*****
Miguel felt his mind drone as he saw only darkness. The faint sound of discussion resounded in his ear as his consciousness returned.
The cold hard surface beneath his body seemed to seep into his bones, making Miguel immediately realize that he was laying on the bare floor.
"Where am I?" He questioned himself groggily.
As this question appeared in his mind, his ears picked up on a conversation close to him.
"The situation this time is slightly bad boss, we lost some guys to those street eses this time around with many heavily wounded"
"What about the local authorities? Do they have anything on us about the children?"
"We've already transported the children we took earlier to the buyer, this kid is the only one left. So even if they suspect us, they have no proof"
"Good. Contact the buyer, tell him we have one more but he has to wait for things to settle. And also tell him I want a bonus this time"
"Yes boss"
"Alright go on"
As he listened to the conversation, Miguel lifted his head and slowly opened his eyes. However, the bright light from the ceiling fluorescent forced him to quickly shut them again.
His mind droned again as he felt a piercing pain at the back of his head making him halt his actions.
His eyes snapped open, fixed on the men who were having a conversation close to him. One already on his way towards the door.
Turning his head to look around, the surrounding he saw was dimly lit room. The dark green colored bulb casted a dark green hue on the whole room.
The air was stale and filled with the stench of cigarettes and sweat.
Raising his head again to look, what he first thought was a ceiling fluorescent turned out to be a side lamp stand faced directly at him.
"What's going on? Why am I here?" Miguel thought to himself again without receiving any answers.
"You're finally awake" a slightly deep voice came from the side.
The voice was low and gravelly, like sandpaper on stone. It was one of the voices he heard during the conversation.
Miguel turned around to face the voice again and discovered that one of the men had already left.
"Good, it means you're good to fetch me a decent price" the owner of the voice said and turned around, walking to a table at one end of the room. It was the one addressed as boss.
It was a man in his thirties, with bushy sideburns and a tall, muscular body statue. His upper body was bare, covered in numerous tattoos.
The most conspicuous of them was the tattoo of two axes crossed in an X pattern occupying the majority of his upper back.
"Axe brother gang" this single thought jogged his memories and he recalled everything that had happened.
"Mother and father are dead, brother's whereabout is unknown and it looks like I've been kidnapped by the Axe brothers" his mood immediately turned sour.
However, he was feeling sadness at all no, his eyes burned with flames of rage and hate.
"It's their fault, it's all their fault. Gangsters, the Axe brothers, the Santa Ricardo eses everyone of them is guilty, all of them will pay, all gangsters will pay" Miguel raged in his mind, his hateful eyes staring daggers at the man covered in tattoos.
"Hmm" feeling the burning stares of someone at his back, the tattooed man turned around to meet Miguel's gaze.
His eyes gleamed with a cold, calculating and ruthless intensity under the dim lighting.
"Keep staring kid, no matter how angry you are it doesn't change the fact that you're about to fetch me some good money and partnership" he chuckled lightly.
"You can only blame your horrible luck and parents for giving birth to you in a place like this" he said as he flashed Miguel a sadistic grin before turning his attention to the table in front of him.
Miguel's eyes also turned towards the table as well.
On the table were disassembled pieces of what looks like guns, two pistols to be exact. A piece of rag was also on the table, a sign that the tattooed man was in the process of cleaning his gun.
He immediately picked up the rag and continued cleaning without bothering about Miguel again.
He spent the next 30 minutes cleaning every single piece of items on the table before putting the rag away.
Then he started to reassemble the parts of the gun piece by piece. He first started inserting the bullets one after the other into the magazine.
After inserting all the bullets into two magazines, he placed them to the side and started reassembling the main pistol.
This time he spent only 5 minutes to reassemble the first pistol. He picked up one of the magazine, loaded into the gun, cocked it and immediately pointed it at Miguel.
However, to his utter surprise Miguel didn't so much as flinch or blink, his eyes stared unblinking at the muzzle of the gun aiming at him.
"Not so much as a flinch, You've got guts kid I'll give you that. If you were a little bit older I..."
Boooom!!
He was still speaking when a loud explosion resounded followed by rumbling even rocking the whole structure they were in. The sound of shattering glass from below filled the air.
Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!
Gunshots cracked through the air, curses and shouts erupted as the structure shuddered around them.
"What's going on? What are those morons doing?" the tattooed man mumbled with a frown.
He grabbed the assembled gun and immediately left the room, leaving the pieces of the unassembled one on the table.
As soon as he left, Miguel's eyes focused on the unassembled pieces. He stared at them for a while before walking towards the table with steady steps.
*****
Outside the door, there were two guys with rifles standing on each side of the door, obviously guarding it.
"You, come with me" the tattooed man pointed at one before descending the stairs in a hurry.
Halfway through their descent, he saw the guy he talked with earlier ascending in a hurry with an AK-47 rifle
"Kaiser, what's all the ruckus about?" He questioned him.
"Boss!, we're under attack" the man called kaiser exclaimed as he saw the leader, he was most likely on his way to report the situation to him.
"An attack, are those Santa Ricardo fools behind this?" The frown on the leaders face grew even gloomier.
"No, the report from the guys on ground floor says it's only a single person and his ascending fast" the man with a rifle replied in an astonished tone.
"A single person?!" The leaders eyes widen while his pupils constricted to almost the size of needles.