home was to oversee a similar operation over on the west coast.

"I'm so glad that we found that baby and ended up putting that group out of business"

A job that had been close to Steph's heart. We had picked up the job from an extremely wealthy couple who were devastated at the apparent loss of their daughter right after she was born. The hospital had claimed that the baby had died but the mother was having none of that. What we uncovered was a group who were selling babies and children for adoption overseas. Steph had done her magic and discovered inconsistencies along with too many coincidences that had led us to the ringleaders. I'd just got back from Chicago having spent time doing surveillance before Ethan, CJ, and myself had raided their base of operations. At the same time Lizbeth and Stanley had gone into a private home where a number of babies and children were being kept.

"How are you doing with getting them back to their parents Steph?"

I knew that it had taken time trying to find out the identity of some of the children because any records that we'd found had been incomplete.

"Slowly but surely. Megan has been amazing helping with that and Lula has had some good ideas that helped, though we both feel that one little girl may have been taken from a lone teenage mother. Coral is helping with that. Megan is supporting Lula to try out working for children's services, you know with her getting the right qualifications"

Contacts. Steph had been worried at first that she wouldn't have people that she knew who could be potential sources of help. That those three women were helping was a testament to Steph and how well she connected to people, and she was still helping others when she could. Lula, well, being a bounty hunter was never going to work for her so Steph helping her with a change in the direction her life was going looked to be working out.

"So what about that new job?"

Asked Stanley. I looked to Steph for her opinion and knew straight away that she was keen to get her teeth into it. That had been the reason for my third trip away from home.

"Carlos went to see Miguel before the job in Chicago. I've accepted his invitation so the three of us are going to be travelling down there next week"

"What do you need from us Steph?"

"Be there as backup"

I replied before Steph could say anything. I saw her roll ger eyes at me but she knew that I would never allow any danger anywhere near to her or Gabe.

"Carlos feels that the protection from a cartel boss isn't enough, even though we're only there to support some of the women down there"

I heard some laughing from the screen and knew that they were thinking the same as me, that Steph just had this knack for trouble finding her. We finished the call with the agreement to complete the final preparations via email. In some ways this job should be a walk in the park. Miguel had asked for help with working with women who he wanted working within his organization. It seemed that even a cartel was open to sex equality amongst its employees, so Steph and Lizbeth were designing a program to deliver workshops on self-confidence, self defense and being assertive.

I heard Steph's phone going off so accepted Gabe as she passed him to me while she answered. Placing him facing me on my knees allowed me to tickle him while I watched Steph. I always worried when she received a call from her sister and that ringtone indicated that that was who was calling. Seeing her smiling I relaxed thinking that maybe it was good news.

"That was Val. She's expecting us at 3 for Mary Alice's birthday party"

You might be thinking that her saying that would be unusual, but Val and her family had moved home, away from the toxicity of the Burg and their parents. Yes, we'd helped them financially, but it was worth it to see the two sisters getting on so well. No doubt Mary Lou, Lula and her grandmother would there this afternoon, so they'd all be able to catch up with each other. Her parents? They'd tried to get in touch with Steph but there was a bitterness to the messages that they had left.

As I said to Steph, you can't choose who you're related to, but you could choose who your family were and those we had in abundance.

The end.