A/N: Happy hump day! So how about that Ranger, huh? Calling out of nowhere. Sheesh. :D Hoping this chapter will get your adrenaline pumping. Hope you enjoy!

Previous Chapter: "Don't leave Rangeman. We're growing quite fond of you there," Binkie said wrapping his arms around me.

"I know. 'Cause you guys would end up being bored to tears without me," I said slugging him in the shoulder. "I can't stay out too late tonight. I want to get an early start on some skips," I said as I went to pull on my shoes and grabbed my clutch.

"No problem. I have an early shift," Binkie nodded in understanding. "So let's get this party started."

Chapter 4

"Careful," Binkie said as he lifted me into my bed. "Here let me do that," he insisted, helping me with my shoes.

Some doltz at the club decided to start hitting on me while Binkie was at the bar grabbing us a drink. I was trying to give him the heave ho which he refused to take the hint and grabbed onto my wrist and began to get rough.

I would have totally had it under control but Binkie being a Merry Man and having etched in his DNA to be protective came to my aid within a matter of seconds. The idiot decided to pick a fight with him and gave me a hard shove which ended up with me losing my balance and falling to the ground giving me a twisted ankle.

The idiot didn't have a fighting chance though. Binkie had him subdued and on the ground with a blink of an eye.

"I shouldn't have left you alone," he grumbled.

"We've been over this, Binkie. It wasn't your fault. The guy was an idiot."

"Let me get you some ice to help keep the swelling down."

He returned with a bag of frozen peas. Why the hell were there frozen peas in my freezer? I wouldn't be caught dead buying something that healthy and placing it in my fridge — must have been Bobby. He stops by every other week to make sure that I'm not starving and stocks my kitchen and sometimes cooks for me like a Fairy Food Mother. I tell him all the time that he'd make the perfect wife for someone one day.

He motioned for me to climb into bed and applied the peas to my ankle.

"It's not really that bad, Binkie," I reassured him.

We stayed there in silence for a while as he fiddled with the bag of peas on my ankle.

"You know…" he cleared his voice "…I know we don't really talk about this kind of stuff but Ranger leaving you like that right after what happened, wasn't right. He should've been here for you."

I started to glare at him but stopped myself. It was only fair that we've spent this much time together as friends and rumors fly. It'd be human to be curious about it. Hell, if I was in his shoes I'd be curious. So I tamped down my temper and slowly tore down my wall. I blinked back a tear threatening to escape my right eye.

"I'm not his responsibility. It's fine."

"It's not fine. He was man enough to create life within you. He should be man enough to take care of his responsibilities afterwards. I would've never left you to deal with this by yourself," he said angrily grabbing my hands, his blue eyes looked almost stormy.

"And that's why you're here now and he's not," I smiled at him and touched his cheek.

"I don't know what's going on between you and the boss but the way he's been acting after the whole incident with Deuce even during the period before the incident…" he trailed off angrily.

"Binkie," I said softly watching the emotions splay across his face. His compassion and display of emotions is a complete opposite of Ranger. If I never had Ranger in the picture, I would've fallen head over heels for this man. But as hard as I may try, I can't seem to push Ranger aside in my heart but I need to work harder. "Nothing's going on with me and Ranger and he made it very clear to me from the very beginning that nothing ever will," my voice choked on the last words.

"But even still—you have feelings for him."

I sucked in a deep breath and replied softly, "I don't know. I don't know what I have for him."

"He's an idiot."

"Now that I can completely agree with," I smiled up at him. "You should get going, I know you have an early morning shift and I'm starting to get tired."

He nodded his head and brought my hand to his lips. "Try to stay off that," he pointed to my ankle, "if it's still giving you trouble tomorrow, you should see, Bobby."

"Yes, daddy," I replied indignantly.

His eyes clouded over, "I can give you other reasons to call me 'daddy."

I threw a pillow at him and laughed, "Stop spending so much time with Les! He's corrupting you!"

He let out the most glorious laugh and tossed the pillow back at me. "Good night, Bomber," and shut the door behind him.

^o^ * ^o^

I walked towards the kitchen starving as my ankle was feeling much better. I stopped short and saw a million tiny black creepy crawlies all over the kitchen counter and cabinets and let out a tiny yelp. I turned to run out of the kitchen when I collided into a hard rock on my way to towards the living room.

"Whoa! Where's the fire, Beautiful?" the rock steadied me.

"Wh-what?" I stood trying to collect my thoughts. "What are you doing here, Les?"

"Brought you breakfast. What's wrong?"

"There's an army of spiders in my kitchen! It's a hostile takeover!"

"Uh huh," Les set me aside nonchalant and strode towards the kitchen. "I never took you as the 'scared of a little spider' type of girl, Beautiful — Fuck…"

"I told you!" I shouted from behind them. "Where did they come from and make them go away!"

"It looks like they're coming from this flower vase," Les said inspecting the flowers.

"Gross," I shuddered. "I'm going to shower I feel all icky now."

"I'll go down and talk to Dillon for you," Les volunteered.

Dillon would be the building's Superintendent. It's a wonder that he doesn't hate me with all the issues that I keep having at the apartment from vandalism, to a firebomb and now an infestation problem.

"Thanks, Les," I trotted off to the shower and emerged fifteen minutes later fully dressed and ready to start the day.

Les and Dillon were talking in the living room. I approached them, "Are they gone?"

Dillon shook his head, "I placed a call to the exterminators to come in this afternoon. They're probably going to have to fumigate the kitchen so you might want to find another place to stay for the night."

I nodded, "Thanks, Dillon. I owe you one."

"No problem, Alyssa. Nothing exciting has happened in a few months so it was high time," he smiled jokingly.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"It looks like there was a spiderling sack in your flowers and they probably hatched overnight. Gotta be careful with those wildflowers. You never know what's hiding on them."

"Gross."

He shrugged as he let himself out, "I'll see you around, Alyssa."

"You can stay with me," Les said. "What are you up to today?" he walked me out door.

"I've got a couple of low risk skips today and then heading to the community center for a quick dance lesson."

"Great, I'll swing by here after my shift and pack you a bag. Come straight to the house for dinner tonight. We can watch some Netflix and chill," he waggled his eyebrows.

I smacked him playfully on the arm and got into my car.

^o^ * ^o^

Today went without a hitch. I was easily catching up with the few skips Vinnie had for me. I sat outside of Tommy Schafer's tiny shack. The shingles were falling off, I don't even know what color the house was supposed to be, an olive green perhaps? And his junker car in the driveway made my past cars look like gems.

He was charged for armed robbery of a local liquor store which he shot at the store clerk and grazed his arm. Why he was released on bail was beyond me. His rap sheet was a mile long.

Buzz.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Are you excited about our trip yet?" Misty's voice screeched over the phone.

Honestly, I had forgotten about it.

"Hello? Earth to Aly."

"Sorry, Mis. Yeah, excited…" my voice tailed off as I watched Schafer's house. "Ah! I gotta go! Call you later, Mis," I spat out as I saw Schafer running out of his house and jumping into his car and speeding off.

I hit the end call button and threw it into the passenger seat as a fleet of cars all pulled up to Schafer's house abruptly.

I took off after Shaefer's car when I heard the sound of rubber screeching. Checking my rearview mirror, I noticed the fleet of cars were all pulling around the block and heading down the street towards him.

What the fuck has Schaefer gotten himself into? The cars caught up to me and then I heard the distinct popping sounds of gunfire.

Shit! A simple skip pickup has quickly turned into a car chase. My phone began to vibrate in the seat next to me. I reached over to grab it but was thrown forward. The phone slipped out of my hands and landed on the floor out of my reach as I was rammed from behind by a large black truck that came flying out from a side road.

Fuck! What the hell was this person's problem? I have no beef with them. I just want to catch my FTA. We were flying down the street on a high-speed chase with me after my FTA and these crazy scary men with guns chasing him as well. So why wasn't I just slowing down and getting out of the way so that these guys can continue their pursuit of him and I could just go after him another day? Because I'm a glutton for punishment, that's why.

Although, this black truck that joined our chase a few moments ago seemed to be more interested in chasing me and not Schaefer. The windows tinted so I couldn't see who was behind the wheel but it looked like it was a short midget because I could make out the outline of what looked like a tiny head popping over the steering wheel. And it didn't look like anybody was in the passenger seat.

This person also wasn't hanging out the windows trying to shoot at Schaefer's car. We made a sharp abrupt right turn dangerously approaching Stark Street. One of the cars in the chase hit Shaefer's car from the right side and which spun him around uncontrollably causing all of us to come to a screeching stop. His pursuers boxed him in and a few vicious looking men stepped out of the car with their guns cocked.

I sat in my car stopped behind them and watched as one man pulled open Shaefer's door and three of the armed men aimed and fired. My mouth dropped open in horror at the execution I had just witnessed when then men turned and faced me and began walking towards my vehicle.

I quickly leaned over trying to grab for my phone as it continued to buzz uncontrollably. I sat up just as I noticed them shouting something at each other and their guns were drawn. Hitting the answer button, switching on the Bluetooth feature, I hit a button to sync with my hands-free then quickly threw my car into reverse.

"What's going on?" Manny's urgent voice rang clear over the car speakers.

"I'm right outside Stark Street. My FTA just got gunned down!" I shrieked loudly. "They're now coming after me."

"Stay on the main roads, Alyssa. A team is tracking you right now and should be with you in a few minutes."

"I'm ok Manny don't worry about me. I'll keep driving. They didn't see my face, I was just chasing my FTA and they came out of nowhere. But I'm pretty sure that I've lost the—" my sentence got cut off as the large black truck returned behind me and hit from behind.

"Who the fuck are you?" I shouted into my mirror staring at the truck.

"Talk to me, Alssya. What is going on?"

"This black SUV keeps trying to run me off the road."

"Can you see a plate?"

"Hershey – Twix – Zero – Butterfinger – Two – Four," I recited trying to concentrate on the SUV and the road ahead of me.

Then the truck just stopped and made a quick right turn down a small side street and took off.

"Oh my god, I think they've decided to give up," I slowed the car down and breathed out in relief.

"Keep driving, Alyssa. Drive until you can find a safe place. A team is only a few miles behind yo—"

He cut off as the black truck came flying out from my right at full speed and slammed into the side of my SUV sending me reeling straight into several park cars and coming to a stop as it kissed an electric pole.

My airbags burst out and pummeled me slamming me back into the seat with my seatbelts locking me into place. My heart was racing a million miles a minute as I tried catching my breath. I blinked a few times trying to clear the cobwebs from my head and tried pushing the airbags from my face.

I turned my head as I heard an engine rev up and saw the truck's headlights shining right at me as it approached me and slammed into the passenger side and the splintering sound of the wood electric pole as it came tumbling down onto the hood of my car. I raised my hands over my face shielding myself before blacking out.

And my last thoughts were, "Damnit, I never got to attempt that fling in Miami…"