If you recognize them, I can't take the credit. :)

A big thanks to Margaret for reading ahead as my beta; thank you Margaret :)

And thank you once again for all the reviews. Please keep them coming.

Chapter 22—You never know who'll show up for a rescue

Stephanie's POV

Well the good news was that I had the high tech comm in my ear and my hair hid the bud. I was hoping Jace heard the small scuffle I made and Kraven talking to me. I was also hoping Hal was tracking us closely and sent help when he noticed the Cayenne parked in one spot for more than a couple of minutes. And mostly I hoped Kraven wasn't going to get a chance to use any of his toys on me.

"I don't expect that you're here by yourself? Who's with you; that slight Hispanic guy with the knives? I have just the thing for him and I can't wait to fillet him like a fish."

I violently shook my head no. He could take that to mean whatever he wanted. I was by myself or my partner wasn't Hector. I was hoping he took it to mean I was by myself.

He pushed me through the doorway Jace had left ajar and I tried to use the momentum to back-kick him in the balls. I was trained but I still resorted to my girlie kick in an emergency. Unfortunately it came up short and I only got him in the knee. Hoped it hurt.

I didn't see Jace inside, but he could have taken the opportunity to hide. Rangemen didn't hide, did they? Well I've hidden with Ranger a number of times but I didn't suspect it was because of fear; most likely it was opportunity. He liked having me close.

We walked past a few devices that I'd seen before: a rack and a Judas' cradle. He'd already told me that he was going to put me in a cage, and I'd seen the exact cage in pictures. It had sharp spikes running along its inner core. Great I'd have puncture wounds everywhere if Jace couldn't figure out how to get me out of here.

Kraven pulled me by the arm and led me further into his dungeon. We stopped in front of a pulley system of sorts. Was he going to raise me into the air? Well I always wanted to fly. If that was the extent of today's torture, maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

He manhandled me as he cut the flexi-cuffs and put some sort of leather vest on me. He pulled another set of flexi's from somewhere and bound my hands behind me again. He then attached the pulleys to the vest. My feet were still free so I hoped he was going to attach the leather cuffs I noticed off to the right, to them so I could take the opportunity to kick him in the face. He didn't. Instead he pushed me towards the wall. The pulleys engaged and I found myself moving towards the ceiling. My head was going to hit if I couldn't figure out a way to level out my body. Jace what was taking you so long?

I leaned back hoping that would make me perpendicular, but then I worried about my face crashing into the ceiling, so I leaned forward. Suddenly five Rangemen burst into the room dressed in full combat gear. A couple had Kraven on the ground and trussed while another two reversed the pulley contraption lowering me back down. Jace grabbed me as I got closer so I wouldn't hit. I was never so happy to see him in my life.

He removed my gag first. "Thank you. I was so afraid he had some goons with him and they got you," I said breathless, as he and another Rangeman undid my binds.

"The police are on their way, but I want to catalogue this place before they get here. Will you be ok while I take some pictures?"

I nodded yes but held onto him for dear life. I was safe, we'd captured Kraven, so why was I shaking?"

"Steph you're going into shock," he said noticing me. "Guys, give me your jackets and anything else you can find. We have to keep her warm. Call an ambulance."

"No ambulance," I said adamantly. "He didn't hurt me. I'll let Bobby check me out when we get back to Trenton."

I guessed I said that convincingly enough, as the Rangeman he was talking to put his phone away.

I had three windbreakers on but I was still shivering, so I sat down on a small bench and brought my knees to my chest so I could warm my legs as well. I was watching the action and the door as four figures came in through the entrance; Carlos, Lester, Bobby and some Latino guy who was all tatted up and had hair down to his ass.

"Babe. Are you ok?" Carlos asked, running over to me and pulling me close. Bobby followed while Lester and Tat man walked over to the guys restraining Kraven.

"How did you get here? Who is that?" I asked instead of giving the answer Carlos wanted.

"Did he hurt you?" he tried again with a more direct approach.

"No. Jace and the Newark guys got to me in time. How did you get here?"

"The call went out that you were in distress. We were in a meeting in Newark so we broke it up and Sotolongo came with us."

That's who that was.

Lester and the man Carlos referred to as Sotolongo came over. Tat man extended his hand to me and when I put mine out to shake, he took it and kissed it. I wasn't expecting such chivalry from someone who looked like him.

"Lolo Sotolongo," he confirmed. "You must be Stephanie?"

"I am and I'm sorry your meeting got postponed because of me."

"Your man must love you a lot, he was up and out as soon as he got the message on his phone. We still had a lot to talk about so I came along. Did he hurt you?" he asked referring to Kraven.

I shook my head no but then I started to shake again.

Bobby cleared everyone away. "Steph, I want to give you a shot of epinephrine. It will help with the shock."

I nodded ok and Bobby prepared a needle.

"It works best if it's intramuscular."

"You want me to drop my cargos in a room full of men?"

"Ranger can distract them," he answered, calling Carlos over to tell him what we were going to do.

Carlos cleared the room while Bobby gave me the injection. It hurt like hell. Much worse than the birth control shots he regularly gives me.

"Message the area a little," he said capping off the needle and putting it back into his bag while I pulled my pants back up. Massage the area, my ass. Sorry Bobby, not doing that with eight guys looking at me. Uh, uh.

When the guys reappeared they had the Cliffside Park police with them. I had kind of hoped that Rangeman would whisk Kraven off never to be seen again but it looked like that wasn't going to happen. Kraven comes from money and had easily bonded himself out last time, so I knew he'd do it again. And I figured he was angrier with me this time.

"Don't worry Steph," Carlos said, sensing what I was thinking. "We'll get you and Hector orders of protection. Everything has been recorded and I'm going to turn over his letters and emails as evidence. He'll go away for a long time."

I certainly hoped so.

My shaking finally stopped but now I felt flushed. Carlos stayed at my side but I noticed Bobby, Les and Sotolongo were nowhere to be seen.

"If you have to go, Jace can take me back to Rangeman when the police are done with us." They were currently talking to Jace and I assumed I was next.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight Babe. Bobby and Les know what we plan to offer him."

Les had let me know about the untraceable weapons but I had a feeling there was more. I probably didn't want to know, so I didn't ask. I also wondered why the police didn't harass Sotolongo. He clearly looked out of place here. I assumed he was under some sort of Rangeman protection or our guys didn't let the cops get a good look at him.

When they came back into the room I noticed he was wearing a Rangeman windbreaker and had his hair pulled back in a low bun. Probably we weren't giving the police another chance to really take notice of him.

The two officers were done with Jace and then they walked over to me. Bobby approached with his wallet out, showed his Rangeman ID and explained that he was the company's in-house medic and that he'd just given me a shot of epinephrine to help with the shock I was experiencing and he asked them to not upset me further.

I wondered for a minute if I was telling them the same story Jace had, but I figured if I kept it to the truth there was a good chance we'd be on the same page. Kraven wasn't currently an FTA so I legally had no reason to be looking for him except for the fact that he wanted to torture me and cut Hector into little pieces. I hoped that was enough; we did enter illegally but he did bind and gag me and attach me to one of his devices. I sure hoped one cancelled out the other.

I didn't know if it would help but I managed to get in that I was Carlos' fiance and also the director of Rangeman's data security division; not that this had anything to do with data security but Kraven had been sending us emails, so wasn't that data? They seemed to buy my story and after jotting down some notes, they told me they were locking down the place and we needed to leave. I had no problem with that; the place had a creep factor of ten on a scale of one to ten. They picked up Kraven and we all left together. Unfortunately Kraven was sending me death stares as one of the officers closed up the warehouse. Yeah, I supposed I had to keep a low profile until he was behind bars for good. Shit.