If you recognize them, I can't take the credit. :) And big thanks to Margaret once again for reading ahead and pointing out flaws.

Chapter 4 — Drama by Daylight

Bobby's POV

I'm usually pretty calm and even-tempered about most things, guess that's the medical training, but when I heard that someone got past our firewall and used our intranet to threaten to kill Tank, I almost lost it. And to top off my sucky mood, I saw the pictures Ranger received from Kraven. Now it looked like three Rangemen, make that Rangepeople, were receiving death threats.

I'd offered safe houses to both Tank and Hector, but even as I did, I knew Hector would decline. And it wasn't just his passion for baseball. Let me re-phrase that-his passion for the Mets, but in general his machisimo-ness would never allow him to back off without a fight.

I just wanted to make sure that sadist couldn't get to him.

I knew Ranger was taking Steph to their house for a long weekend, but Hector was a different story; I didn't think our guys would blend in too well at any of the gay clubs he frequented. Well, maybe Cal or Jamie. But even if we blended in, following Hector to any of those clubs would be just about impossible. He doesn't have his own car and takes public transportation into the city. And he does things by himself, on a whim, at any hour.

The fact that he was in Belmar with Ranger, Steph and Lester right now, made me feel a little better. I kind of hoped we could keep him there. Kraven knew his sexual orientation and had extra special treats already lined up for him. Castration, dismemberment and setting his privates on fire were all depicted in the photos he sent to Ranger. If I was Hector, I'd be a lot more careful with my junk than he was.

And by the way this phone conversation was going I was pretty sure he was thinking more about saving Rangeman than saving his own ass. So when Ranger asked how any of us felt, the first thing that popped out of my mouth was that we were fucked.

I was thinking not so much about the person who'd infiltrated our network, but about all of us. Right now the only person who was truly safe was Tank. As Roscoe and Tallulah Abernathy vacationing in the Canary Islands, they had the best chance of making it through this unscathed. If someone knew who all of us were and had our home addresses (well the ones who listed their home address as something other than 143 Haywood) they could get to us at any time. We needed to get the word out to all the men right now and not by intranet or email.

"Hector, can your GPS app send out a company-wide alert?" I asked thinking on my feet.

"Sí."

"If I type out a quick memo and send it to your private email, can you post for all the men?" I asked more directly.

"Sí."

"Good thinking, Brown," Ranger said, obviously picking up on what was going on in my head. "We need to alert the men that don't already know and that app isn't tied into our system. Is it Hector?"

"No. I have an Apple Developer account. Even though my apps are proprietary, I can't create anything for our iOS devices without it. I tink it's our saving grace or they'd have access to our fleet too."

Fuck.

My other phone rang in the middle of this discussion. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Brett. He's one of our men and Ranger's brother-in-law.

"Brett's on the other line, hold on a sec," I said placing them on mute before picking up my personal cell.

"Lauren's having contractions," were Brett's first words when I answered. Lauren is Ranger's sister and she's currently seven months pregnant.

I was thinking Braxton Hicks, or false labor and was about to tell him to stop worrying and make an appointment with their obstetrician, when I heard Lauren call to Brett.

True labor is painful and she sounded like she was in pain.

"How close together?" I asked.

"I've been timing. They've been about five to seven minutes apart for the last hour. We're waiting for the doctor to call us back. Do you think we should go to the hospital?"

Labor with a first child could last as long as twelve hours, but you could never be sure. If her contractions were really that close together she needed to get to the hospital just to be safe.

"Did her water break?"

"No, not yet."

"I'd go to the hospital. They can get in touch with your doctor. I'm on the other line with Ranger, do you want me to tell him?"

"Yeah and ask him to let the Manosos know too." "Lauren, are you ok?" I heard as he spoke away from the phone. "We're heading out now."

I hung up and unmuted my Rangeman phone.

"Trenton's first Rangebaby wants to make an appearance," I said to everyone.

"Is everything ok?" Ranger asked.

"They're heading to the hospital. She's only thirty-three weeks pregnant, so it could be false labor, but it didn't sound like it."

"That's early," Steph said in the background, obviously doing some calculations in her head, "Will the baby be ok?"

"I'd be more concerned if she was less than 32 weeks, but she's still going to be preterm."

"She?" Steph asked, picking up on my last sentence. I knew the baby was a girl, but I didn't know how common that knowledge was.

"Educated guess," I said, trying to cover my faux pas.

"Hector and I just sent out an alert via the GPS," Lester commented, probably a dig on the fact I promised to write up something but got side-tracked.

"Good. Now what's the plan for the weekend? Rotations as usual?"

"Erik and Eugene are leading a team into Bergen county. I got a few leads on warehouse space that's been recently leased out. We're hoping to find Kraven and shut him down," Ranger answered.

"Big county," I said. "And wealthy. What makes you think he's there?"

"It's where he's from. He comes from money; it's where he would feel the most comfortable. And we'd gotten some tips on his whereabouts over the last few months. Based on nothing more than his ability to get to the places where he's been spotted, Bergen county makes the most sense."

"How many men? With Tank gone and you and Lester on weekend leave, I need to figure out rotations," I said getting pissed. This was the job Tank and I hated the most.

"I can take care if it, I have access to the men's schedules," Ranger said, probably not thinking clearly.

"No you don't. You'd have to go on the intranet for that information, and until we know who broke in, no one's going on there but Hector via a back door. We have that smart board in the control room. It's not online. I can use that to pull together rotations."

"Take a picture and send it to my personal email. Send it to Steph too. We'll have the weekend worked out for you in an hour or so."

Thank God.

"Aye aye sir," I said, knowing how much Ranger hated that phrase.

I thought I heard a growl before Belmar disconnected.

Brett's POV

As we were driving to the hospital, I saw the alert pop up on the Rangeman app on my iPad. Fuck. I was one of the men whose home address was listed on our intranet. Double fuck. I was probably hours away from being a new father; we'd just moved in and I hadn't updated the security system yet.

Well there was nothing I could do about it now, but I hoped someone had time to help me put in a state-of-the-art system before Lauren and Avery arrived home.

Yeah, we were having a little girl. I'd wanted to name her Juliana Avery after no one in particular, but Lauren pointed out that Ranger's daughter's name was Julie and that would just be too confusing. But the name Avery stuck. Our daughter is going to be Avery Victoria Colton.

Avery's baby shower was supposed to be next Saturday. Ironically, she'll be here for it, but she probably won't be making an appearance. I'd have to call Celia at some point. She was the one who organized this thing and would know how to cancel it.

Lauren grabbed my thigh really hard taking me out of my thoughts. I looked over at her and could tell by the look on her face that she was having a strong contraction. She was trying to breathe through it, but was having a tough time.

"My water broke," she said. "I'm sorry, I think I made a mess all over your car."

And then another contraction hit. This baby wanted out. We were still a few miles away from the Princeton Medical Center. The hospital itself was rated so-so, but its maternity ward was the best in the state. We went out of our way to find a doctor affiliated with it and now it just felt too far away.

I had a feeling our baby was close when Lauren grabbed my thigh again, this time digging her fingers in as if her life depended on it. I'd be black and blue in the morning.

"Are you ok baby?" I asked her as the contraction subsided. She violently shook her head no. "We'll be there in a minute. Hold on," I said, checking both ways before going through a red light.

Flashing lights appeared out of nowhere and I heard a siren behind me. They could give me the ticket once Lauren was safely in the birthing unit, so I rolled down my window and motioned for them to follow me. Then I called Rangeman. Thankfully Hal was on duty.

"Lauren's having the baby and I have a tail on me. Princeton PD. Call you call and verify who I am? I'm in the Subaru. I'm not stopping for them."

A few moments later the sirens ceased, but the tail continued. Looked like we were getting a police escort.

Stephanie's POV

A notice was sent to all our personal email accounts, but I already knew the details since Carlos was on the phone with Brett shortly after Avery was born. Avery Victoria Colton arrived at 2:06 this afternoon. She weighed in at 4 lbs. 8 oz. and was 17 1/2 inches long. That sounded tiny to me. Actually I guessed she was. She was seven weeks early.

But she took my mind off all the unpleasantness going on around us.

As the first baby for Rangeman Trenton she was big news. Miami had a few and Boston and Atlanta had one apiece, but until today we were babyless. And jeez, I guessed I was an aunt again. Not that Carlos and I had secretly gotten married in the last few hours but his other nieces and nephews already called me Aunt Steph so I supposed little Avery would too.

Ok, that piece of news out of the way, we went back to figuring out the weekend's rotations. Now obviously Brett would be out of the picture and we'd need a team on his house when he was at the hospital since his current security system consisted of his gun and a baseball bat. Carlos would never let his sister and niece go unguarded after their very visible change of address was announced within the company.

This thing was turning into a huge pain in the ass.

The guys were holed up in Carlos' office going over the rotations we'd set up. I'd had enough of Rangeman business so I went online to check out the shoe sale at Lord & Taylor. Buy one pair and get a second at 50% off. Ella usually kept me pretty well stocked as far as designer clothes and shoes went, but sometimes a girl just needed to feel like she was getting a bargain. And if I didn't pick up some sandals now, they'd be sold out when I needed them. Okay, I rationalized that one. A pair of Calvin Klein T-strap wedges in black suede caught my eye. I could even wear them now, so I quickly ordered them in my size before looking for another pair. And I found them: a pair of Elliott Lucca platform wedges that were probably about four ½ inches high. They were brown and had a patchwork strap over the toe area and a double buckle at the ankle. Carlos would love them on me.

I found my bag and dug out my Lord & Taylor credit card. I rarely used it so I knew it wasn't maxed out. And lately none of my accounts were maxed out anyway. Rangeman paid me well and I was able to pay off most of what I owed. I ordered them and gave the name and address of Samantha Pardo as the recipient. This way they'd come directly to Belmar.

That done, I could either continue shopping and spend more money or I could go see what the guys were up to.

I opted for the guys.

As I made my way back to Carlos' office I heard Les' voice. I could tell he was pissed that we hadn't found Kraven yet and that he'd made a move against me.

I was less upset than he was and was going to tell him so, but when I walked into Carlos' office I saw what was up on the computer screen — another picture of me.

"Where did you get this?"

"It just arrived," Carlos said, sounding beyond angry. "It was in my inbox; Hector was checking our emails using his developer account and this was in there. It went out company-wide."

The image on screen showed a photoshopped version of 'me' naked. I was held spread eagle by a pair of massive hands and another set of hands were getting ready to insert a bulky device into my vagina. According to the description, this device was called a choke pear. It could be used orally, rectally or vaginally, forced into the mouth, anus or vagina of its victim and expanded by screws to open its segments. The pointed prongs on the ends of these segments were designed to rip into the throat, intestines or cervix, causing the cavity to be irreparably mutilated. Death usually followed. At least that's what the email said. The device looked gruesome and I felt sick to my stomach.

"I wanted to hide this from you Babe," Ranger said as I gagged and felt the need to vomit.

A waste basket was placed under my chin and I threw up everything that was left in my stomach.

Ranger picked me up and carried me to the closest bathroom. He turned on the water and used a washcloth to clean me up and press a cold compress to my neck and forehead.

"I'm sorry Babe," he kept saying over and over as if that could change what I saw.