"Hi?" He flashed her a half smile, "are you the one in charge of the infirmary?"
"No, I-I came..I mean I'm not. His name is Roberto and he's inside" Aurora said and walked past him.
"Hey?" She paused at his call. His eyes when he stared at her earlier at the training ground was way more fierce than now, it wasn't as intimidating as then.
Well, what do you expect from someone who is undergoing a tough training?
Aurora turned to him, not uttering a word. "Are you okay? Your head--
He made a mental move to touch it but Aurora was quick to take a step backward, causing his hand to drop.
"I'm fine" she answered him casually and scurried away from him.
Arriving at the kitchen, she found the other girls busy spooning different kinds of meals into dishes and filling the plates on a tray. Pots, spoons and plates clicked as those actions were repeated.
"Oh Aurora, you're back!" Madam Paula noticed her. "Come"
Aurora counted her steps towards her.
"I had Juan fill in for you so I can buy enough time to teach you everything you should know about working directly for Rodriguez"
"So, did Roberto release you already?"
"Well, he did ask me to check back later, he seemed to be very busy so he just gave me some drugs to take"
"Fantastic. We have got quite enough time for the lesson. Come with me"
She left and Aurora followed her from behind to her own quarters.
..
Rodriguez picked up the fork and stabbed a steak with it, dipping it into his mouth, he returned the fork to the flat plate and picked up a spoon. With the spoon he carried some soup into his mouth.
"So... how were the guys?" Gerald started a conversation, dipping a cracker into sauce and lifting it up to his mouth.
"Not bad" Rodriguez plainly answered, "at the end, I might actually be taking off more than half of the team"
"Oh.." Gerald mouthed, "did something go wrong?" He turned to Michael.
"Well, unlike the last set, these ones have an issue catching up. Bobby and I trained them on the weapons last night and they seemed to have slept on it. They could barely identity most of the ammunition"
"Well, that's one tough thing about hiring novice" Bobby chipped in, earning a warning look from Rodriguez.
"You were once a novice yourself before you got to this stage, the trainings you took from us, brought you this far. Did you have a memory loss to have forgotten so easily?" Rodriguez asked without sparing him a glance. Although his expression was stale, they could all see the coldness in his eyes.
Bobby lowered his gaze, uttering nothing.
"I didn't" he said when Rod raised a questioning brow at his quietness.
"And you do not have any right to question my choice of selection"
"Yes boss. I apologise"
"So, where are the guys?" Gerald asked.
"More than a half of them are in bad shapes, I had one of them go to the infirmary to get Roberto. Hopefully, his medical teams are fixing them up" Michael answered.
"Oh" Gerald murmured. "What do you plan?"
"The usual. Those who have gotta go, have gotta go. The rest will be tried on the last stage"
"Rodriguez?" Charles walked in, a shotgun in his hand.
"There is an issue?"
"What is it?" Gerald asked.
"One of the intake slumped"
Rodriguez turned, "what?" His brows narrowed.
"How critical is his condition?"
"He's dead" Charles response sent a long inaudible sigh to escape from Rodriguez's lips.
"What? How did that happen?"
"I don't know but he had a deep wound from a snake bite on his shoulder. From what I observed, the bite was most likely gotten two days back, he must have treated it locally and abandoned it to heal on it's own"
"Two days old? Isn't that the day they began hunt- training in the woods?" Michael asked.
"He must've gotten bitten by a snake and hid it as an act of resistance and to probably not get kicked out of the team" Gerald theorised.
"Dispose the body and have the others take a ten minutes rest. Training continues immediately after it" Rodriguez passed, "he knew what he was going into before deciding to be a part of the team. It was stupid of him to have flagged my warnings to showcase an unnecessary act of bravery" he added, filling his mouth with food nonchalantly.
"Remind the others once more of my warnings, whoever defies them with a silly excuse, will bear the consequences alone" Rodriguez said with an air of finality, stood up and walked out of the dinning hall.
"Yes boss" Charles yelled after him. Gerald sighed lowly, turning to his food, as he ate the meal with a little less appetite, he could feel the others gaze on him.
He stood up and walked out; following Rodriguez. One thing he knows about Rodriguez from years of being his Consigliere is that right now, Rodriguez isn't happy.
..
Aurora took a sip from the tea, savoring it; she turned to madam Paula.
"Do you feel the difference with the regular tea?"
"Yes" Aurora nodded, swallowing the warm tea.
"Can you tell me what you feel?"
"The texture. This one seem a little long lasting in the mouth than regular tea" Aurora vocally intoned her observation.
"Is that all you feel? Do you want to try again?"
Learning from madam Paula about the basics of being the maid to a don was quite difficult. Even her online exams wasn't this hard and confusing. Paula wanted an explanation to even the littlest details and Aurora sure didn't sign up for this.
Who would have thought working as a maid, comes with attending classes and having oral tests on its own?
Just to pick out the difference in Rodriguez tea taste and regular tea is already a tough thing on its own.
How harder can working for a Mafia be?
"It's thicker than regular tea?" She tried again with a look of uncertainty.
"Phew!" Madam Paula sighed but smiled warmly at her, "I see you're not particularly good at feeling things but I'll try to teach you in the best way that I can" she assured, "your answers are logical but incorrect in the aspect we are treating. Now let's try again" madam Paula instructed.
"have another taste, a smaller portion this time, savour it to its very least and tell me what you observe"