Chapter 1.4

Welcome back to another chapter of Random Paths! In the last chapter Kreia gave birth to a girl named Miranda, Brett and Kreia argued about her career choice yet again, and an alliance between cops and crooks was proposed by Agent Wolfgang Rand, Kreia’s nephew. And now on with the story.

“Is it safe to come in, Revan?” a voice came in over Kreia’s ear piece.

“How many times do I have to tell you people to not interrupt me when I’m interrogating people!” Kreia yelled into her ear piece. She took her hand off of the speak button on her mic and said, “Sit down with your hands behind your back. Just sit on the rope. One of my higher underlings who usually has a good reason for interrupting was the one who spoke on the intercom. I should probably see what he wants. And remember that I’m Revan. Not your Aunt Kreia. Respond to what I say appropriately.”

Wolfgang nodded and sat down. And prayed his phone didn’t go off. It had been an hour since he had contacted his boss with the idea for the alliance.

“You got your handcuffs and key on you?” Kreia asked.

“Yes, back left pocket. Why?” Wolfgang asked.

“I can’t risk them making a connection between Kreia and Revan. And he’s smart enough to do it if you accidentally forget your hands are supposed to be tied behind your back. And he can get a bit physical.”

“Fair enough,” Wolfgang said.

Kreia stepped forward and cuffed Wolfgang, making sure the cuffs were on tight.

“Come in,” Kreia said over the headset.

The sliding door opened and two men came in, Zachariah Smith and Owen Daniels.

“Does Owen need to be here, Zachariah?” Kreia asked, with irritation in her voice.

“The information comes from him, Revan,” Zachariah answered, “Now, Owen, tell Revan what you told me.”

“Annalise and I were gathering intel in Bridgeport like you said. Intel that Kerry might not be able to see due to how high up she is. Some of Darius’s gang spotted us and must have recognized one of us as they began chasing us. Annalise tripped and sprained her ankle. She ordered me to get out and that she’d be fine,” Owen said.

“Shit. I told Annalise to be careful. She’s way too good with computers to just leave captive with Darius. Dammit.” Kreia cursed.

“What do you want to do about Annalise and what are we going to do with Agent Rand?” Zachariah asked.

“We don’t have anyone skilled enough that is expendable to send after Annalise,” Kreia thought before smirking, “As to Agent Wolfgang Rand, I’ve done my research on him. He has a lovely wife. Two beautiful young children and his wife is four months pregnant with their third. It would be a shame if anything happened to them. So he’ll need to watch himself. Actually, I’ve got a great idea. He’ll rescue Annalise.” She glanced at her nephew and saw that he had gone pale.

“Should I put out the word to kidnap his family…” Zachariah started.

“Leave my family out of this,” Wolfgang said shakily.

Kreia couldn’t help but notice the fear and worry in his voice. Shit. He probably doesn’t know who is the real me at this point. Revan or Kreia. And I can’t tell him with these two here. “No. Touching the Rand family is just asking for the Immortal Council of Moonlight Falls to stick their hands into the problem. And we can’t beat them. And it will throw our alliance with the Moonlight Falls mafia into shaky territory. He is the grandson of Sinbad Rand, after all. And while Sinbad might hate that his grandson is in the police force he’ll do anything to make his wife happy. And his wife won’t be happy if her great-grandchildren are in harms way.”

“What if we forewarn Sinbad of it? That they’ll only be harmed if he doesn’t do what he’s told,” Zachariah countered.

“That keeps Sinbad off our case. It doesn’t prevent the Immortal Council. No touching Agent Rand’s family.”

“Excuse me for interrupting but I seem to recall the Immortal Council wanting Darius dealt with. We can’t deal with Darius if one of our key members has been kidnapped by Darius. Alistair Mathiasen used to be a criminal. He’ll understand,” Owen said.

“Owen has a point, Revan,” Zachariah said, “We give Sinbad and the council via Alistair our reasoning.”

“We can’t be sure on Alistair. He’s been retired for over thirty years now. He’s gone straight. At least from my dealings with him when I was still living in Moonlight Falls. One of his best friend is Wolfgang’s father. Wolfgang’s father saved his life. Can we be positive that a plea from Atton Rand won’t cause Alistair to fall on the side we don’t want him on?”

“You seem to know a lot about that…” Owen said.

‘I used to live in Moonlight Falls. And I’ve done my research on Agent Rand. I needed to know his weaknesses and what risks would be involved if we had to stop him,” Kreia explained.

“I’ll call the Boss. See what he says. He might know more of what risks we can and can’t take,” Zachariah said as he dialed, when the Boss answered Zachariah explained the situation.

Kreia waited impatiently, “Put him on speaker. I don’t want any confusion as to what the Boss says.”

Zachariah put the Boss on speaker, “Boss, you’re on speaker so everyone hears your orders from your mouth. Including Agent Rand.”

“Revan. Any word concerning what we discussed earlier?” the Boss asked.

“No.” Kreia answered.

“Then we must act as if what we talked about falls through. We’ve got the manpower to handle Sinbad and the Immortal Council. Put the family under our protection,” the Boss said.

“Protection! You’re going to give them protection?!” Zachariah yelled.

“Knock it off, Smith. You heard my orders. I know what I’m doing. Make it look like a kidnapping and get word to Sinbad and the Immortal Council that it’s just to throw Darius off on what’s being planned. Revan will fill you in when she gets more information.”

“And what if what Revan talked to you about falls through?” Wolfgang asked quietly.

“Why hello, Agent Rand. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You sound scared. You should be,” the Boss said, “Well, then let’s just say protection will turn into kidnap and we’ll force law enforcement to not cause problems. And you’ve done your research, I bet. I know you know that we very very rarely don’t follow through with a threat. You all have your orders carry them out.”

Zachariah put his phone up and smirked, “I hope the plan that’s in the works falls through. I want to see the look on your face, Agent Rand, when we tell you that their lives are in your hands. We’ll finally have a puppet in the SBI. And a darn good puppet at that.” Zachariah laughed and left, taking Owen with him.

“Shit, Wolfgang, I’m sorry,” Kreia said, “I also don’t know how I could have avoided that without blowing my alter ego. I’ll take you out of your cuffs so you can update your higher ups on this new information.” She took the handcuff key out of her pocket and let Wolfgang out of his own cuffs.

Wolfgang shoved Kreia, “Be that as it may you’ve put my family in harm’s way. Now if the alliance doesn’t go through or falls apart my family will be in mortal danger and might die if a total stranger to me royally messes up!” He took a few deep breaths and said, “Thank you though for trying to keep them out of harm’s way. I know it carried some risk of getting a connection made. But I’m still pissed that you brought them up to Zachariah in that manner and that they could end up as pawns in this if my higher ups say no!”

He then took out his phone, called his higher ups, and told them of the new situation. “Don’t try to stop them. Risky as it might be, it will throw a curve ball to Darius. He won’t suspect anything. But you need to treat it as if they were kidnapped. Or at least enough to fool anyone who might be giving information to Darius.” He sighed, “Yea, I know. I’ve got my work cut out for me with my grandpa and the Immortal Council.” He hung up and said, “Alliance is a go.” He then got on the phone and called his grandfather and called the Immortal Council and informed them of the plan.

“Now what, Kreia?” Wolfgang asked.

“You should probably stay here under our protection as well. It will keep you in the loop and maybe you’ll win Zachariah over. He resides here as well,” Kreia said, “Now I’ve got to head out and continue my work. Getting pregnant has put me behind in my work.” She gave her nephew a hug and told the guard to get him a room and headed off.

And that’s it for this chapter! Will Kreia be able to keep her alter ego separate from her real identity now that a member of her family is residing at the criminal hide out? Will the alliance between the criminals and the cops hold strong until Darius is defeated? Find out in chapters to come!

~~~

Author’s Note: First purely staged chapter of this challenge. And I have bloopers…

Brett, you’re not supposed to know of Kreia’s work office. Let alone the computer in it:

And Kreia refused to stay in her career outfit. Since I have her hair locked for all hair styles since this is only her career outfit in the story set up save, it looks kind of ridiculous with her everyday outfit: