Saving Mr. Player

11. The Honeypot

Amy gulped, running her sweated palms through her hair, fixing the slight lose strands out of her bun.

While Alessandro stood tall in front of her, his fierce gaze boring holes into her entire body. He wore a jet black suit, the top shirts on his button undone, giving a clearing view of chiseled chest, while his well shaven beard shined and smelled of sandalwood and strong pleasant spice.

Amy noticed how his gaze was stuck at her and his expressionless face wasn’t helping her much either in understanding what he wanted but she faked a small smile.

He slightly stuck his tongue out and rolled his eyes, shaking his head with an expressionless face and walked away. Two large guards covered him from front and back, matching his pace and movements. 

Leaving Amy completely confused but she didn’t let it intimidate her, so she walked behind him, taking faster strides, to match Alessandro’s pace, who was quite taller than her. One of the guards stepped ahead to stop her but Alessandro gestured them to let her be with him.  

“Hey!” she chimed, with a partial smile, calling him out but he remained unfazed, ignoring her existence.

“You might not remember me…” she shrugged still keeping up with his pace by sprinting her feet.

“No! I remember you!” he said suddenly pausing making Amy jerk as she halted as well.

“Huh?”

“I remember you. You are that freak fan who jumped on me last night.” He said with a small smile, “Well… thanks to you, you saved my life.” He threw his charming half smile, that flashed his deep dimple, which was considered a part of his iconic existence.

He walked out of the place leaving Amy completely bedazzled at his words.

“Freak fan?”

She questioned herself, with her face hanging open. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around to see Arturo who held a different kind of glow on his face.

“Were you just talking with Alessandro Ricci?”

An annoyed expression immediately covered Amy’s face as she felt irritated that the guy who just insulted her, Arturo was fanboying over him.

She groaned, “Yes, we need to reach the lunch venue and get with them, we don’t have enough time.”

She stated, walking towards the black SUV, which were parked near the rest of the VIP cars. She got inside followed up by Arturo, who sat right next to her.

“What did you say? What did he say? Did you tell him about me?” Arturo asked in an excited tone.

Amy groaned at his childish behavior, which was the most unusual thing for Arturo to do. As he was her superior and also one of the most successful officers in the Spanish Intelligence Forces.

“You know what, why don’t you let me do the talking when we meet them?” Amy specified.

Arturo masked his expressions, realizing how immature he was acting.

The car soon halted at the venue, reaching the main door of the hotel, Amy and Arturo got out of the car and immediately entered the hotel. Arturo noticed how Amy was rushed, because she was anxious and wanted to already begin with her plan. She had mapped it out carefully, with phases and she was still fretful that she was nowhere near phase one.

She entered the wake hall where all the circular tables were lined together in an easing manner. A small stage was also set up for later, where people were going to pay homage to Paul, curtains were drawn on the stage, while people were gathered and seated inside the large hall, where Amy spotted the team sitting, along with their management, sitting on the long rectangular table that was place elongated in the middle of the room, intersectional to the stage.

She sped fast, striding towards the table and standing tall in front of the table of fourteen people, while two seats, at the end of the table away from the stage were kept empty.

Everyone immediately noticed her, turning their heads towards her direction except for a few who were busy in their phones, including Alessandro. She noticed his absent mindedness and arrogance but swallowed her pride and chimed a small smile. She was about to speak when Arturo popped from behind her.

“Arturo Flores… huge fan.” He extended his hand and Fen, who was watching Amy with amusement, shook his head with a small smile.

Amy rolled her eyes with annoyance, “And also the Commissioner of the Spanish Intelligence Forces ‘SIF’.” She chimed with a proper introduction. Everyone’s eyebrows rose with astonishment, earning everyone’s attention including those who were dwelling in their cellphones. She looked down at Alessandro and noticed how his eyebrow rose but he remained glued to his seat.

“I am Lieutenant Amy Danvers.” She introduced herself.

“Of course, Lieutenant you saved our team’s lives yesterday and for that we are grateful to you. Please have a seat, we would really like to return your favor with a small gesture.” An old man with greyed hair and slightly bulging belly stood up, adjacent to Alessandro and walked towards Amy and Arturo, “Mr. Flores informed us that you are a huge fan of the team and would love to have lunch with them. You sure can, that is the least we can do for the services you provide our nation with.” He was fluent with his British accent, poised and well mannered.

Amy’s expressions went stern, a snarl took over her face that she tried her best to cover. She looked up at Arturo who gave her a fake smile and walked at the end of the table, taking a seat next to Alessandro. While the rest of the team readjusted, making room for the old man.

“I am Liam Bert, team’s manager in charge and spokesperson, please have a seat.”

The single seat at the farther corner of the table was the only one left. Amy sighed sitting down at looked across the table only to see Alessandro keeping his phone aside and fixing his gaze at her from across the table. She smiled slightly at him and he immediately turned his gaze, leaving her confused.

She shook away his intimidating impression and cleared her throat.

“So, Mr. Bert, I am guessing you don’t know why we are really here?” She asked looking at Arturo who was submerged in a deep starstruck conversation with Fen. She slightly shook her head, knowing he was being a huge embarrassment. She noticed Alessandro, who was watching Arturo from the corner of his eye.

“Well… as I said I was informed that you would like to have this lunch…” Liam spoke up but Amy cut him off, impatient to jump to the topic. She had already had her enough time wasted.

“I would like to have this lunch to inform that the team’s security is a national matter now.”

Everyone looked up at her, this time even Alessandro.

Luka who was sitting absent minded in the middle of the huge feast, groaned out loud, “For f**k’s sake! We had just lost our buddy, our teammate, could you ever not just make it about yourself? How can you people be so cold hearted? We are mourning here.”

Amy gulped head, knowing how much thick-headed she was about to sound but being an officer, for the sake of saving her country, she had to step up.

“I understand this is a grieve moment for you and I am as much as deeply saddened by this unfortunate incident but there are somethings, important that you should know…”

Luka let out a cold laughter, ignoring her bliss, while the rest of the team shook their heads showing their disappointment in Amy, already having a negative image of hers.

Arturo on the other hand, shook his head at her gesturing her to stop but she wasn’t going to quit any time soon, as she felt time running out on her.

“We need to protect all of your team and keep everyone of you safe, for which we would be deploying security personnel with each and every one of you, quarantining you inside your homes.”

“Why? Hasn’t the killer been caught already?” Fen asked, attaining Amy’s attention. She remembered him from the other day when he carried a soft expression on his face and seemed only the sensible one among the rest of them.

“You will be quarantined for the sake of insurance, as a precautionary measure.” She masked the truth carefully, not wanting to let the truth spill out.

“Why?”

For the first time Alessandro spoke. He leaned back on his chair, putting one of his arms on the chair head, flashing more of his chest.

“Do you fear the security forces of this nation would yet again disappoint and let any common person with a petty conflict kill one of us again? And of course, you don’t want to get your name called out like being called losers and get booed at, again? That’s why you will jail us inside our homes? For your carelessness? And for your incompetency and lack of skills that you couldn’t catch a simple girl who stood in a huge crowd and killed our brother?”

His tone was offensive and seething, every word was directly attacked at the defense system of the nation, which stirred a raging fire within Amy, as her nostrils flared with anger but gulped her anger and held back herself from lashing out, understanding that he was probably traumatized.

“He is right!” Adrian also chimed in.

“Yeah!” Vincent, another football player also agreed with him.

“It is your fault that a civilian walked into a guarded ground stadium, stood among civilians and killed our brother.” Luka spoke up and Amy’s eyebrows rose with disgust, “All you care about is guarding your stupid honor.”

Amy’s rage was increasing by every passing second, but she was trying her best to control her temper.

“You people caught the killer, right?” Alessandro spoke up and Amy nodded head curtly.

“So, what do you want now from us? You want to put on another show for the cameras? Or you want some appreciation credits from us? We will tell our PR teams to post some third-class appreciation posts on our social medias for you guys if that’s what you want!”

Amy closed her eyes, feeling those words stab her in the guts, wrenching her pride and everything she stood for but she was a woman with a vision, so she decided to be the bigger person and kept her head high.

“The night at the hotel we busted a major drug deal.” She shared a glance with Arturo who calmly noted for her to continue, gesturing she was doing the right thing.

“…The drug mafia involved, seems to think that you guys are a part of the witness against the cartel as you had seen one of their members.” She nodded at Alessandro who kept a rigid poke face, his jaw clenching tight, making his anger evident. But regardless of his expressions Amy continued.

“… They are now going to try to hurt you for this purpose, we would like to keep all of you under security, we wouldn’t prefer to keep the team together but we suggest you all are quarantined partially in your houses under security…”

“And you thought our brother’s wake was the best place to talk about this!” Alessandro pointed out.

If anything, Amy hated his guts that were acutely putting her plan in danger.

“We don’t have much time and it would be the best in all of our interests if we get done with it as soon as possible, your lives are in danger…”

“Our lives are always in danger, that’s why we have our guards with us, who provide us protection and security.” Alessandro retorted back.

Amy’s hand rested under the table clenched, holding back her anger, she wasn’t much enjoying how he was shutting her down one after the other one.

“Your guards are not familiar with the members of the gang that is on the lose…” Arturo chimed in, making a rational argument.

Alessandro simply groaned in annoyance, rolling his eyes and looking at his pathetic attitude, Amy turned towards Liam.

“Listen, we need your cooperation and I know this might feel jumped to talk about at this place but trust us, we need to get things done as soon as possible for the purpose of safety of your team. This is a matter of national security.”

“Of course!” Luka spoke up earning everyone’s attention, “Everything you, military people make about ‘National Security’.” He raised air commas to validate his point that he was unbothered by the seriousness of the situation.

“A member of the team we arrested…” Arturo began, looking at Amy’s face who was close to lose her patience. “… he was going to hold Mr. Ricci as a hostage, their plan was to hurt the football team, a reason why they held out the drug heist at the hotel where you were staying. So, they know in such situation of crisis, when a major member of their gang has been detained, they would try to get back by hurting you…”

“Really? Fen was startled with the discovery of the fact and Amy realized that Arturo’s lie was working, so she simply nodded her head.

“Oh! Please, you really believe them?” Alessandro laughed a little mocking the cops. “They are just making it up, to hold us down for a little fuzz and show that they care about our lives and serve themselves as hero. In reality, we all know this system is just a hoax.”

“Agreed, we can’t trust these people, who can have the guts to talk about such a situation at our brother’s wake.” Luka retorted.

“Yeah! If you cared enough, you wouldn’t dare talk about such a ‘grieve’ matter and would’ve showed some respect.” Adrian butted in.

Amy realized she seemed nothing but a piece of stone-faced b***h and even Arturo felt the same to he decided to chime into the situation.

“You are our national treasure…” he spoke to the entire team but also kept Liam in his focus who had a smug look on his face and Amy noticed that. “…You guys are national heroes and we just want to protect you.”

“No doubt, we are your national heroes but we don’t need your desperate attempts at being the heroes here. You just do your job and we will do ours.” Alessandro canceled him rudely, even taking Arturo by surprise. “Tell the PR team of The Royal Madrid to give them some smoke, they hate it that people are still concerned about us and they just want to be a part of it and that’s why they so desperately throw in their fish at us.” He pointed at Amy and her eyes grew wide at his illiterate and impolite statement. Looking at Amy as a honeypot.

 At the same time a tall blond walked up on the stage and stood in front of the podium on the stage, clearing her throat in the mic set up.

“Can we please have some silence!”

The entire room fell into silence and everyone adjusted their chairs and faces towards the stage, Alessandro who was about to turn his chair around towards the stage, leaned in one last time, giving Amy a serious look.

“Now, if you have even single ounce of a respect for our brother who died, keep your mouth shut!”

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