Inside a conference room in the facility. Two middle aged men in suits were quarrelling. One was seated in middle front of the table while was one was standing escorted by his men."Big brother, you should understand, I"m only doing this for the preservation of the family." Said by the one who was standing. This man"s name was Jason Stanford, one of the shareholder of the Corporation Kiel works for. And the person who"s sitting, the one he called big brother, is Frederic Stanford, the current CEO.
"understand? UNDERSTAND!? Oh I understand everything, you actually divulged one of the heavily guarded secret of the family to outsiders! This a crime within the family!" Frederic said in anger and frustration, his younger brother actually betrayed the family for some interest the america has offered. He knew with his brother"s personality, he was selfish, he only cared about his interests, not the family"s.
He banged his hands on the table sending papers flying, he repirmandingly shouted "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU"VE DONE!?!?"
"Chill, brother, I know treason within the family is a serious issue. But me? how could I do that? Collaborating with the USA could benefit our interest, I"m only doing this for the family" Jayson lazily said, him and his brother had always been in bad terms since their teenager"s years.
"Benefits!? Don"t make me laugh, Jayson. We both know how they do things. They wouldn"t allow another power coexisting with them at the top, they"re one of those who"s the most eager to see the Stanfords fall" Frederic was someone who didn"t trust anyone, not even people from his family.The only people he trust were his parents and his second uncle. This was one of the reason why he was able to make the Stanford Corp. stand on top, it"s influence and power almost standing in par of those major countries.
He continued, "You"re following the same footsteps as your third brother, Rudeus! an idiot, mongrel, treating everything as a joke, without caring for the consequences for every action he make!" Their third brother, Rudeus, was someone he hated so much. Due to an incident years ago which almost made their family crippled. Rudeus actually tried to buy some uranium grade warheads from some unknown russian agent, which resulted in their family accused of war crime. They were able to avoid the case, but with major loses.
"don"t compare me to that fool! he was too naïve for believing the russians. What kind of country who would sell uranium grade warheads, this time I made necessary preparations and made a mutual agreement with those US pig heads."
"Russians or americans, they"re people of the same skin!" being to fustrated, Frederic calmed himself before asking a question he"s been wanting to ask.
"what did they want?"
"50-50% each, we divide what"s inside the relic site"
"F*ck, like h.e.l.l I would allow that! Sooner or later they would want more! this nothing more than formalities. I"ve decided, from now on you"ve do not have any more authority that has anything to do with the relic sight. Go leave this facility!"
"F*ck you! You don"t have any authority within the family to remove me from this project"
"I don"t, but the family does" Frederic may not have enough authority as he isn"t the family head yet, but he was confident as almost all of the elders are on his side. This was one of the main reasons why Jayson drifted more from the family, and tried seeking help from other powers. He was insignificant within the family, as he wasn"t as talented as his big brother.
"This wont end, Fred! I tell you, THIS WON"T END LIKE THIS!!!" Jayson couldn"t retort and could only seethe in anger as he left the room, heavily slamming the door.
Fred sighed "why do I have such idiotic brothers, It would have been better if they think things much more"
*knock*knock*
"come in" he said as he tidied up his clothes
Door opened and chief Clark came in, with some doc.u.ment in hand. "you two had a fight again?"
"Uncle Clark, yeah we did. He actually spillled some vital details of the relic sight and now the americans are actually demanding half of the piece of the pie" he said in bitter tone.
Chief Clark sighed, he was someone who had seen the brothers as they grow up, they were close in their childhood days. Frederic being the typical big brother, caring and protective of his brothers. It was harmonious till Frederic was seen having high talent in business, having the family paying him more attention, rendering his brothers neglected, which resulted in them drifting apart from each other. He knew Frederic might be cold to his brothers now, but deep inside there we"re still a part of him that cared for his brothers.
He didn"t continued more in the subject, he took a sit and handed the doc.u.ments in his hands. "Here are the list of people we"ll be sending to the site. You know that I could have just send it to you, there was no need to personally to go here"
"I know, I just felt like it, it was boring at my office anyway." He lazily said as he opened the doc.u.ment and started flipping through the papers, checking each every profile and background,
Frederic eyebrows arched up when he saw Kiel"s profile "Kiel... he has the same name"
Intrigued he carefully checked his background "was taken to the orphanage in spain when he was 5 years old... it was 43 years ago… the same year… the same age….. could it be?"
Frederic was tapping his fingers as he had a frown on his face, deep in thought. Chief Clark seeing this was curious, he looked at the profile in Fred"s hands and asked, intrigued "oh? Kiel? He"s a hardworking guy, he cold but he"s good guy, there"s nothing special about him. Why are you interested in him?"
Frederic only looked at his uncle before pointing at Kiel"s paper. "make some preparations and take some of your best men protect him as he goes to the site, he must be kid we"ve been looking for"
"kid? you mean… him? Its been along time, we don"t even know his whereabouts, and now you"re saying he"s been working for us for almost 30 years, he was just under our noses for all this time? How sure are you?" Chief Clark in surprise as he also pointed his finger at Kiel"s profile
"I"m 90% sure he"s the one we been looking for" his face br.i.m.m.i.n.g with confindent
"You"re that confident? fine we will go with your decision. if your right then that"s good," Chief Clark said with a frown on his forehead
"there"s no harm even if I"m wrong"
"I see, I should start the preparations, and inform the fam-"
"No, don"t let"s keep it between just the two us, more people knowing , the more complex the situation becomes,. Have him under surveillance, report to me if any suspicious character got close with him." It wouldn"t harm to be cautious, with such an opportunity opening to him, he would make sure to accomplish it perfectly as he could.
"Then I won"t dally on anymore and start preparing, I"ll notify you when everything is in place" Chief Clark hurriedly stood up to make the necessary arrangement. He knew how important this opportunity is for them, if Frederic was right, then they would be more confident in unearthing the site.
Seeing his uncle leave, he stood up and look out the windows of the room . The sky was dimming as the night wa nearing, and lights opening from the windows of the facility, Frederic felt that this was gonna be another long night.
"there"s no such coincidence" chuckling as thought those words. He fished out his phone from his pocket and started making his own preparations, he had a lot of things to do. With Kiel, coming into the situation, he had to make sure that everything is within in his palms.
"you won"t escape this time" his face painted with wide cold smile.
...
At the same time,
Kiel suddenly felt a chill behind his back "don"t tell me there"s ghost in here and I"m being haunted, why would there be ghost on a grocery store" In truth, Kiel has been having this feeling that he was being watch ever since he got out from the facility. He started looking around, seeing n.o.body suspicious, he continued with his grocery shopping.
He took out a list, written the list were the things he needed to buy. "let"s see… tomatoes… garlic.. and the main ingredient, chicken" seeing he was almost done, Kiel hurried as he was getting hungry. He proceeded to buy what was needed.
As he was about to go to the cashier, the feeling of being watched, he looked back and saw a shadow of a person around the corner of the isle. Intrigued he checked who it was.
He was surprised once he got to the end of the isle, it was someone he knew, it was Jake.
"Hey… you"re also here! How long have been in here" he approached jake.
"oh hey! yeah… for quite some time now. I see you"re almost done doing your grocery, so what"re you gonna cook this time?
"Curry, I"ve been craving for some lately, anyway, that"s rare…"
"what rare?"
"You.. doing grocery, you never liked doing this kind of stuff, it was you"re wife who I always see here. " Kiel was curious as he knew Jake, he never liked doing grocery as he was lazy, always saying it was boring and tiring. What confused him more was that the basket he was holding was empty as contrary to what he said. He continued "you haven"t decided?"
"huh decided on what?"
"you"re basket, it"s empty, so simply a.s.sumed you haven"t decided what to buy yet"
"ah, this.. ummm yeah I haven"t decided"
"I see how about curry? Wasn"t that you"re favorite"
"you"re right I guess I"ll go for curry today, so see you I gotta go and finish this as soon as I can so I can finally go home." Jake waved his goodbye as he disappeared from Kiel"s sight.
"hmm. That feeling finally disappeared… strange, oh well, at least it"s gone" Kiel didn"t bother anymore and paid for his grocery and went home.