Stephanie watched as Alex went over to the dresser and opened the drawers and started pulling clothes out tossing them on the bed behind her.
"You really need to talk to someone about this Alex. The police need to know what happened."
Alex turned and glared at Stephanie, "You got me sidetracked. I wouldn't have told you that stuff if you had not got me sidetracked. I don't talk, and you don't talk. You can't tell anyone what I told you."
"Don't you think Danny has a right to know what happened to his dad?" Stephanie asked.
Alex slammed the drawer on her dresser. "No damn it." Alex spun and looked at Stephanie. "He's fucking ten years old. He had to battle for his life, no damn it."
Alex stalked off to her closet, "You don't fucking understand. He'll kill me. Scarface picked me up with a dart gun." Alex came back out of the closet with clothes on hangers. "They drugged my ass to get me. They tried to pick me up two other times and couldn't do it. I knew they had that fucking bitch and they could keep her. I was set up to have divorce proceedings from her. She fucking ruined that with her stupid drug and gambling addiction."
"Let me tell someone then." Stephanie said as she came over to the bed and started taking the clothes off the hangers.
"No. That is still the same thing as me talking. No damn it. I gave you a hell of a lot more than you gave me. How did you end up in bed with Ranger? When did you break up with Joe Morelli?" Alex asked as she went back into her closet and pulled out two large duffle bags. One was full and she tossed it at the end of the bed. The other was empty and Alex started stuffing clothes into it.
Stephanie sat down on the bed. "I broke up with Joe when I called to report finding your mother's body. I tend to do that with him. I don't like having people make fun of me, I tend to find a lot of dead bodies and well it is easier to have someone you can tell on the inside. I don't like being given ultimatums, and Joe was doing that. So I broke up with him." She started folding some shirts as Alex was still stuffing clothes in the duffle.
"And?"
"When Ranger and I talked about my commitment issues, we talked about Joe. Joe and I could never mesh together when we wanted to make a commitment to each other. I wanted it one day and he wanted it the next day. It was a big cycle of staying in a rut." Stephanie looked at Alex. Alex had stopped putting clothes in the duffle bag and was watching her. "Ranger and I agreed to give us a shot, we are going to take it one day at a time and see what happens."
Alex shook her head, "You still haven't told me how you two ended up in bed. What did you cement the relationship this way? That's wack."
"No, it wasn't like that." Stephanie stood up and started pushing clothes in the duffle bag. "Ranger asked me how I liked using his name when I was hiding for two days. How I liked being Mrs. Manoso for two days." Stephanie zipped up the duffle after all the clothes were stuffed into it. She picked it up and Alex picked up the other one. They started walking out of the apartment. "He said he felt cheated he didn't get to consummate the assumed marriage and asked me if I felt cheated as well from a doomsday orgasm. I had felt a thrill at using his last name, I don't even know why I did use it. So he said he'd show me what it was like to be Mrs. Manoso. That was how we ended up in the sheets."
Scarface was sitting in the lot as he watched Alex and the woman from the other day come out of the apartment. He had gotten the message from Shiropolli through his lawyer to silence Ramono. Shiropolli had others working on the inside of the FBI to get the evidence removed from lock up. Scarface had sat for a day watching the apartment to see when Ramono would come back to get her things, to see if she saw his message. He rolled down the window and pointed the gun at Ramono. He relished this kill, but he wanted to see her eyes as he was doing it. His blood was pumping, his groin tightened, in a few minutes he would have her drugged. He waited for her to turn around back towards him to move to the passenger side of the car. He took the shot.
Stephanie had the door open to the driver side when she heard the shot. Looking over to Alex she saw her grab her right shoulder and pull the dart from it.
"Fuck!" Alex went down.
Stephanie ran around the front of the car as someone yelled out of one of the windows.
"What the fuck is going on? I don't like this shit anymore, I'm tired of hearing damn guns go off all the fucking time." The voice from the window said.
The van pulled up and one man jumped out, Stephanie looked up at him, she recognized him as the same guy who had walked away when her and Lula had come to Alex's apartment. He had a scar running the length of his cheek and he was training a gun on her. Shots rang out from the upper floor window. Stephanie dove over Alex as the shots grazed by her and zinging into the concrete.
"Get away from my car damn it." The voice from the window said as another round of shots came again.
Scarface dove back for the van and took off. He was so angry, his prey was down, and drugged and he couldn't get her. He would have to find a way to get to her, find a way to silence her.
Stephanie's heart was racing, the blood pounding in her ears. She rolled off of Alex and lay on her back looking up at the dusky sky. The first star of the night appearing. Pulling herself together she stood up and went to the passenger door and opened it up and then hoisted Alex inside. She heard pounding of footsteps behind her and turned to see the crazy man from the second story apartment.
"Damn fucker almost got my car." He said. "Did you see him?"
"Nope!" Stephanie said and shut the door to the Porsche. "I didn't see anything at all."
"Nobody sees anything around here. That's what is fucking wrong with the world, nobody sees anything, nobody says anything. Wonder we're not all dead yet. Gotta take matters into our own hands."
"Right." Stephanie said as she rounded to the driver's side, "You do that."
The phone in the car was ringing when Stephanie slammed the door shut. She answered it, "What?" She screamed in the phone as she started the car. She looked over to Alex. "Damn it, you better not be dead."
"Babe, what happened? Why are you at Alex's apartment? I told you to stay away from there." Ranger said.
"Alex got shot with a dart. We were getting her clothes and had them loaded in the Porsche and started to leave and she got shot. He pulled up beside us and was going to shoot me when the guy from the second story started shooting."
Stephanie started the car and pulled out.
"Reach over and check to see if she's breathing, Babe." Ranger told her.
Stephanie moved her hand over in front of Alex's face, she could feel the hot breath coming out. "She's alive."
"Get back to my apartment and don't leave."
Stephanie heard the phone go dead. "Great!" She looked over to Alex. "What did he give you?"
When Stephanie got to the garage and pulled inside three men were waiting. She barely stopped the car when the doors were opened up. Zero wrenched open her door, "Come on Stephanie."
Stephanie shut off the car. "I can't believe she got shot with a dart. We only went to get her clothes."
Zero took the receiver off of Stephanie's arm. "We'll take care of her. Don't worry about it." He tossed the receiver to Manuel who put it on his wrist.
Stephanie looked over to Manuel and then to the third guy. He didn't look like any of Ranger's men. He was not well muscled, didn't have short cropped hair, didn't look like he was in the military. His hair had flecks of gray sprinkled all through his dark auburn hair. He had on a tux and was putting a stethoscope to Alex's chest.
"Who is that?" Stephanie asked Zero.
"That is Doc Hyde. We all call him Jekyl though. He was on his way to one of the hospital functions when Ranger called him." Zero said as he started walking Stephanie to the elevator. "He'll take good care of Alex, don't worry about her. Let's get you upstairs."
"I heard that Zero, see how I massage your prostrate the next time you come in." Zero groaned from the threat. Doc Hyde stood up and looked over to Stephanie. "Her vitals are fine, so whatever he shot her with isn't going to kill her." He looked at Manuel, "Call me when she wakes up, I don't want to give her anything that may counteract what he gave her. Could be an ordinary sleeping medication, but without the dart so I can tell it's not much to go on. If she would have still had the dart with her, I could figure out what he used."
"We can send someone over there to look for it." Manuel said.
"Do that. Until then, I don't want to compromise her position. She's sleeping right now and I don't think her vitals will change much."
"We'll call you as soon as we have the dart." Manuel said and shook his hand.
Stephanie and Zero entered the elevator and took it all the way up to Ranger's apartment. Zero's phone rang and he answered it.
"You got my girl?" Ranger asked him.
"Yup, she's okay. A little shaken up." Zero told him.
"Stay with her, I'll be back as soon as Lester gets through being a ferret and we go in and nab this guy." Ranger hung up.
Zero closed his cell phone and snapped it back on the clip to his belt. Stephanie was now pacing the apartment. "I need my Chunky Monkey."
"Where is it?" Zero asked.
"In the car, it is probably melted by now." Stephanie told him.
"We'll get you some new Chunky Monkey." Zero got back on the phone and put in an order.
Manuel scooped Alex out of the car after he had seen Doc Hyde leave. He already called to have someone go hunt for the dart. He looked down at the sleeping face. "Damn kid, things aren't going your way at all. Damn lucky he didn't get you though, damn lucky he didn't get Stephanie. She's lucky that way. Has a knack of getting out of tight spots. So maybe it was a good thing she was with you this time."
It was two hours later when Ranger walked into his apartment with Lester. Stephanie was sitting in the living room eating from a gallon container of Chunky Monkey and Zero had another gallon in his lap. She looked up at Ranger, "I know I shouldn't have went there. I need to hear that again."
Zero got up taking his ice-cream with him. "She's calmed down now. Ice cream helps." He gave Ranger a grin and left.
"I told Alex to behave, I didn't think you two would leave and go to her apartment. How did this come about?" Ranger asked as he sat down in the spot that Zero had vacated.
Lester sat down in the chair. Ranger had told him he could come up to hear the story from Stephanie first hand and then he was leaving to go back to Alex who was still asleep. The dart had been found and shown to Doc Hyde and he said it was a heavy sedative and that Alex would be out for at least another twelve hours, it wouldn't hurt her. They had agreed to let her sleep it off.
Stephanie started explaining the talk that her and Alex had all the way up until Alex had let slip about what she had seen and done while being captive. "Ranger she told me something that she doesn't want anyone to know."
"How bad is it Babe?" Ranger asked as he put his hand on the back of the couch and started rubbing Stephanie's neck with the back of his fingers.
"Bad, very bad." Stephanie looked at Ranger, "She doesn't want me to tell, she feels responsible for it. She blames herself for it."
"Babe, I need more information. Tell me, and we'll deal with it from there." Ranger told her.
Stephanie took a deep breath, "One of the men she fought in the pit she knew personally. She had a choice to make. She made the right choice, she didn't want to hurt him. They were going to use her sexually as well as fighting if she didn't. She did it and the bastard took her with him when he killed the man. He's the same one who killed her mother, the same one who shot her with the dart tonight and almost shot me. She blames herself for his death, she told me she made the wrong choice."
Ranger put his hand on the back of Stephanie's neck and pulled her to him, laying her head on his chest. Ranger watched as Lester stood up and started stalking about the room, quiet and brooding.
"Whose the man? What does he look like Babe?" Ranger asked.
"She calls him Scarface, he has a scar running all the way across his right cheek back up into his ear. He has dark gray eyes and big forehead, he's bald, no hair. He has very light skin, almost transparent. When he looked at me, it was almost like I was seeing Benito again, it was his eyes." Stephanie told him.
Ranger looked to Lester who stopped pacing. "Shiropolli's henchman, his enforcer, Blade. But Blade is ex-CIA, ex-Navy Seal, unless he's working on the inside with the feds."
Lester looked at Stephanie, "What do you want me to do?"
"He's not going to be easy to get to. I doubt he'll try the apartment again." Ranger said.
"How much information do we have on Blade?" Lester asked.
"His records are classified. I only know him by Blade." Ranger told Lester.
"He moves in silent circles."
Ranger gave a nod. "I've never known him to stick around very long with one employer, I don't know if he'll stick around long with Shiropolli locked up at the moment."
"Damn, can't we make any phone calls?"
"And what? Tell them they have a renegade agent on their fucking hands." Ranger gave a sigh, "He won't be easy to stop. He has a target and we'll have to make sure his target doesn't get within his reach."