The Snake and the Witch

Laila was telling Maria about her dinner at Olivia's house, since she and Steve had practically missed it all. Maria had been in the kitchen for practically all of it and Steve had walked away as soon as all the camera's and microphones had been installed. So, neither of them knew how Olivia had gotten in touch with Jake. "So, in her attempt to get me in trouble with Noah, she said that she had recently gotten back in touch with Jake. That he had told her about me running into him in our hometown, mixed with a lot of nonsense of course. She mentioned that she had gotten in touch with him again through a mutual friend."

Maria was visibly in shock after she heard Jake's name drop in combination with Olivia. She almost immediately blurted out, "What?! The snake and the Witch have gotten together? As if one of those horrible people in the mix wasn't enough to cause problems, now we have to deal with a second one. Did you figure out what he wants?" Laila pushed her chair a bit closer and said, "Well, when Noah and I heard that, we immediately thought of the backer. He is the most likely mutual friend that those two have, especially considering Jake's personality and how we left him a few weeks ago. He is stupid and reckless without any external factors. Bruising his ego, taking away his job and leaving him to figure it out for himself. So, him meeting a dangerous person who dislikes the person that caused all his heartache and misfortunes, at least from his point of view, that could have only resulted into one thing. Him jumping on board in hopes of getting the revenge he so desires."

Maria rolled her eyes and said, "Of course! Why not? Let's have the nightmare trifecta have it out for us. Jolly what fun." Then she let out a sigh and added, "Then again, I should have known a Witch like that can only have douchebags and villains as friends."

Laila felt offended a bit and said, "Heyyy. Don't be so mean. Or did you forget that I was her friend once too..". But Maria, knowing that Laila was most likely joking, replied with a straight face as she looked her dead in the eyes and said, "I said what I said."

After a chuckle on both sides they got back on topic and Laila told her about her and Noah's fears. "We're just worried that she will call him, to brag about her own success or whatever and mention us being there and telling him that she told us about them being in touch again. If she does, he will go into panic mode and as you know, necessity is the mother of invention. So, who knows what stupid thing he will do, if he might pass it on to the backer and cause them to speed up whatever they have planned. The odds of this turning out well are quite small with two stupid, selfish people on their team mixed with a dangerous conniving one that has no limits to what he will do to get what he wants."

Hearing Laila say these things out loud made Maria feel that she was right and that they indeed needed to worry and quickly make plans of their own before it is too late. As Laila and Maria were talking about matters at home, at the office Noah had just informed Steve of last evening's events as well. He shared Maria's initial reaction of shock and made no effort to hide it. This could become a very bad development and they needed to act fast if they didn't want to jeopardize everything.

How good things seemed last night, how happy he had been, to how crap things were looking now. Steve couldn't believe it. One little move and their whole house of cards was on the verge of falling down. While venting his frustrations about the situation he said, "Who could have predicted that in such a short time, that sorry excuse for a man would come in contact with such a troublesome man? He really is like a cockroach, he can't be killed unless you squish him. Flatten any sense of confidence, hopes and dreams he might have. Until he doesn't even have the desire to get out of bed in the morning."

Although Noah too felt that the situation was problematic, he was not as affected by the news as Steve was. Most likely because he had heard it at a time he could not react in the way that he wanted to. Now it was just another piece of valuable information, another fact in life. So, hearing how heated Steve was about Jake entering the stage in the middle of the play, he couldn't help but find it all a bit amusing.

With a chuckle he said, "Calm down Satan. I know it is a bit of setback but it isn't a complete loss yet. Fortunately for us, they aren't all that smart and Olivia is fully convinced of my being swayed by her and what she has told me about Laila. We can use that. We just have to of how we can best use it to our advantage in this particular situation. As long as Harold Richardson doesn't find out, we should be fine. In the meantime, I want you to make some precautions, contact some people from his town and see how we can prepare for a nice revenge once this stuff with Olivia is over and dealt with. Jake wants to play, so let's play."