Hector sighed in frustration.
After the day he had yesterday, tonight's much-needed break from reality was both refreshing and cathartic. Hector was stretched out on the queen sized bed in Giana's guest bedroom while Vaughn was showering in her guest bathroom; Gia was discreetly ensconced in her bedroom and had been all evening. Since Hector was the go-between with M-18 and the Task Force, he needed to be available at a moment's notice. His time with Vaughn was at a premium, and since overnight guests at Rangeman were not exactly encouraged, Gia had insisted they stay with her so they could spend time together.
Hector had been eager to escape the building he worked in anyway because he was currently on Stephanie Plum-Manoso's proverbial shit list. He thought back to the confrontation that happened…had it only been twenty-four hours since she barged into his second floor office?
Stephanie was notoriously bad at hiding her feelings and also lacked the innate fear of Hector that the other Rangeman employees all possessed. So when she blew into the server room, still in her bikini and cover-up from her day at Point Pleasant and looking ten shades of pissed off, he knew he was about to catch grief over something.
She had stomped over to him, fists balled and spoiling for a fight. "I don't know how things work where you're from, but around here, you don't get to dictate people's private lives!"
Hector had carefully closed out the program he was tracking and turned to face her. "I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I'm from Newark. I'm pretty sure things work similarly to here."
She'd faltered at that, and he could see the questions about his upbringing bubbling just under the surface. With a quick dismissive shake of her head, Stephanie plowed on. "I'm referring to your ruling that the guys aren't allowed to date Giana! Where do you get off, thinking you can even make that decision for them? For her!?"
Hector knew he had to cut her off at the knees or she'd never let this go. Gesturing toward the chair across from him, he waited silently for her to sit before he began speaking.
"You feel that I've overstepped my place. Is that right?"
Stephanie snorted. "That's the understatement of the century, but sure, let's start there." Her voice was thick with sarcasm.
"What you see is me judging your friends, saying they're not good enough to date Vaughn's sister."
Stephanie puffed up visibly and opened her mouth to protest either against Hector's statement or agree with it; it didn't matter. He held up a hand to quiet her and said, "Stephanie, you know the side of these men they've allowed you to know. You see them go out to party, you hear generic tidbits about Binkie taking some girl home or Santos coming home at 4am from God knows where. But do you ever wonder what happens on the other side of this? What those women feel?" He let the weight of that sink in a moment before he continued. "I know I never did, not until they started looking at my boyfriend's sister like she was on the evening's menu. I know you feel empathy toward the men you work with, but try and feel some towards the women they bed and leave…because that's what they do. Most of them can't even remember how many women they've slept with. I won't let Giana become another shower room story, angelita. If that makes me a prick, then so be it."
She sat in silence, staring at him blankly for a few long moments. When she opened her mouth to speak, it was in a quiet, respectful voice.
"I'm not as naïve as you think I am, Hector; I know the guys censor what they say in front of me. I didn't grow up where you did, and I know that compared to most of you, I've had a sheltered life. But I am not completely clueless. If I believed what you're saying, that all the guys are hopeless, chauvinistic bastards who are incapable of love…then I'd have to believe that about Ranger." Here she'd paused and taken a deep breath, as though the thought pained her.
"I've seen the change in him, and I know you have, too." She had leveled him with a stare. "If I bought what you're selling, I'd have to give up on the man I love because I know a few years ago, he was right there alongside the guys. I'd also have to believe that there was no hope for you and Vaughn because until him, you haven't been the most emotionally available person, either. But I believe that you, and Ranger, and Lester, and Vince, and all the others are all capable of being better men than you believe yourselves to be. I have faith in you, in all of you. I've seen, firsthand, what having faith in a man will do for him."
Here, Stephanie had paused and looked lovingly at the band that rested on the fourth finger of her left hand, then raised it next to her face. "This is a symbol of the fruition of that faith, Hec. So you can write me off as being a sap or a romantic, but the truth is that if you call them hopeless, you're putting a limit on what you are capable of giving the man you love. And I know you well enough to know that you're nowhere near finished showing him how you feel."
Then she'd stood and hugged him before wordlessly leaving his second floor office. He sighed and flopped onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Women in general, and Stephanie in particular, were so paradoxical that Hector wondered how straight men dealt with them at all.
Across town, Lester sat in the dark corner of a bar, watching Mark and Bobby shoot pool and flirt with the more brazen women in the bar. He was moody and silent, and none of the female patrons had had any luck with him. His mind was elsewhere, yearning for a different laugh, a sweeter smile than those he was being offered. For the first time in recent history, Lester Santos was not in the mood to pick up a woman.
Mark noticed his friend's sour mood and chose to bide his time. He waited until Bobby was engaged in a flirty conversation with a particularly aggressive brunette and sat next to Les just as he reached the point of buzzed enough to talk but not too drunk to sound nonsensical.
"What's up?" he asked.
Lester shrugged and said, "Nothing. Just not feeling it tonight." without bothering to make eye contact.
Mark sighed and said, "I'd call bullshit but I think that's a waste of a perfectly good curse word. Something's eating at you, man."
When he was met with a silent, sullen glare, he gave it a few more minutes before speaking again.
"Listen, I know we've only been friends for, what? A year, little more? But I know a man who's sulking over a woman when I see one."
Lester flicked his eyes toward Mark but said nothing. Mark took a long pull of his beer and steeled himself before continuing; this was going to require a little finesse.
"I know that look because I've had it myself. Janine and I…we're not on the same page. She won't quit her job because she says it allows her to provide for herself and Sophie without relying on a man, and I can't be married to a woman who makes sex tapes for a living. We're at a stalemate. But I love her and I wish we were at a place that would let us be a family. So yeah, I've been where you're at right now."
Les raised his eyebrows in surprise; he'd never, in all his time knowing Mark, heard him talk about wanting a stable relationship with his daughter's mother.
Mark smirked, as though he knew what Les was thinking. He took a deep breath and continued. "I don't know the whole story of what happened between you and Michelle." He held his hands up in mock surrender at the scathing look Lester shot him. "Hey, you brought her up that night we were in Atlantic City after you finished that bottle of scotch. You didn't say much, but I gathered that whatever happened was bad. You told me she was the reason you'd never give another woman more than one night again." He paused again, carefully considering how to word what he wanted to say to Les, and changed course.
"I'm reading Sophie this book, Aesop's Fables?" he waited for Lester to nod in recognition before continuing. "There's this one story, The Boy and the Nettles. Sophie didn't really like it, she only likes the stories with animals." He smiled fondly at the thought of his daughter. "It's about this kid who tries to pick this plant that has thorns on it; a nettle, it's called. He runs and tells his mom that it stung him, and says that he tried to touch it gently when he picked it. She tells him, 'The next time you pick a nettle, grab onto it and don't let go. It won't sting you if you hold it tight.'"
Lester took a long pull from his beer before setting it down and turning to Mark. "I have no idea what the fuck that means." He said in a serious voice.
Mark burst out laughing. "I know, right?! That shit confused me too, but there's this section that explains the moral to each story. The moral for that story is, 'Whatever you do, do with all your might.' All of this –" here he waved his hand at the bar, the bodies grinding on the dance floor, the people drinking in desperate attempts to lower their inhibitions enough to do something they'll be able to feel later –"is a distraction. We both know that. Maybe it's time for you to quit holding onto this and grab on tight to something else. Something better."
Les rolled his shoulders, not entirely comfortable with this discussion. He doubted Mark would be so interested in doling out love advice if he knew who the cause of Lester's current state was. He decided to change the direction of the conversation.
"What about you? If this is all a 'distraction', when are you going to go after Janine with...what was it? 'All your might'"? He smirked at Mark, who gave him a sad smile.
"If I thought I had a chance of changing her mind, I wouldn't be in this bar with you right now." And with that, he finished his beer and stood abruptly, effectively ending their conversation.
Great, thought Lester, Just what I need, more shit to think about.
While Hector lay conflicted and Lester sat in consternation, in a different part of town, the dregs of Trenton society were unusually quiet. Word had gotten around that Stark wasn't a place you wanted to be caught tonight, and its usual collection of hookers, junkies, and miscreants were noticeably absent. An eerie hush fell over the residents in their dilapidated apartments, and even the ordinarily noisy strays were conspicuously silent. The ominous feeling of dirty deeds being done hung like thick smoke in the air, and Stark Street was feeling the effect.
A meeting was taking place, a not altogether unheard of event in this part of town. What was unusual about this particular meeting is that, unlike the others, it was completely under the radar of Trenton Police Department, Rangeman Securities, and Mara 18 – nothing happened in Trenton without at least one of the three having a lead on the information. The informant, a twitchy slip of a man known as Legs by the TPD for his ability to outrun most of the out-of-shape police force, sat sweating in fear. He waited alone in an abandoned garage, as per his instructions. He was clearly terrified, but the promise of three hundred dollars in exchange for a few days work was too great a temptation to turn down. He could buy enough heroin to stay high for a week with that kind of cash.
A Korean man, flanked by two heavily armed guards, entered silently and sat across from Legs. He stared the junkie down for a moment, then asked quietly, "What do you have for me?"
Legs jumped as though startled by the sound of the man's voice, and quickly launched into a hurried speech.
"So I did what yah guys asked me tah do, I asked a couple of, uh, associates of mine some questions about the guy you asked me to follow." The slight man looked proud of himself for the use of such professional verbiage, then shrank when he felt the ice in the sallow man's stare. Legs licked his lips rapidly, a nervous tick, before continuing. "I, uh, borrowed a car and tailed him a while, too, so I know where his woman does her shopping, which friend she goes to the bakery with, all that stuff. I hadda be extra sneaky on account of the fact that he's a cop, too."
He fumbled in his pockets for several seconds before extracting a crumpled, dingy piece of paper with notes made in his own shaky script. With a nod from the leader, one of the guards retrieved the paper and pocketed it. He stood to leave, straightening his carefully tailored jacket without looking at an increasingly desperate Legs.
"Wait! Where's mah money? Ya promised, ya said if I followed that cop's woman you'd pay me and I need that money, man, I need the money so I can get my fix, I got the shakes already, I need the –"
Legs voice ended abruptly as the sound of a single gunshot echoed through Stark Street. Its residents shivered collectively and hunkered down to ride this terrible night out. At an abandoned building in the seediest part of town, three men exited where four had entered.
The dark man with a dark purpose smiled his dark smile. The Korean Dragon Crew had the information they needed to collect their first trophy kill. Soon, every person in the tri-state area would know their name and fear their power.
A/n: So Stephanie caught onto Hector's agenda, we have a name for Lester's reason for keeping things 'casual', and the gang activity is ramping up. Any guesses who the cop's woman they're targeting is?
This has been so much fun, all the reviews and PMs have been awfully nice and my Beta, snapesgirl21, is just the best cheerleader ever. The traffic on this story, MY story (that's surreal) has been awesome. I hope y'all are enjoying it as much as I am.