Saving Mr. Player

12. Let Me Introduce Myself Again

Anger was boiling inside Amy’s veins, the words she heard Alessandro speak to her, were constantly ringing in her mind.

No one has ever had the audacity to speak to her in such manner. Despite of being a woman in men’s world, where her work place had a clear gender disproportion of having more men than women, where she had to make her way to the top by working twice as hard as her fellow male colleagues and prove her worth at every living point of her career, someone degraded her and discarded her in such a heinous manner that it had hit a weak spot in Amy.

She was fuming with anger walking down the large wide corridor of the Minister’s office. the red carpeted floor made thudding noise as she took long strides with sprinting speed. She didn’t care how much people gave her concerning looks, her anger was beyond par. She passed down the Secretariat’s office, who watched through the open c***k of his door and immediately followed out.

He was a tall shrouding man, with a good build that was tightened around his plaid shirt that he wore suspenders over, emphasizing deeply his hardened pecs.

“Amy!” he called her out as she was about to turn towards the wider corridor, where the Minister’s office was situated.

She turned and looked at him, while on the opposite end, Arturo rushed in, huffing, having a hard time catching up with Amy.

“What’s going on?” He asked looking around the place, he was a dear friend to Amy and that is why seeing her in such a seething state, he still dared enough to call her out.

“Derick, Is Suarez in her office?” she asked ignoring the two men in the room.

“Yeah, she just got out of a meeting.” He informed her.

“Good!” she nodded, walking ahead but Arturo called her, and she groaned stopping.

“You cannot just barge in her office.” He whispered slowly; his breath still quivered.

She held back a loud yell, “Listen Flores, we don’t have much time…”

“What is going on here?” Derick jumped in again.

Amy rolled her eyes, keeping her hands on her hips on both sides, “I am going in.” she announced and walked towards the large double door that was fixed in the middle of the beige walls.

While Arturo stood back, “We had a meeting with The Royal Madrid.” He told.

The guy stood excited, “And… I am guessing it didn’t go well and most importantly not according to Amy’s plan?”

“They called us petty and desperate to steal their thunder in order to become national heroes and they even called Amy the honeypot.”

Derick cooed holding his fist near his mouth, “Oh, that’s bad, which one did it?” Somehow, he seemed sassy in this situation as well.

Arturo held back his repulsion and answered, “Ricci.”

“Oh! Damn!” Derick laughed loudly, “Amy must be pissed. Is she going to ask Suarez permission to kill Alessandro by her own hands and replace his body with a cyborg to entrap the Roman Cartel?”

Arturo shook his head, “I hope so not, let’s find out.”

The two men walked inside the room, bright large beige walled room, the black shelves were illuminated with inward florescent lightning while a frame of Suarez was hung right behind her seat between the gap of the shelves. Suarez sat on the large brown swivel chair, holding the landline phone to her ear, her desk decorated as the usual, while the projector on the wall opposite to her, across the neatly organized seated area, was still pulled down, signifying she had just gotten out of a conference.

Derick and Arturo walked near Amy, who sat facing Suarez. Arturo sat on the other swivel chair next to Amy and noticed Amy had a smug expression on her face. He knew she was successful in getting whatever she needed.

Suarez put the phone down, and acknowledged the two men. She looked up at Derick.

“I just got off call with Prime Minister, Pedro; issue Amy whatever warrant she wants.”

Amy nodded with a huge smile, plastered on her face and Derick simply nodded his head walking out of the room, into his office followed by Arturo while Amy stayed back, walking out after a while.

She entered inside Derick’s small office and the two men only gave her questioning looks, waiting for her to reveal what magic she pulled onto Suarez. She simple chimed, glowing with confidence, she was now back on her feet, getting things done her way.

“Suarez loves football and I simply told her it was for the safety of the team, as their management wasn’t allowing us to hold them back and wanted the team to play, which Arturo you also know is partially true…”

She revealed her trick.

“…I mean, if the players had agreed then the management not agreeing would have been a concern.” Arturo suggested, while Derick only sat on his laptop, originating the warrant that was going to be issued and juts in a matter of time was going to change so many lives.

While Amy was gloating with confidence, Derick sasses at her.

“You are a sick b***h!”

4 hours later….

Two tall shrouding men stood outside a large wooden double door, of a mansion in Palma, the beach city of Spain, knocking loudly, while a loud male voice chimed from inside.

“Coming!”

The door opened up parting in the middle, and holding both knobs on the door stood a confused Adrian who was stunned to see two mysterious looking men, who held a wire to their ear and wore crisp suits, probably looking like government agents.

“Mr. Adrian Sanchez, we are with the Spanish Intelligence Forces…” they flashed their solid badges, “… we carry a permit to hold you under our surveillance, as your safety is a matter of national security…”

“… and due to your lack of earlier cooperation…” another just two officers stood outside Luka’s apartment in Croatia, reading him the officially issued statement by the government.

“… we have the orders issued by the government, that allow us to hold you under protection with or without your consent.” Two other agents stood outside Fen’s penthouse, who sighed letting them get inside the place without further restrictions.

“For your own safety, we would appreciate your complete cooperation with us…” two other agents announced, holding Vincent against the wall of his apartment as he tried rebelling them by restraining them from getting inside.

Meanwhile in Madrid, on the outskirts of suburbs of the district of Salamanca, lined among the large mansions that were segregated at distance of miles from each other, covered in the shiny lights and distanced by their large separating lawns that were neatly carved and manicured.

In the middle of the most posh block, stood a block squared luxury modern villa, white in its structure with clear glass walls, shining with yellow bright lights illuminating the interior as a gasping view under the, darkened by the pink lightning, dusky sky.

The house stood tall in three blocks of two stories, a middle narrows one, segregating two wider ones, on each side, the front and back mirrored each other, while a calming pool side area, flashed its view on the back side of the house, with large spreading lawn, squaring around the small sofa bar, with staircase, plunging it downwards, to the level of the pool floor, with white plush couches set up around the place, that had a cereamic white floor with inward stripped florescent lightning. While another small corner filled with couches and sofa set up for relaxation, near the back exit of the mansion.

The front gateway was a grey chromatic high premium steel, voltage guarded door, that had the strip lines running through it, living spaces in between that carved and read as ‘AR’ that also in cursive.

The concrete pavements from steel gates lead towards a basement lavish garage, that had chromium LED lights submerged in gold plated ceiling, held by columns separating the rows of luxurious cars. Right above the luxurious basement stood the exquisite mansion, filled with sixteen bedrooms; four masters and three bunk bed rooms, designed for guards and servants. The rest were guest rooms, slightly smaller than the master bedrooms. Each master bedroom, had a large facing balcony down towards the pool area. The house had a large pantry, supported by a wine cellars and underground food storage units.

A separate room, on the ground floor was distinguished for a movie theater, luxury games and an indoor 100x100 meters football field, for regular practices. All in all, it was a built-in palace.

In the upper foyer, adjoining the two wings of the house, near the glass paned wall, facing the back side of the house, stood Alessandro Ricci, the owner of the house.

He leaned against the beige shiny marble wall, his body endorsed with sweat, while his jet black hair spread around his face, trickling beads of sweat that stuck all over his toned abs and muscles, a small tattoo flashed over his right pec that read; ‘La Resistencia’ in cursive.

In one hand, in he held a can of his favorite beer, sipping through it, looking outside at the calming view of the drowning sun, which helped him forget his worries. He was among those who enjoyed darkness. The scrunching light of the sun was too bright for him, he liked it when things were in the dark, for him darkness was like a shell of protection, the best way to camouflage a flaw, no matter how bright the sin was, no matter what color the flaw was; he believed it would be hidden in the darkness of the night, that he was impatiently waiting for the sky to adorn.

He heard footsteps approaching from behind him and turned to look at one of the housekeepers that entered upstairs foyer, running through the squared grey floating staircase, fixed in the adjacent wall.

“Senor…” the old lady wore an apron over her ankle length, half sleeved, black dress. Signifying she was one of the maids, but her grey hairs and wrinkled face depicted her old age significantly.

He hurried towards her, and held her palms as she almost stumbled, falling downwards.

“What happened? Maria… are you okay?” he asked, astonished at her sudden exhausted and hyper behavior.

“There are…. some government…. people downstairs, they are…. They’re hijacking… hijacking the house…” she said, trying to catch her breath, while anxiety and fear crippled her words as well.

Alessandro’s eyebrows knitted together as he tried to make up what she was saying. He walked ahead towards the gold platted glass railing. Beyond the living area downstairs he could see the a group of three people, that had gathered the entire staff around them, with two male standing sideways, someone Alessandro didn’t recognize while on the other hand, a tall blond, in a navy blue suit, her hair flowing downwards, up till the middle of her back, stood facing the domestic staff, as if briefing them.

Alessandro felt irritated, as he was already enough annoyed by the woman who saved his life previously and showed up like a desperate vixen, trying to get credit at Paul’s wake. He had mentally already dealt with enough and he wasn’t going to take anymore from the government people. So, he strode downstairs, jumping down the semi-spiral floating staircase and walked down passing the circular couches and reached the woman, who was already warned by one of the two males who stood beside her.

Alessandro halted his footsteps as soon as the woman turned around and flashed an obnoxious smile.

He was rendered shock to see, Amy, the same female officer / agent, who was the lieutenant that he clashed with at the funeral earlier.

He stood, holding his hips, eyebrows knitted together, demanding an explanation with his posture.

Amy maintained the smile, understanding clearly that he was eccentric self-centered billionaire who always had things done his way and now would not even speak but rather try to be rude. But this time she wasn’t going to take any more word thrashings from him.

“I think I didn’t introduce myself properly earlier.” She slightly moved her coat, the same navy blue she had been wearing since the morning and flashed her intelligence badge, “I am Lieutenant Amy Danvers from the Spanish Intelligence Forces.”

“I know you are that freaky woman…” Alessandro began but she immediately cut him off.

She kept her smile glued to her face, “Due to your earlier lack of cooperation, you have been taken under custody for security purposes by the Spanish Intelligence, regulated in accordance with the orders as per issued by the Spanish government.” She extended her and Antonio who stood behind her surrounding the domestic staff, leaned ahead, passing her a copy of the issued permit.

She held the permit in her hand, next to her face, so that Alessandro could read it, clearly mocking him with her actions.

“Now you are under government surveillance for which we will be deploying a team of security agents that will stay with you as your shadow.” She pulled the paper down and kept her smile a constant on her face.

“Mr. Ricci, let me introduce myself again, I am Lieutenant Amy Danvers and I am going to be your shadow for the next few months.”

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