Chapter 139: Commissioner Long!

Chapter 139: Commissioner Long!

Putting my guns smoothly back into their custom-fitted holsters, I casually tossed my heavy bulletproof vest down onto the concrete walkway to clearly mark the exact physical perimeter where the lethal sewer firefight had just taken place.

Mei had already expertly put her twin weapons away beneath her maid skirt, moving quickly to help brush down my clothes and straighten out my outfit as much as humanly possible under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, despite her best administrative efforts, both of our shoes and our lower garments were heavily stained with fresh gangster blood.

As the two of us got back to the structural climbing line, a heavily armed pair of tactical officers from the SWAT detail came rappelling down into the dark tunnel, pointing their weapons directly at us.

I immediately raised my hands into the air to avoid an accidental trigger pull, introducing myself to the squad in a calm, clear voice. "I am Rick Lee-Tang and the husband of Detective Lee. I had followed and fought Big Bear, the officer he took hostage was killed by him. If I am being arrested, my lawyer is Nick Soto."

Naturally, these tactical units were completely separate from our precinct's usual internal roster, meaning they were bound by rigid protocol to treat us as active combat threats, so I am indeed being officially detained on the spot.

As the officers began to systematically escort us back up toward the ground floor of the precinct, the quiet voice of my hacker woman crackled directly into my hidden earpiece, breaking down the logistics. [I have confirmed to all of your lovers and wives of your safety, but inevitable detainment. I have already called for Nick Soto and he is mobilizing for you and Mei. I am contacting Mary and telling her you want her to go to the hospital for a checkup for the baby, anything else?]

"Good. Thanks," I muttered quietly into the collar mic, keeping the response short as the guards pushed me through the rubble.

Outside the perimeter of the bloody, smoke-filled station, a massive fleet of local first-responders were actively loading the screaming survivors into emergency vehicles to transport them straight to Star General or any of the adjacent medical facilities based entirely on individual trauma severity.

This massive incident was easily going to be big enough to saturate the front page of every mainstream news station today and tomorrow, especially since way too many local police officers had died today in the line of duty.

At least half of Mary's entire Precinct had been brutally killed during the initial breach, leaving the structural integrity of the building itself basically completely totaled from the heavy fragmentation blasts.

Due to the arriving police formally placing me under active arrest, I strictly refused to tell them a single piece of inside data regarding what had actually transpired down in the runoff tunnels beyond what I had already openly stated to the SWAT team.

Whoever was currently running the operational command center at this precinct didn't seem to give a single damn about my noble status as a Tang or my administrative position as the Vice Leader of the Fire Birds.

Mei and I were aggressively stripped of our hidden weapons, processed through the outdoor tent, and locked tightly into the back of a secure squad car to be taken straight to another downtown holding precinct for temporary processing.

Well, at least for a little bit, I still had Lucy feeding me encrypted status updates through my earpiece before the signal cut.

She was also actively deleting every single file on my luxury SUV's integrated laptop, triggering a complete factory reset on the hard drive due to our secure network connection soon being cut off by the thick holding cells, leaving me completely in the dark.

Soon the front passenger door violently swings open and Mary climbs straight inside the cabin to see me, causing me to smile with relief upon verifying she is entirely uninjured.

Mary puts her hand on the cage separating the front and back, and I can see absolute relief in her eyes as she asks with a trembling voice. "Rick, Mei are you two alright?!"

I offered her a firm, reassuring nod, though I immediately began to complain about the lack of proper medical attention for my maid. "I am fine, but Mei was shot through her vest, so get her sent to the hospital with you. And I told Lucy to send you there for the baby's sake. Plus, I need you to make sure Sargent will be okay, and tell him thanks for me."

Mary tightened her grip on the wire partition, her voice dropping into a harsh whisper as she warned me about the internal pressure. "Commissioner Long is in charge and she is not going light on anyone not officer related. I feel she's targeting you. That is why they are not even listening about Mei's injury."

Mei shifted slightly on the hard plastic seat next to me, offering a calm, sharp grin as she gestured toward the dashboard to remind us of the situation. "Master, I am fine, plus we cannot say too much due to the cars being bugged."

I nodded my head over to Mei in complete understanding, turning back to offer Mary a confident, loving smile through the mesh. "Just go and get checked up on, then calm the other girls. I will be fine here. I just don't want a bunch of pregnant wives making a scene, ha-ha. I love you and go."

Mary, thoroughly understanding that she couldn't do anything to override the Commissioner's direct commands right now, reluctantly decided to leave the vehicle.

The absolute most she could help me with at this specific stage of the game was giving me one less thing to constantly worry about while I was processed through the incoming legal system.

An hour later, inside the stark interrogation room of the Downtown Police headquarters, a mid-forties Detective representing this specific division was staring across the metal table at me with a look of pure, unadulterated frustration.

He rubbed his temples aggressively, stating for what must have been the fifth consecutive time since my arrival at his desk. "You obviously knew of the plans of the Mad Hatters and burst past the Police barricade, and made an armed assault on precinct 5. How did you know? How many did you kill? And what happened with Big Bear? Did you help him escape?"

"I will only talk to Nick Soto," I answered perfectly flatly, maintaining a completely blank face to completely stonewall his administrative efforts.

Thoroughly tired of hearing nothing but that exact repetitive sentence from my mouth for the last hour, the detective let out a loud groan and waved his hand for the armed guard at the door to escort me back down to the cells.

He had been explicitly ordered by Commissioner Long herself to dig up absolutely anything they could use to convict me, but they simply couldn't—or rather, dared not—get physically rough with a member of the elite Tang family.

Our high-level corporate lawyers were already coming down on his precinct like an absolute landslide, holding aggressive mainstream news announcements regarding the illegal nature of my arrest and temporary detention.

Nick Soto had easily been the worst nightmare for their department, having already filed a massive civil lawsuit against his entire division for explicitly refusing to let legal counsel see me within the mandatory statutory window.

Clink! Clink! Slam! The heavy steel bars slid into place the exact second I was escorted back inside the large holding cell, and I immediately spotted Mei sitting comfortably on the far bench alongside the captive Fire Birds member we had rescued from the interrogation room.

I walked straight over and lowered myself onto the metal bench to sit tightly with the two of them, asking in a quiet whisper. "Are you guys good?"

The Fire Birds member offered me a respectful nod, while Mei turned her head toward me with a wide, devious grin as she began speaking in fluent, rapid Chinese to explain her tactic. -I have not spoken in English and only a few of them can understand my words, so they gave up on interrogating me entirely. All I said in English was 'Nick Soto', Fufu.-

I nodded my head toward her in approval, my eyes scanning the rest of the holding cell to take in a couple of surviving Mad Hatters members sitting in the far corner, along with several random, thuggish-looking street criminals.

I even spotted a distinctive woman from the rival Black Snakes syndicate resting near the bars, giving the girl sitting right next to me a series of incredibly dirty looks.

I merely leaned my head back flat against the concrete wall, allowing Mei to comfortably lean her weight onto my shoulder.

I could easily tell that they were strictly holding us due to Commissioner Long's personal political pressure, but the department was currently receiving way more aggressive media flack on the news than their poor station can handle, so Mei and I just wait.

Outside the heavy concrete walls of the police station, a prominent field reporter was actively standing in front of a wall of cameras, broadcasting a live interview with Nick Soto and a full team of elite corporate lawyers dispatched directly from the main Tang family house.

Victoria had arrived on the scene immediately following her university lectures, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a stoic Tina and a tense Linda to openly display the full backing of our branch family.

The reporter aggressively shoved a microphone toward Nick's face to ask the burning question. "So you are saying this is Commissioner Long, breaking laws to get revenge on Victoria Long who was just removed from the Long family, why?"

Nick expertly used the mass media cameras to explain the legal reality to the entire city, pointing a finger directly at the upper hierarchy.

"Commissioner Long will not allow Rick Tang to meet with his lawyers which are his rights under Central Government Law. This is showing the Longs are making this a personal attack. Kimberly Long is most definitely pulling the puppet strings here, and if you are listening Kimberly, I have already called the Central Government to investigate you! Plus the Long hired assassins not even a few months back to kill my client, so this topics stinks of a framing!"

Victoria was promptly asked a series of follow-up questions by the press, and she calmly stepped forward to completely confirm the absolute veracity of Nick Soto's words.

Somehow, through Lucy's hidden digital interference, the local internet was completely saturated with viral clips showcasing the illegal way the police department was handling my arrest.

Inside Commissioner Long's private executive office, an angry, older woman in a highly decorated, pristine Police uniform slammed her hand hard against her heavy mahogany desk, her face completely flushed with rage as she glared at her subordinates. "How did our internal information get leaked to the public? We found Big Bears body and he was clearly murdered, and we have so much evidence against Rick Tang, and you jackpot idiots can't convict him?!"

A boot-licking administrative assistant stepped forward, trying his best to explain the legal disaster. "We have no video of any of his crimes, only eye witness accounts, and due to the dark conditions, they cannot fully confirm anything. Sure we have shells and bodies showing he and his maid killed Mad Hatters, but we have nothing directly linking him to Big Bear. The worst thing... You, blocking his lawyers, have brought all the media down our necks."

Ring, ring, ring! Commissioner Long's eyes danced down to her glowing phone screen, and the exact millisecond she recognized the caller identity, she raised a rigid finger to silence the room before answering the line. "Hello Kimberly, how are you? Did you see, I have Victoria's husband?"

[You are a fucking idiot! I have the Central Government all up my ass right now, threatening to arrest me again because of you! Fix this in ten minutes, or I will remove you from the family. I never told you to frame him did I?! I removed Vicky to distance myself from Rick, NOT FUCKING GO FRONT PAGE!]

The line went completely dead inside her hand, emitting a series of hollow beeps that signaled the absolute end of the discussion.

Commissioner Long, who thought she was doing a good thing for the main house, just went completely pale at Kimberly's sudden fury.

She lowered the phone slowly, turning a terrified gaze onto the group of high ranking police captains standing before her. "You guys have 5 minutes to release Rick Tang and drop all charges. I don't care how you do it, just get him out of our jails now!"

The group of ass-kissers looked completely confused why she reversed her keep him at all cost stance so violently, forcing her to lean over the desk and yell at the top of her lungs. "Fucking NOW!"

Back in the Downtown holding cell, the heavy steel door suddenly clicked open with a loud buzz, and a tired-looking officer stepped into the entryway to address us. "Rick Tang, you are free to go."

Hmm? They want me gone immediately, without even letting me see my lawyer visit first?

I slowly stood up from the metal bench, narrowing my eyes at the guard as I laid out my terms. "I am not leaving without my Personal Maid, oh, and my employee."

The officer at the door had been explicitly ordered by his superiors to get me out of the building as fast as humanly possible, and he looked completely dumbfounded as I flatly refused to leave under his basic conditions.

Knowing his job was on the line and that his Sergeant was completely furious, he stepped into the cell block to plead with me. "No, I was told to just let you go."

I casually shrugged my shoulders and leaned my back flat against the concrete wall of the cell, looking directly at the guard with an entirely unbothered expression.

"If they are not free, then I can't trust you guys," I stated flatly, crossing my arms over my chest. "I have not been given my lawyer's official advice yet, so I don't want to be accused of a jailbreak."

Mei heard my stubborn words and let out a soft giggle next to me, thoroughly enjoying the way I was messing with the precinct staff. The processing officer looked completely perplexed, staring at me as if he couldn't grasp what to do next. This had to be a total first for him, right? A regular prisoner who explicitly refused to be released from custody?

The thoroughly flustered officer quickly grabbed his radio, calling into dispatch for immediate administrative instructions. Whatever frantic words he heard from the other end of the line made his face fall into a look of complete helplessness.

He lowered the receiver and turned back to face me through the bars. "Mr. Tang, your lawyer is standing right out front of the station, so you can meet him out there."

My Advanced Acting skill allowed me to easily see straight through his professional deception. This guy was trying his absolute best to put on an act to manipulate me. He clearly had strict orders from the higher-ups to get me out of this building as fast as humanly possible, and the longer I chose to stay inside the cell, the worse the political fallout became for their entire department.

I merely smiled widely, leaning back further against the stone wall while pointing a lazy finger toward the two women sitting beside me. "No, I am just as guilty as them, so I will gladly stay if they stay. Go ahead and lock me back up and throw away the key. I will willingly admit to speeding, really fast, how about that, he-he?!"

Just as the guard was about to open his mouth to argue, the loud sound of rushing footsteps echoed down the hallway, and the Sergeant of the Precinct came running into the block, his face covered in sweat. "Why is Mr. Tang still in the cell?!" he demanded, glaring at the gate.

The officer rapidly explained my counter-offer, and the Sergeant's face instantly went completely pale. He turned toward our bench, his hand frantically gesturing toward the two women in a desperate plea.

"The three of you, for the love of all that is right, please leave my station right now!" the Sergeant begged, his voice trembling as he unlocked the gate completely. "All of your charges and crimes are completely gone, okay? We are super sorry for the higher-ups' bullshit, but for my job's sake, please just go now!"

My Advanced Acting skill allowed me to analyze his micro-expressions, telling me that he was 100% genuine and terrified for his career. The fact that he was willing to instantly pardon my Fire Birds syndicate member—who had originally been arrested for aggressively assaulting a hostile debt-dodger—showed exactly how desperate he was to get us out of his sight.

I pushed myself off the wall, offering a satisfied smirk. "Alright, ladies, Sergeant Howard seems genuine here, so let's go. Oh, and we want our things back, all of it."

Sergeant Howard personally grabbed all of our plastic evidence bags and piled them right into our arms, physically pushing us out toward the station's main exit doors to hasten our departure. The moment we stepped into the open air, we were greeted by a blinding wall of camera flashes from the press, alongside our legal team and my worried wives.

A sharp reporter immediately yelled a question over the crowd before my family could even move into my personal space. "Mr. Tang, why did the police release you?!"

I immediately employed my Advanced Acting skill to start bullshitting the media, taking sharp political shots at the department wherever I could.

"Well, naturally I was completely innocent, so they let me go!" I announced smoothly, flashing a confident smile for the cameras. "It seems I was only originally charged with double parking, but the kind officers let it pass since I was only there to visit my wife for lunch."

"But your lawyers and wives explicitly said you were being framed by the department?!" another reporter chimed in loudly, pushing a microphone closer.

I put on a thoroughly shocked expression, widening my eyes in mock surprise. "Commissioner Long, I am sure, will publicly apologize for her actions very soon, or the Long family will definitely lose all of their credibility, right?! Well, I still need to get my personal maid's injuries looked at. They completely refused to send her to the hospital while we were inside, so..."

I smiled warmly at the cameras, offering a polite wave before diving straight into the protective circle of my lawyers and wives. I held my hands up to stop them from touching my clothes, pointing directly to the dried, dark gangster blood splattered across my fabrics.

"Right now I am absolutely filthy, so hold off on the warm embraces for a bit, dears," I told them with a soft smile, turning my attention toward my legal counsel and my corporate wife. "And Victoria, and Mr. Soto, can you all tell me what exactly has been going on behind the scenes?"

After spending some quiet time in the back of the vehicle, I had been thoroughly briefed on everything that had transpired across the city while I was locked away. I understood completely that this was entirely Commissioner Long wanting to personally stick it to the Tang family and Vicky out of petty spite.

My wives and I immediately diverted our route to a nearby high-end hotel so Mei and I could throw away our blood-soaked clothing and share a thorough shower, due to us not wanting to bring that filth inside our luxury limo or our clean home.

While we were organizing our garments, Soto explained the legal mechanics, telling me that the department could have technically pressed some minor charges against me for the traffic disruption if only they hadn't illegally denied me access to my lawyer. That massive constitutional violation was the exact reason why the Central Government got aggressively involved, coming down hard on Kimberly. With her terrible past track record, Kimberly could not defend the Long main branch in this matter no matter what she tried. After the previous two heavy intrusions by Central agents into her affairs, this specific stunt meant she could be personally arrested and charged with real jail time if she didn't fix it.

Lucy had apparently used her digital access to erase anything and everything she could find involving my combat records inside the precinct, manipulating the data to make it look only like I had heroically charged in to save Mary from terrorists. The remaining file trail made it look like a classic case of Long and Tang family drama, with corrupt local police explicitly abusing their authority in Star City for petty political reasons.

Thanks to my calculated words to the press outside the doors, Commissioner Long was forced to publicly eat shit on television, losing massive face to deliver a formal apology to our branch before announcing her immediate retirement for dropping the ball so severely. Now the city will officially need a brand new Police Commissioner, and it definitely won't be a member of the Long family.

Mary was perfectly fine during her comprehensive medical checkup at Star General, and she stayed behind at the hospital for a little while to support her recovering Sergeant and check on Hana, who was busy managing her tasks. But both women had already arrived safely back at the mansion before I even made it home. Mary and all the other surviving police members of the precinct were immediately granted three full months of paid leave while the station was being completely rebuilt, serving as mandatory compensation for the heavy trauma.

This timeline works out spectacularly well for us due to our baby girl being born right around that exact same time in April.

I had already thoroughly inspected Mei's physical bruise under the running water of the hotel shower, and it wasn't a major medical issue other than being a bit tender to the touch from the blunt force, which was a massive relief.

And finally, on the long drive back home, I wrapped my arms around Victoria and Linda, who were easily the most worried out of all the women, while Tina waited patiently for her private time with me later in the evening. Tina knew for a fact that Linda had suffered some real emotional trauma from the scare, and she refused to let her playful household rivalry interfere with Linda needing physical affection to calm her racing heart.

At 9 pm, my mansion...

I was sitting in the center of our living room couch, tightly holding both Mary and Hana close against my chest as the two of us basked in the relief of being together after they had been so deeply worried about me. Mary rubbed her hand gently across my worried face, looking around the room to explain the exact mechanics of the raid to the rest of the family.

"So we had originally captured Big Bear in a high-stakes sting operation where the Mad Hatters were actively smuggling rare gemstones out of Star City, and the closest processing jail to the bust was ours," Mary detailed, her voice steady. "The main state prison had sent a transport crew to transfer him over to the Star City Penitentiary alongside other high-profile prisoners, but... his criminal organization really wanted him back, enough to risk mounting such an open, violent terrorist strike on a police precinct."

She adjusted her posture against my shoulder, continuing her explanation. "The attack started at the exact moment we were going to formally release him to the transport officers, but the heavy automatic gunfire coming from the front lobby alerted us to the danger. The Sergeant, using his quick thinking, knew for a fact that I was pregnant, and that his own daughter, a brand new recruit, was in extreme danger. He aggressively shoved us alongside a few other vulnerable officers straight into the solitary confinement cell. Sadly, that heavily reinforced cell even completely blocks smartphone signals, so I couldn't radio for help or call out. He then intentionally played as a decoy outside to not alert the enemy to our presence inside the room. Then you arrived and completely cleaned out the entire place, and we were finally released."

She looked up into my eyes, flashing a beautiful, loving smile as she finished. "Then Lucy called my line and told me to talk to you directly through her secure communication patch. She explicitly stated that you were under the deep impression I had been kidnapped and desperately needed to hear my voice to stay anchored. So that is exactly what happened."

Mary then pulled up the plush couch blanket we were sharing, resting her head comfortably back onto my shoulder as I held both her and Hana's hands tightly in my lap, turning my focus to the rest of the room.

"This entire event thoroughly showed me exactly where I need to improve for the future," I announced to everyone, my voice dropping into a serious tone. "I am going to get extra tactical equipment for all of our personal cars and establish some hidden caches of weapons and survival supplies throughout the city lines. I will absolutely never come unprepared to a crisis ever again. I am just incredibly glad that you are all safe. Also, how did your afternoon university tests go? I can easily talk to my father-in-law George if any of you need me to arrange make-up tests?"

All of the women quickly shook their heads side to side, reassuring me that they had handled the exam questions with zero issues despite the chaos.

Linda allowed a slight smile to break across her lips, leaning forward to remind me of our past discussion.

"You and I talked about these situations before, Rick," Linda stated smoothly, her grey eyes softening. "And I explicitly told you that I would just stay calm and let you do your thing, so I had total faith that you would be perfectly fine. I was only a little bit worried at the very end, thinking you might accidentally miss university classes tomorrow, but now everything is good."

Nadia giggled softly from the adjacent armchair, offering a rare, selfless suggestion to the room. "Ricky, go ahead and just skip our scheduled night together and go hold Mary for sleep. I know for a fact that is exactly what your heart needs right now."

Mary knew for a fact that with Nadia's intense pregnancy urges, offering to willingly give up her designated night was a massive, incredibly kind gesture that showed she was truly thinking of my emotional health.

Mary smiled warmly at her, offering a playful counter-proposal. "Thanks, Nadia, and you too, Nichole. So then let's just officially count it as a schedule swap, and you can have my Friday night instead, fufu."

Nadia looked like she was about to cry happy tears at the sudden reward, throwing her hands up dramatically. "Damn, a kind act really returned to me instantly! No, I absolutely won't change my villainous ways for just one good outcome!"

Hearing Nadia aggressively reaffirm her typical villainous ways, the entire living room burst out into loud laughter, beautifully ending our crazy, chaotic day.

Later that night, I held Mary tightly against my chest in the quiet bedroom, and the two of us just silently basked in the raw closeness and the beautiful fragility of our love, our joy, and our lives. We will definitely hold on to each other much tighter from now on."