La Arquitecta

Chapter 2

Six days earlier

Arriving at an arena for Monday Night Raw for the first time had been a moment of mixed emotions for Zelina Vega. Excitement was of course the primary emotion. There was only one reason Vince McMahon would have ordered her to be there: she was going to be called up from NXT to the main roster. It was unfortunate that the promotion had been made possible by her former on-screen client Andrade Almas picking up an injury that would rule him out of several months of action, but there was nothing Zelina could do about that.

The conflicting emotion she was experiencing was nervousness. Not only was making the main roster a big jump in terms of the audiences she would be performing in front of most of the time, it would also obviously mean that, since she played a manager, she would have a new 'client' to work with. There was no telling who, or what, Vince might have in mind for her. She just hoped that she wasn't going to be landed with something stupid that would actually end up setting her career back instead of moving it forward. That was definitely a possibility, as evidenced by several past NXT call ups that had turned out to be failures due to poor creative and booking.

Which direction she might be heading in would become a lot clearer momentarily, since she was standing outside the Chairman's office. Closing her eyes for a second, Zelina slowly took in a deep breath for confidence. This would be the first time she had exchanged more than a few words in passing with Vince McMahon, since she had been working under Hunter Helmsley during her time on NXT. Feeling as ready as she was likely to get, she knocked on the door, trying to make the knock sound confident.

The door was opened after just a couple of seconds, by Hunter Helmsley of all people. The fact that he was there was a big relief to Zelina. It gave her the sense that she had a friendly face in her corner. On reflection, she realised that she probably should have expected it. Hunter likely did this for all of 'his' people when he handed them over to Vince's sphere of influence.

"Zelina, come in," Hunter said in friendly manner that was matched by the welcoming smile on his face. He was doing his best to put her at ease. Thankfully, it was working, to an extent at least.

"Zelina, good to see you," Vince boomed in his characteristic manner from behind his desk on the other side of the room. He gestured to one of the two surprisingly cheap-looking leather office chairs on her side of the desk. "Come and take a seat."

As she approached the desk, Vince rose slightly and offered his hand. "Good to see you, sir," she said politely as they shook hands. Due to the fact that she was unsure how he liked to be addressed, she had thought it best to choose the most formal option.

"Vince will do," he told her as he sat back down, and she did the same. Hunter joined them, taking the remaining seat. "I'm sure you know why you're here," Vince said to begin the meeting.

"You're calling me up to the main roster?" Zelina asked, thinking that she would have preferred not to have been put in the position of possibly sounding presumptuous.

"Correct," Vince said simply.

Hunter quickly stepped in before the Chairman could elaborate. "During your time on NXT, working with Andrade Almas, we were particularly impressed with your work. We hold you in the highest regard as a manager. For that reason, we're going to keep you in that role for the time being."

That was fine with Zelina. She had originally hoped to make it to WWE as a wrestler, but had still jumped at the chance to sign for NXT as a manager when the chance had been offered to her, since it was a way of getting her foot in the door. Once she had taken on the role, she had come to love it, and was now more than happy to continue working as a manager. As for being 'held in the highest regard', that was a huge statement. The only other manager she could think of in the company who that statement might apply to was Paul Heyman, and if they thought she was that even close to that good, she was certainly doing something right. "Thank you for the compliment, Hunter," she said with a smile. "It really means a lot to me to hear you say that."