Present Time
"Robin Hernandez?"
To say I was scared for my life was the understatement of the century. I felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of their socket at any minute by the way I was holding my gaze so aggressively on him. My limbs were shaking, my body felt no longer my own.
Sea blue eyes, raspy voice, and dirty blonde hair. Is this real? Have I gone to heaven?
No, this can't be heaven, if I'm staring at the Devil himself.
That's him. Leonidas Salazar: Austin's worse enemy, as well as his mad brother.
This is the guy who we've tried to take down in the past 3 years that I've been working for Austin. This is the guy that took away the love of Austin's life and hid her away from him and anyone else. This is the guy who every single one of Austin's employees who have been caught, never came back from.
This is it. I'm dead.
His eyes are expectant, but he doesn't seem desperate. His shoulders are relaxed, as if he knows he has all the time in the world. Is this how he tortures his victims? He just stares at them pretending they have enough time to inhale the oxygen around them, but when they least expect it he slits their throats?
I didn't want to die just yet. I need to think back to my focus: survive.
"Yes?" I say. The confidence that I had worked so hard to build over the last 3 years was gone, in just an instant.
My eyes darted around the room to inspect my surroundings as he went ahead and jotted some things down in a notebook. The place felt dry and cold, the walls made of concrete with one side containing a one-way mirror, those that were often found in common interrogation rooms, and just a single light hanging from the ceiling that honestly looked like it needed to be changed. My hands were handcuffed to the table that stood between me and Leonidas, but other than that, I had no other restraints.
He had to be trying to convince me that I was fine. That everything was fine. That I would get out of here alive.
But I knew the truth. I knew the reality and I wasn't going to be another one of his infamous missing victims.
Story goes that once someone gets caught by Leonidas Salazar, you never hear from them again. No corpses, no blood, no scene to inspect, no evidence, no nothing. They just disappeared without a trace. Was I really going to be that? Was that my fate in the world?
He cleared his throat to catch my attention back again. I pressed my lips together in hopes that I wouldn't say anything that might speed up my inevitable death.
"What is your age?"
"20" I answered almost immediately.
He nodded. "Parents?"
My breath caught in my throat. It took some hesitation, but I answered. "My father lives in New York, I don't know where my mother resides."
"Alright," He glanced down to his notebook, and then back up at me when he was done writing. "For how long have you been working for Austin Salazar?"
Shit. Austin would kill me if I revealed any information about him. It was part of the contract after all, to keep my mouth shut about the business at all circumstances. But, Leonidas would too if I don't share. And frankly, the one closest to me right now was a bigger and scarier priority to me.
"3 years." I responded.
"Position?"
I gulped "I don't...I'm not sure if there is a name for what I do."
His expression didn't change, and I found myself frowing at his lack of emotion. Most people would assume all types of things the moment I told them that. But then again, he must have heard this answer a thousand times from a variety of different victims.
"Tell me, what are a few of your tasks?"
I took a deep breath. All for my survival, I repeated in my head. "Management of the night club, bartending, unothorized burrowing of specified women—"
Leonidas interrupted me with his strong and certain voice. "So kidnapping?"
"Yes."
"Very well. What else?"
"Extravagant Dancing, Forceful gathering of information, Disposing of Waste Meat..."
He interrupted me again. "What kind of meat?"
"Humankind"
He stared directly into my eyes longer than usual this time, making my skin crawl. His expression was similar to one that Austin often wore: eyes squinted as if they were trying to understand my deepest and darkest secrets. It was actually quite chilling how alike in their expressions they were.
He placed his pen down inside the notebook and proceeded to close it. I couldn't help but to flinch at the gesture.
"I'm assuming you won't lie to me, given how shaken up and scared you look right now. So just answer me the next question and I will let you go."
Holy shit. Was he serious? Was he really going to let me go? He couldn't be. Austin would never do that, specially if it was any of Leonidas' employees.
"Is Daisy Smiles someone who you have a genuine romantic interest for, or were you trying to seduce her to bring her to Austin more easily?"
"I..." My words caught in my throat and the world seemed to stop. What was I supposed to say? I can't lie. I am an awful lier and he would see through me almost instantly. Yes, I was originally trying to get her to give herself up to me to get my job done more easily, but that plan backfired when I fell for her.
But was I really falling for her? Like, falling in love with her? Or was it just pure carnal impulse?
It was just too much to understand. Love was too complex for the human brain to even begin to break down, and I sure as hell wasn't going to able to understand it in a matter of seconds.
Therefore, I went with my number one priority: Survival.
I lowered my gaze to the table, maybe assuming the table might give me one last sign, some type of reassurance to my answer, but then decided to bring it back up to Leonidas' when I realized there was none and this was just the plain truth.
I let out a breath from deep in my diaphragm. "I was trying to seduce her to make my job easier. That's the truth."
He glanzed quickly to the one-way glass in the room but then locked his blue eyes with my green ones once again.
"Very well, Hernandez. Now, let me tell you something that seems to be a common misconception between your fellow co-workers."
I nodded.
"I don't kill. It is simply against my morals."
My eyebrows involuntarily knit together at the words that just came out from his lips. He quickly caught on to my shocked expression and took that as I sign that it was okay for him to speak again.
"For some reason my brother has been feeding lies into his employees about the person I am and what I do. Feeding them fear about someone who is simply not me. I do not kill any of the employees of his that I capture. In fact, I give them a chance into a new life."
"What kind of chance?"
He smiled, most likely impressed with my 'ballsiness' just like his brother was. "I let them live in this facility, give them food, shelter, education, training, and even jobs, and depending on their results at the end of their education and training in here, I give them 3 choices."
"Which are?" I quickly asked, curiosity getting my tongue.
"Live a normal life out of this conflict between my brother and I, meaning they move far away with a new identity; Work as a team member of the facility, such as engineers or infantry members; and the last option is rare, because I requiere outstanding results, But this one is to become part of my right hands—The Elites—which are the team I work closely along side with. They are my most talented and trusted team members. There is only a handful of them, and you can identify them by their attire, which is usually skin-tight black suit accompanied by all their weaponry."
I simply nodded, left without any further questions to ask him at the moment. Was this actually real? Was I just given a chance to not simply survive, but to live? To breathe and be treated like I actually deserved to be part of the world?
That also made sense. Was that why we never heard back from anyone who had been captured by Leonidas?
He gave them a chance. Of course they would take it. No one wanted to work for Austin.
Leonidas might have caught on to my brief life-pondering because I heard him chuckle, then standing up he spoke again. "I've seen that face plenty of times before. Is common around here."
I frowned. "What face?"
He stood under the frame of the open door, and with a smile he answered. "Hope."
The click of the door closing finally brought me back to my reality. Actually, it confirmed it.
I had a second chance at a life I once had accepted—under the roof of a homeless shelter—was never going to come back to me: A normal life.