Title: Chapter Two: "Humble Beginnings"
Author: Alrielira/ Rai
Spoilers: General spoilers
Disclaimer: The usual disclaimers: I make no money from Janet Evanovich's fine characters. I am merely playing with them for a short while before returning them. This story was started initially as a one shot, but, it seems to want to be continued, and, as many times seems to be the case, stories have a mind of their own.
Rating/Warning: PG-13
Summary: "Challenge:Use this song as inspiration: "Come on Closer" by Jem. Any length, due one month later ;) I got in early. The origional chapter was cross-posted to live journal's babefic community

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Fifty Five years earlier, Trenton New Jersey. USA.

Day One.

My name is Stephanie Plum. I am a thirty year old bounty hunter. Ironically, I am on the run from the police.

The locks to my appartment had tumbled open at three am. I knew this, because I hadn't been asleep, but had rather been staring at my digital clock, trying to ward off nightmares. Because you see? Just a short while ago I had been abducted. Abductions tended to make people nervous. Especially me.

Now, some people might be unused to people breaking into their appartments, but no, not me, because my appartment is the Grand Central Station of Trenton New Jersey, everyone breaks into my appartment.

But there are two main men in my life, and those two men seem to rather like breaking into my appartment, the first is my on again, now off again boyfriend/ex-fiance Joseph Morelli, a Trenton cop who I have had a long and sordid past with. The second is my friend, mentor and occasional Cuban sex God, Ricardo Carlos Manoso, or Ranger as he's known on the streets.

So, odds are, it was one of those two men. Needless to say, I was shocked to see one of Ranger's men, Tank-given name unknown, blocking my doorway.

"Steph?" He began cautiously, slowly moving towards me. I nodded, and rose slowly from my position on the floor next to my bed, trying to smooth down my hair.

"Bombshell?" Came another two voices simultaniously, Bobby Brown, and Lester Santos, another two of Rangers men.

"Guys?"

"Uhh…Steph?" Tank began cautiously, until Lester took over. "We need you to come with us. There's a bit of a situation."

"What sort of a situation?" My voice was slowly starting to rise, as panic began to increase exponentially.

"Joe Morelli is dead.As is Terry Gillman and Albert Kloughn." Bobby murmured quietly, as Tank swiftly moved closer to me, doublessly incase I fell.

"The Police are coming for you Bombshell. They think you're involved. We're here to get you out of here, and far away until this is sorted. Ranger's orders."

"No." I shook my head. "No." Again. "Why?"My legs seemed to give up on me all at once. And my world went black with a painful suddeness..

Unknown to Stephanie, Ranger Manoso was making plans at that very moment, to get Stephanie out of the country under a false passport which was being collected at that very moment by a Rangeman employee above suspicion. Ella. His housekeeper.

Ranger wrote one email while he was waiting, to his daughter to be sent in approximately nine hours time, from his work computer. It served two purposes, one; to let his little girl know he loved her. And two, it would help to delay the police hopefully; from realising he and Stephanie had gone into the wind. Most men on the run didn't contact their children from their work computers. Not without saying goodbye. And his ex would no doubt understand the hidden message. Even if the police wouldn't.

His phone rang, and he answered with the curt "Yo" his men were accustomed to. Tank's message was short, to the point and professional.

"She's sedated, and comfortable. All good."

Ranger hung up then, and made his way downstairs, climbing into one of the Rangeman Bronco's. Big black cars that helped portray the "badass" image he was so fond of portraying. He drove to the airport, and climbed up into the private plane Rangeman owned, sitting next to Tank. Lester and Bobby would pilot the plane to their destination.

Not one of them could have known, they wouldn't see Trenton again, for a little over a decade. Or that within hours, the Rangeman building would have been burnt to the ground, with several others around Trenton dead, and Stephanie Plum, Ricardo Carlos Manoso, and the members of Rangeman's "Alpha" team, the key suspects.