Saving All My Women

by Rangerbabe21

What can Ranger do when Stephanie is taken and the threat that comes in is for all his women: Julie, his mother and sister's too. Where and how can he protect them, when the bad guys can find them where ever they go? Babe HEA

17. Chapter 17 Reflections in California

Chapter 17 – Reflections in California

Monday May 18 18:00 ish

I took the phone. I could see both sides of the argument. My family is happy, they never thought I would settle down. But I wouldn't want Julie anywhere near a man like me and to be in danger her whole life.

I took her into my arms and kissed her. Her mother was probably having a drink right now. Then she would be calling the VFW hall and reserving it. To be followed by doing some laundry and ironing the sheets, towels, Frank's boxers, undershirts and socks.

Dinner was a boisterous 28-person affair with everyone talking about what happened last night and the excitement of being in California. Lester joined the family rather than have sandwiches with the men and the women in my family loved it because he was so much more charming, open and talkative than I am. I sat out on the deck with Stephanie and half my family. Really pleased at how well they were accepting Rachel, Ron and their kids, and how well Julie, Becky and Maggie were continuing to get along. With all that has happened today no one has bothered Stephanie once about the wedding. Marc stood off the deck, out of our sight, LSAT in hand.

As dinner was winding down I opened the sliding glass door and got everyone's attention inside and out. "It's time to go over California rules. First of all, we are a lot more exposed here so everyone is getting two bodyguards." I gave them the names of their men. "I will introduce them to you in the morning. When we are around the houses, the men will guard the perimeters, when you go out you have two men on you. Groups of three or four women get an extra man. Stephanie and Julie, you were both specifically named in this last attack. You get one man on you twenty-four seven and two men when you leave the houses. The men will drive everywhere you go. All trips anywhere away from the houses must be approved by me. Keep your phones on you at all times. Gunfire rules are the same, get down and stay down until notified it is safe. But I will add to check your phones, we will text once it is safe so you don't have to wait for someone to find you and tell you personally. In the case of gunfire I need everyone with a phone to respond that you are okay."

"Everything you do here has to be approved. I need to know where everyone is at all times so text me regularly where you are and what you are doing. Marc is second in command, if I'm not around you can always ask him for permission to leave. You can also always ask your men to contact me, they have radios and phones and can always get in touch with me."

"I know it will get boring for the kids being cooped up in these houses all day every day. Everyone pull out your phones. I have sent you a list of approved activities." I waited while everyone pulled out their phones and pulled up the lists. "There is always the beach. Three LA sightseeing tours around the city in a closed bus. In fact, they have a special bus they use for larger tours that will hold up to twenty people and we can rent the whole thing. There are fifteen approved museums: Natural History Museum, California Science Center, The Getty & Getty Villa, Kids Space Museum, Zimmer Kids Museum, Discovery Cube LA, Children's Museum La Habra, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California Science Center, Peterson Automotive Museum, Guinness World Records, Ripley's Museum, Madame Tussauds Hollywood, Hollywood Wax Museum, and the Griffith Observatory. There are links to each museum so you can see what they are. As we are here longer and the threat level goes down more activities could be approved. We can stay in these houses until Friday at 2. That's three and a half days. Discuss it over, pick out what you want to do and then we'll make a plan for the week, so everyone can go to the same museums the same days and we can coordinate our security details. I have sent everyone this information in an email so you can look these things up on your laptops as well."

With that announcement, half the room got up and went and got their computers, fifteen minutes later they were sectioned off in groups in the living room, library, den and around the dining room table talking and going over the options. As they came back I passed out paper and pens to everyone telling them to list their top five or six options for the week.

Stephanie was sitting next to Oshanna so I got my laptop and logged it in for her. She just smiled as I handed it to her with paper and pen, "Carlos, what do you want to do?"

"Babe I'm going to do my job and make sure everybody stays safe."

"There isn't anywhere you want to go?"

"I may come on some outings depending on what they are but I'm here to protect everyone; you and Julie specifically. That's what I need: to see that everyone is safe. I'll be back, make a list of what you want to do this week and we can decide the best days to do it. I'm going to check in with the men." I told her as I got up and made my way to the back of the house. By radio I checked in with all my teams and looked at the beach.

While I loved my family, I was much more comfortable with my emotionally stunted men than with my very demonstrative family. It was nice that they were so loving and close but I haven't spent any real time with them since I was twenty and left to go join the army, and I barely did then. To be honest I hadn't felt like part of the family since I was fourteen.

I walked out the sliding glass doors, checking on the beach patrols and sent a text to Marc that I was going for a run and to watch Stephanie closely. I had run a few miles on the beach chasing the boat around the island this morning but nothing compared to my normal five to eight miles. Something was burning up, bothering me in the back of my mind and the best way to uncover it was to let my mind flow free for a while as I exhausted my body. I let my mind wander and the next thing I knew I was remembering my youth.

When I was fourteen, after I got out of juvie, my parents sent me to go live with Abuela Sanja in Miami. My mama tried to keep in touch by calling me every week to see how I was doing but she did all the talking because I honestly didn't have anything to say. Then I started high school and tried to carve out a place for myself in the deeply Cuban neighborhoods. It took me a long time. Physically I was just starting to get taller and fill out, still small for my age. But I was the outsider and was not very accepted into the cliques that were already formed by those that grew up in these neighborhoods.

I was angry for being sent away at 14. Angry at losing my family and all my friends. Angry at the gangs I had joined to get out of being beat on regularly and because all my friends were joining too. In those neighborhoods you either joined or were outcast and forever bullied. I just hadn't realized what joining and belonging would put pressure on me to do. Angry at my overly strict Abuela who closely monitored everything I did. Checking that I went to school, checking that I was at work, checking that I did my homework. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere not approved or hang out with other kids my age. Which didn't matter because I had no friends and was rejected by the neighborhood.

Jiu Jitsu helped me channel all my anger into productive emotions. I learned to control my raging hormones and out-of-control emotions by channeling them into productive actions. I learned to hide all my emotions and the neighborhood kids that harassed me began leaving me alone as I became balanced and they realized nothing they did bothered me anymore. I gained their respect and started making friends as I was strong in myself. As I grew bigger and began filling out I also fit in easier with them.

The next year I was fifteen but visits back home were awkward because when I came home for summer breaks and holidays I was forced to share a room with Julio because Oshanna had been given my room. Julio was living in hog heaven as he had been given the biggest bedroom, and a bunkbed that he covered in his stuff, a large nine drawer dresser and walk in closet. Now a few weeks out of the year, over Christmas and spring break, he grudgingly shared it with me, not giving up any closet or drawer space but making me live out of my suitcases and constantly putting stuff on the top bunk "forgetting" I was in town. During the summer he cleaned out three of his nine drawers for me but I was gone six days a week working for my dad as a laborer cleaning up job sites. I had to rely on Jorge, a site supervisor, to pick me up from the office and take me around to work where he needed me the most.

By the end of my sophomore year everything was different because I was sixteen and had my own car, a hot 1989 Pontiac Trans Am. I bought it from a junk yard with all the money I had saved from working construction the summer before. It had been in a bad car wreck but the motor still mostly worked, and I had it towed to my grandmother's house. I restored it over six months while taking Auto Mechanics that year, spending a fortune buying body parts to replace what was damaged, and then painted it hot rod red with two black stripes down it's top. With it I got attention from girls and respect from guys that drooled over my car. By then I had filled out and was 5' 10" with long hair again. I was building muscle and really starting to fill out in my chest, arms, and shoulders. After one and a half years of Jiu Jitsu I won any confrontation that came my way and I was finally being accepted and included by the neighborhood. I had money and had started dating. Before the end of the school year Jennifer and I had been going steady for three months.

Leyla got married my sophomore year, and that summer I got her room, ignoring the pink paint on the walls as I worked for my father's company framing out houses, hanging drywall and putting on roofs 'to keep me out of trouble', but really, I was happy to be mostly left alone. While all my friends in Miami were out partying, and going to the beach on their off days, I was trapped working six days a week and staying home. Holed up in my room counting the days till I could get back to Miami and see Jennifer.

I could have gone out more that summer but I felt obligated not to sleep around because Jennifer and I hadn't broken up before I left. I tried calling several times but really it was awkward calling from our kitchen phone to her family's house phone where ears were always listening. The last month of summer, I stopped calling. I had been spending every day working for my dad and practicing my Jiu Jitsu. I was shocked to come back to Miami for my junior year and learn she had moved suddenly and didn't even call to tell me.

The rest of my high school career went along well. As long as I kept my grades up Abuela Sanja left me to work, my daily martial arts classes, and on weekends let me hang out with my friends. Life was good until I graduated and my parents insisted I come home. I had been angry when they sent me away at 14 but eventually I had made a life for myself in Miami, and wasn't ready to leave it.

At eighteen, I was angry again, so angry at being once again ripped from the life I had built for myself. In Miami, I had many girlfriends and friends I hung out with. My part-time job was going to become full-time. I was only a few months away from getting my black belt in Judo, to add to my black belts in Jiu Jitsu and Aikido. Now they had ripped it all away again forcing me to move back home, work for my dad and go to college.

When I was forced to come home as an 18-year-old High School graduate, the summer before college started, I felt like I didn't know my family anymore. I had to work for my father again that summer and after three summers as a laborer he thought it was time I learned about the business. Starting me every Monday in the office doing filing and paperwork for him, then driving around on different jobs where he would inevitably leave me to work for the rest of the week.

He kept assigning me to work on different projects: one week wiring up a house, the next week putting in a toilet, sink, and laying tile. It became clear he was grooming me to become management and take over the business someday but while construction was something I was good at, it didn't interest me as a life long career.

The one thing I did for myself was sign up for Muay Thai classes twice a week, the closest martial arts school to our house. I spent my spare time taking classes and hanging out at the local bowling alley, trying to pick up girls. Six months later when my dad saw me practicing Muay Thai in the backyard it came out that was where I was two days a week. He forbade it and went down to the school and tried to unenroll me. He thought if I was training that meant I was fighting and getting back in with the gangs. I was eighteen, so they wouldn't let him unenroll me, but he put his foot down and said I couldn't do martial arts as long as I lived under his roof. I quit the classes as ordered and practiced secretly in my room. My focus then became to get my business degree and move on with my life as quickly as possible.

I worked and went to school, but I secretly resented it and my parents. My father was always so encouraging of me learning the business, like I was five and learning the alphabet. It wasn't a matter of if I could do it but that I didn't want to. I went through the motions, taking extra classes every semester so I could finish school early. I went to classes every morning and worked for my father in the afternoons.

It sucked because I was back home and I still had to work for my father so I could pay for school, gas and any other expenses. To top it all off my parents had started charging me weekly rent saying they were preparing me for real life. All while Julio got a car, gas money, all his time, everything for free. Oh, he had to work for my dad during the summers as required, but he was more charismatic than me, making friends with the men on each site. Then he would spend his time hanging out, joking around with them rather than doing any real work. I watched him on one site spend all afternoon "working" with one guy handing him tools and wood not doing any of the work he was there to do. Three days later he was still on that job site doing his "work".

In April, after two years of working for the construction company, I'd had it and went to get a different job at a local gym that also had boxing and MMA. Again my father forbade it and when I went to classes the next day the Army recruiter was on campus so I signed up. Basic started four weeks later and I didn't even tell my parents, I just prepared everything. I finished my classes, taking my exams one week early. I left work after lunch that Friday, loaded my already packed clothes in my car, left them a note on my dresser and reported to Fort Benning, Monday morning.

I didn't talk to my mom again for four months, the longest I had ever gone without talking to her and that was a call my commanding officer insisted I make because I was being deployed to a war zone in Afghanistan. That's where I saw my first group of Army Rangers come back from a mission. They were so confident and commanded so much respect. They were rough, rugged, and independent. People got out of their way and they had 'real' missions, not just marching or driving around patrolling a boundary all day.

I signed up for the next Rangers school and was turned down because I was not fit enough. I spent the next six months learning all I could about the Rangers and Ranger school, working out and putting on weight. During that time, I applied for a transfer so I could be airborne trained and then got accepted into IBOLC: the U.S. Army's Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course.

My second week I was in IBOLC I applied to Ranger school again and was accepted, and then I met Sgt. Major Green. A big black former Ranger that now taught at Leadership, he gave me the best advice ever… Train big, Eat big! He told me how to increase my workouts so I'd be ready and how much to eat and what to eat to pack on muscle and good fat.

For the next three months I followed his advice: running five miles a day, working up to ten, with weight on my back that I increased five pounds each week, until I could run long distances with thirty pounds on my back. I did various training in the water once a week. I increased my workouts till I could do one hundred push-ups and sit ups every day focusing on using perfect form. Weight training daily alternating body parts, but maxing out the weight I could lift every time. Eating 3000 to 3500 calories a day, including two muscle building protein shakes. It was a lot of work to fit in with my already full leadership schedule so I started cutting my sleep short and getting up at 05:00 to fit it all in. Working on less sleep was another thing that served me well in Ranger school where you averaged 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night.

I packed on a good fifteen pounds of muscle and ten pounds of fat by the time I started Ranger school. This was good because 65 days later when I'd graduated Ranger training at the top of my class, I was thirty pounds lighter, my clothes practically hanging off my frame. I looked like a scarecrow that had its stuffing pulled out. I was the size I was at 18, except now it was hard steely cut muscle and I had more strength and endurance than I'd ever had in my life.

After I got my Ranger tab I worked hard to put the muscle back on, not just fat. It's well known in those circles that after two months of rapid loss like that, the body goes into survival mode and tries to pack fat back on, but builds muscle grudgingly. I started my Train Big, Eat Big regiment again, but I was very careful with my fats, only eating good lean meats. I watched some of the others of my unit put on little bellies in the months that followed, but I was careful and became more sculpted and stronger, packing on another 25 pounds of muscle in the next six months.

My years in the Rangers were the best and worst of my life. Some of the things we were called to do, some of the things that we saw others doing were, well horrific doesn't cover it. Unspeakable is close, things you could never imagine one human doing to another. Some of the things we did were so amazingly great it made me feel like if I died today, my life would have been worth it; that I had made a difference in the world and in real people's lives. Killing bad guys made me feel justified, like I was righting a wrong. Overtime, I found myself becoming numb, not reacting to the good or the bad, my heart and mind slowly becoming hardened and unmoved.

I didn't have a death wish. I would fight to the death and kill to protect mine, but I got lost in the job. You become that way living day to day knowing each mission might be your last and watching good men around you fall. At some point, you stop thinking about what you are going to do when you get old because you're not sure if you'll be alive next week.

Over the years I was seen as one of the best and commanding officers would request me. I was good with languages. With my skin color I could blend anywhere. But I had a knack of getting my team's mission accomplished and everyone out alive. I had a sixth sense that could find any bad guy we were sent to hunt down, take down any terrorist cell, intercept weapons shipments, catch any drug lord or drug runners, and miraculously make it back alive. I just always knew when we were headed in a bad direction and when my commanding officer listened to me could figure out a way that we could make it. Once I was the commanding officer I already had a reputation and respect. Men assigned under me would listen, because they had heard the rumors, and would follow me into any hellhole because they knew I would get them out alive.

When they told me about SOCOM, the leak and threat to my life, it felt like just another day on the job. Nothing I hadn't already been facing for the last many years. Not until months after I left the service, when I came home practically unarmed to a tiny rundown apartment off Stark, found an assassin waiting for me in my bathroom and was shot and stabbed before I took him down, did I take the threat seriously.

I had been planning RangeMan for a while and was already talking to two businessmen who were ready to help fund it. I hired men, starting with Tank, an ex-Navy Seal I had worked with on a few occasions in the service. We got cut off from our group on this one fucked-up mission and fought back to back to get out alive. I told him about starting my own security company when I got out and he said that sounded better than anything he had planned to do and would help me.

I started monitoring what contracts were out on me and what mercenaries were in the country that could be coming after me. I became proactive, going after anyone who threatened me as well as the assassins they hired to take me out. I started carving my messages on the handle of a knife and left them buried in their bodies. It only took three until word got around and people realized if they came after me they were signing their own death warrant. After that most threats on my life were removed except for a few who are either in jail or extremely well protected. Once I killed Claude 'the Claw', a notoriously ruthless hitman, even the best assassins were detoured from shortening their lives to come after me. One even sent me flowers, admitting that he had already taken the money but respected me too much to come after me now. He said that I had thirty years and when I was old and grey he would make sure I died an honorable death and didn't have to worry about things like Alzheimer's or cancer. Great guy.

I lived like that for years, day to day, becoming a mercenary and doing dirty jobs for money. Going undercover for the government paid well but many of my black op missions were worse than my Ranger missions. Doing things so bad the government didn't want to admit to themselves they were doing it. At times these ops required me to do illegal and sometimes immoral things knowing if shit hit the fan, I and my team, if I had one, would be disavowed and left to be tortured, killed, or if you were lucky jailed in a violent, hostile government's hands.

But I was so numb I sought the thrill of the challenge, the hard pressure and excitement of living on the knife's edge knowing you could be caught and killed at any time. I didn't want to die from boredom, and while I was making RangeMan a success, I felt like I could become buried by the paperwork and the mundane. I was struggling to stay metaphorically awake and alert in boring civilian life, grateful I had signed on to do contract work for the government.

I thought everything was going along fine. Rangeman was growing by leaps and bounds. I had more money than I had expected coming in. Government contract work was coming in on a semi-regular basis. I just didn't realize that while everything was working on the outside, I was still dead on the inside. That is until one quirky, crazy haired, determined woman came into my life. She made me smile from the first day I met her. Thinking she didn't stand a chance at apprehending the cop but that it would be fun to watch her, I remember saying to Tank that I gave her three days before she gave up and went back to her ordered prim and proper 'burg world'. But she found an iron will in herself and she focused on the prize.

The night she called me to come unlock her from the shower curtain I wanted to take her right there against the bathroom wall. Dios I've never wanted a woman so much. It made me smile and laugh out loud as I left, certain that now she would quit the case. But it only made her more determined and when she finally got her man I couldn't have been prouder. I was still recovering from a gunshot to the leg from trying to help her, but I had wanted nothing more than to take her out for some drinks and seduce her.

Time passed and she called me again and again for help and I made myself available because she was always good for a smile. I looked forward to hearing from her knowing it would brighten my day. When I gave her my 911 turbo I was actually planning it as a prelude to seduction. I watched her wrap her hand around that stick and I could see her wrapping that same soft hand around me. When she turned it into a flaming pancake I couldn't get there fast enough to make sure she was really okay and to see the damage for myself. When I pulled her body next to mine and kissed her later that day I wanted nothing more than to carry her upstairs and take her.

I was starting to want her bad, but I didn't want to lose the working relationship we had. I realized that I couldn't just fuck her and walk away, my usual MO. But I was really starting to need her, fantasize about what she would be like, and the deal seemed like the perfect solution at the time. One night only, she knew there was no offer of a relationship involved. I could take what I wanted and get her out of my system.

Talk about a plan backfiring. After all night of having her I only wanted her more, she had done what no woman since months of missing Jennifer had done: made me desperate to come back for more. But I needed her safe and alive more than I needed her in my bed and I made the decision to send her away. I danced around the edges of her life unwilling to let her go. She was a drug for me, she made me better, when she looked up at me with those big blue innocent eyes I could see the good man she saw in me, and I found myself wanting to be that man.

After Hawaii it got worse. I wanted to lock myself away with her until neither of us could walk. I saw that ring when planning a security system at a local jeweler's and imagined taking her to dinner at Rossini's and after a good meal having them put the ring on top of her tiramisu. I wanted to ask her to marry me and tell her that she could now have her cake and eat it too. But the fear that she would someday turn up dead was my recurring nightmare and I couldn't risk putting her in that kind of danger for my own selfish needs.

Now everything has changed and I needed to keep her safe. For the rest of her life it was my job to keep her safe. My new life's purpose, my new life's plan. All focused around this one crazy, sweet, wild, impulsive, innocent woman that wormed her way into my heart. I pulled myself out of the past and stopped running to call Tank.

"Boss."

"I need to know where Sergio is or where he will be this weekend."

There was silence on the other end of the phone and I heard typing. "I'll get several men on it."

"No, just you and Hector. The fewer men that know about this the better."

"We'll get on it. Can I bring Bones in though? You know he's good at tracking people electronically, getting into their heads and figuring out what they'll do next."

"Do it."

"The packages were dropped off at Fed Ex by six, but Hawaii is a separate flight and they said the fastest it can get there is two-day delivery. It will be delivered Wednesday by 10 am."

"Any word on Boris?"

"No, and no movement on the King200."

"That doesn't mean he hasn't hired another plane or taken a commercial flight."

"Do you want me to get men to go through airport security footage?"

"No, too much footage without knowing exactly what to look for. What we need is to figure out where he is getting his information. We need to know how he is tracking us."

"Have you checked all the kids' phones and computers? Using your setup, they can't track your location through IP addresses but if they got hold of one when your family was still home and had the technology they could hack their email. All it would take is one email to a school buddy explaining why the kid isn't in school and what you all are doing instead and Boris would have your location. Start with the houses trackers were found in. We know they were in three houses, they might have gotten into someone's email then. If they were really advanced they could have planted a virtual tracker on something that will tell them where the computer is every time they get on-line."

"I should have thought of that. I'll get men going through their computers tonight. Who are the best computer guys I have here?"

"I know Lester's good, Woody's good, Eddie specialized in computers and cryptography in the Army. From Miami, you have Ian and Billy. Ian has a four-year degree in computer programming, but if you need him to, Hector can remote in and sweep them."

"Have Hector on stand-by. I want this done tonight."

"and I'll have Bones standing by, two can get it done faster."

"Tank, a side thought. Put in to claim Mucktar's body. Tell them that RangeMan will take care of the burial. Have one of the guys find out what family he still has alive and pay to have his body sent back for burial. I want to do more for them when I get back but for now that is the least I can do."

"Done and done."

I ran back to the house contemplating this new information. Trackers had been found in luggage belonging to Stephanie, Angelia, one of Leyla's kids. Trackers were found in shoes belonging to Stephanie, Angelia, her daughter Shanna and all four of Leyla's kids. It seems they only had time to stop at three houses. Stephanie left her laptop at home. Angelia's kids had "baby" tablets that couldn't get on-line; they were a closed system, only able to use the programs they were created with.

Angelia and Leyla have their laptops and some of Leyla's kids have tablets. That's where we will start the search, but really, I was going to have them check every piece of electronics brought. Mentally I drifted off again. It had taken getting Rachel pregnant to make me go home again. While on a two-week leave, we were married in her parent's backyard with a handful of her friends and family present. I hadn't even invited Abuela Sanja. I hadn't expected that many people to be there.

I had gotten her pregnant on my first leave back from Afghanistan when I was on my way to airborne training and married her four months later after IBOLC right before I entered Ranger School. The day after the ceremony I offered to take her out and find her an apartment, so she could be on her own, but she declined saying she wanted to be close to her mom.

She showed me the room they were turning into a nursery that only had a crib and changing table. I offered to take her to buy things for the baby, but she said they were waiting to find out if it was going to be a girl or a boy before they decorated. I asked her if she would come back to Newark and meet my parents.

I had only called home three times in the year since I had left. During each call my mother told me to call every few months, and that I didn't have to talk or tell them what was going on just say that I was still alive because she worried and always lit a candle for me. It was incredibly hard to call her and tell her I was coming home and bringing my pregnant wife.

My mother and father were thrilled. Welcoming me back as the prodigal son, they threw a big family party for us. When it came out that I only married her because I got her pregnant after a one-night stand my mother was less pleased but took me in her arms and said that every baby is a miracle. She was sure that being married and having a baby would change my life. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I wasn't going to stay married because we had already agreed that we would divorce after the baby was born.

The next week as I was preparing to leave I gave Rachel the money I had set aside to get her an apartment, almost $2000, so she could buy whatever she needed for the baby. She invited me to come to her doctor's appointment. Her stomach had a little baby bump when the doctor put the ultrasound wand to it and I got to see a picture of the baby moving. In that moment, it all became very real and Rachel had them print an extra ultrasound picture for me to take with me. At the end after they measured many different things and declared the baby developing normally, they told me it was going to be a girl.

Five months later I was late getting to the birth, and I can honestly say I was relieved. I wanted to be there for the birth in theory, but really what can the man do but watch her writhe in pain and cry out while the doctor tells her to push? When I was two days late after completing what was only my third but especially bloody Ranger mission I thought I had an acceptable excuse.

But my mother disagreed. She had taken two weeks off work to come and help Rachel with the baby, staying with Abuela Sanja. She was at the hospital for the birth and gave me hell for not even calling. Once I got past my mother and all the nurses, Rachel gave me a big smile and handed the newly fed baby to me. As I held her in my arms I promised this baby that I would always take care of her, always do everything I could for her and she became my Jewel. The brightest and best thing I had done with my life so far.

I promised Rachel that I would send her money every month and help pay for her to finish her college degree. Under the law I could have taken twelve weeks but my commanding officer asked me to come back in four. There were some big missions in the works that he wanted me to be a part of.

There was only so much I could do for Julie, hold her, change her, and burp her. But there was always Rachel, her mother and my mother there to take care of her too. I returned back after just two weeks. Rachel had bought a little four-page plastic photo sheath and gave it to me as I left. In it there were pictures of Julie right after she was born, two pictures of her awake and two pictures of her asleep, one with a small smile on her lips. Every month for the first year Rachel would send me a new picture to put in my mini-photo album with a description of Julie's growth and accomplishments each month.

The next year it was every few months. I really looked forward to the pictures as it was some of the only mail I would get. Then a letter came with the picture telling me she was getting married and he wanted to adopt Julie so they could be a whole family.

I came that December after the adoption was in the works to meet Ron and gauge his mettle. Rachel had already married him and I had already agreed to the adoption. I thought the best thing I could do for my baby was give her a family. But I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't giving her up because I didn't care, but because I did. I wanted her to have a father in her daily life. I let them know my intentions to always send money for support, asked to be able to visit, send presents and be an informal part of her life.

Rachel asked me for a picture of myself so Julie could always know who her biological father was and I sent a copy of the photo taken after Ranger graduation. Even though it had been two and a half years it was the only real photo I had of myself and, for the first time understanding what a photo meant, I sent a copy to my mother too.

After Julie was born I would call my mother semi-regularly just to tell her I was alive. On one of those short calls my dad got on to tell me how proud he was of me. He apologized for trying to force me into something that I didn't want and complemented me for having the drive and personal will to do my own thing and be so successful at it. He invited me to come home as often as I could, that I was missed and wanted.

I sent most of my pictures of Julie to my mother so she could start a photo album and continued to do so over the years. I only went home occasionally until I was discharged. I had spent too many years of my life away from my family and always felt uncomfortable around them. The SOCOM issue only gave me more excuse to stay away. But this past year I had been to Christmas Eve, Easter Mass, and four other family gatherings including a surprise birthday party for mama.

Now that this contact has put them all in danger I had to find the leak and plug it before I go off to plug Sergio for good. I quickly made it up the back stairs of the pecan stained patio and shook the sand from my boots. I pulled out my radio and told Ian, Eddie, Billy and Woody to report to the back patio of the first house.

When they arrived, I discussed the problem of a computer being hacked, emails read and possibly giving our location away. Then I brought up the possibility of an infection that is transmitting our location and they all agreed that was the more likely prospect. I told them I would get them everyone's computers and tablets, anything that could access the internet and that they should go through both possibilities. Ian explained that no one had any equipment with them and that they would each need a computer, wires to hook them together and specialized software he could have someone send him. I gave them a RangeMan credit card and sent them to the store to get what they needed with instructions to get it done tonight.

I went into the house and told everyone I needed them in the dining room and waited while they assembled. I asked everyone to pass me their completed lists of where they wanted to go this week.

"Okay, I need everyone's attention on this. We know that the men that came to the island this morning had our exact location. We just don't know how they got it. We know they planted physical trackers in shoes and suitcases. We're worried that they may have loaded a programmed tracker onto someone's electronics so every time they log in it is sending our location. I have four men that are going to go through every electronic device brought on this trip. We know the phones are clean because I just gave them to you so you can keep using them. But for the rest of tonight I'm asking everyone to log out, leave your laptops here in the dining room and bring every device that you brought that can get on-line. This includes tablets and any toy games that can access the internet, just leave them all here on the table."

I put a pad of sticky notes on the table with several pens. "Label all of your stuff so we know whose is whose." I told the assembled crowd as they blinked in disbelief.

"They are tracking us through our electronics?" Isabella asked.

"We don't know for sure, but we have to rule out every possibility and it's something we haven't checked. If you don't mind getting your kids electronics and bringing them here I would appreciate it."

The laptops piled on the table: Oshanna's, Leyla's, Richard's, Angelia's, and Diego's. When Stephanie went to put mine on the table I shook my head at her. Leyla, Richard, Diego and Isabella all left to go gather their kid's electronics.

"Babe, bring my laptop here." I took it from her and set it on the table next to me. "My laptop is clean there is no way someone broke into my apartment and bugged it." I explained. I gave her the sheets of activities everyone had given me and asked her to start going through them and marking which ones had the same outings on them.

Julio was hanging back clutching his laptop to his chest. "Julio, no one's looking at what you have on your computer unless you are secretly emailing the enemy and telling them where we are."

"No. Of course not." He looked offended.

I walked over to him and tried to look brotherly. "No one's going to mess with your porn or tell mamma about it." I was slightly louder than a whisper. "I'll make sure my men check it last, when everybody is in bed." I held out my hand to take it and he slowly handed it over.

"Julio, I don't really believe you are bugged but I'm going to have them check every piece of transmitting electronics."

Isabella and Diego came back in with three tablets and two phones. "I don't think these connect to the internet." Diego said putting down a pink and a green tablet, "but we brought them just in case. These phones do connect to the internet. They are our old phones and no longer have cellular service but we had bunches of movies downloaded on them that the kids watch."

"And Chris plays games on this one." She held up a square phone with a brown mottled case and set it on top of the other one."

"Thank you." I told them. I sorted through the piles and picked out Angelia's, Leyla's and Richard's computers and all four of the tablets from Leyla's kids. Based on what we knew these were the most likely candidates to be bugged and I wanted them checked first. I texted Ian to get mini USB cords and a cord for an Apple computer, noting that Angelia had a Mac and several of the kids had iPads.

I got a piece of paper and sat down at the table to organize the weeks activities. Steph came to join me and I turned to her. "What do you have so far?"

"Well almost everyone wants to go to the Griffith Observatory. Your parents and grandmothers want to go to the Getty and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Everyone with kids picked the Kid's Space Museum and Discovery Cube. Oshanna and Julio made a list together but the only approved activities were a sightseeing tour and Madame Tussauds. They added a whole list of things they want to do that are not on the approved list, clubs and things to do at night.

I wrote Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday across the top of my paper and down the side wrote everyone's names. For Tuesday, I put Oshanna and Julio down for an all day LA Stars and their homes six-hour tour. I listed all the families to go to the Discovery Cube LA, and my parents and abuelas to the Getty and Getty Villa till six. Everyone meeting somewhere for dinner and going to Griffith Observatory for their 8:00 pm tour. Wednesday the families were split, Rachel's and Leyla's going to the Space Museum and Isabella's and Angelia's to the Zimmer Kids Museum. I had my parents and the abuelas going to LA County Museum of Art and a big blank spot for Oshanna and Julio who had written down shopping on Rodeo drive, Studio Tours, Universal Studios and Disneyland as where they wanted to go for the week.

I picked up my phone, "Skyler, my most wonderful woman. You are my lifesaver and I need your help please." Stephanie bristled and gave me a dirty look.

"What do you need Ranger?"

"This is going to be a fun challenge. I need unique dining experiences for a group of fifty-one. We will need reservations for six or later every night through Friday. But that's not all my most fabulous travel agent. My sister Oshanna is unhappy with the activity choices. She is twenty-two, lives in New York and is totally into fashion, can you find some safe day and if possible evening options for her?"

"Of course, I'm sure there are a lot of fashion things in LA to do. Which do you need first?"

"Well, dinner is not till tomorrow night, and I have something planned for Oshanna tomorrow so take a day. Come up with as many activities as you can find for Oshanna because she is going to shoot half of them down on principle."

"You got it boss. I know your focus is on safety, but the Studio tours are rather safe and the theme parks have the advantage of screening everyone that enters."

"Get violence reports for me on the theme parks and studios, and a copy of their security protocol. You are making this a very pleasurable trip for my family. Thank you Skylar, you are my gorgeous, fabulous, amazing trip-maker and you are making me look good. I owe you."

"Just remember that when you get my bill." She retorted and laughed. "You are not a man that ever needs help or is willing to accept it so I appreciate being able to be here, for you, during this."

I smiled. "Well, I appreciate all your hard work. Send the violence reports as soon as you get them."

"I'll have them to you within the hour."

"Thanks, good bye." And I disconnected.

I turned to Stephanie who had her arms crossed and was glaring at me.

"Babe, I know you don't understand, but there is nothing between me and Skylar."

"But you are so nice to her. Over the top nice."

"Let me tell you a story." I told her more details about Danger and my promise to him.

"So, you CAN be polite, just not to me." She said at the end, got up, and stormed up the stairs.

To be continued…

A/N: Thank you all for your reviews! They are all read and appreciated! The family is finally safe and getting settled in California. This chapter was a lot about Ranger reflecting on his past. I hope you enjoyed learning more about him and how he became who he is. Let me know what you think. Please read and review.

As always big THANK YOU to my beta Sassysaint! You stick with me even as I write and rewrite chapters! Thank you for all your help!

Second Big THANK YOU to my sister, Jonelle. Who is giving my stories a thorough technical analysis (ie deep proof reading) Thank you for fixing all my many little mistakes.