Cartel Experience-Chapter 38: A Tool to Help the Opposition Win.

It was a huge disappointment for Sirina. She had imagined something very different. She wanted to see César’s body moving, twitching, fighting for every last breath. She wanted to see him reaching out, trying desperately to hold on to life. She wanted to see him struggle, to fight, to scream, to claw at the ground as if begging the world not to take him.

She wanted him to look at her, to meet her eyes with fear, with pleading. She wanted to watch him suffer in his own blood. But none of it happened.

There was only silence.

César’s body lay still on the ground, not a single twitch, no struggle, no begging. And for Sirina, that silence was worse than anything she had imagined. It only made her angrier, because he had seen nothing that could have satisfied her, nothing, except that she saw that fuckass smile again.

Even in his last moment, when he knew he was about to die, he still chose to smile at her as if he believed he still had control.

That was what made it worse.

The smile of somebody who accepts death, does not fear it more like he welcomes it. He had shown no fear and that made him even more infuriating. Most people fear death, it’s natural. It’s human. But he... he acted like it didn’t matter, like dying was just another step in life.

That lack of fear, it wasn’t just bravery. Even in the last moment, he refused to bend, to break, or to give in. He had faced what everyone fears most and stood tall and that made him... unstoppable, even now she was fucking with Sirina.

"Miss, it’s time to go." A voice came that pulled out Sirina from her thoughts and it was one of her agents as he pulled open the curtain.

"Did you handle the woman?" Sirina asked back as she dropped the weapon next to César’s body and pulled down the glove from her hand.

"I did, and wiped off the cameras." The agent answered as he holstered his own weapon.

"Great, then we can leave." She said as she took another glance at César, but it wasn’t to see if he was alive or not. It was more to get it in, to see him dead, to see that what she did was the beginning of an avalanche... beginning of the long awaited change.

Though there were some doubts.

"Are you sure this was the right move?" One of the agents asked.

"Sure of it." Sirina said as she looked at him. "The Secret Service hired two contractors to find and kill him, and I know it is about Dana and Hoffa connections." She sighed. "But I know César would have killed them, but now we made the situation lean on our side. I’m sure the DCA will immediately think about the Secret Service, so we just started a war between the two of them. How nice it is."

"At the academy they taught us to not lean toward any political party, that we serve the people, miss, but now we made exactly the opposite of it." The same agent began. "I mean, setting it up that the Secret Service killed César so the DCA would act against them is great in theory, but the DCA is not leaning toward either political party. They are their own, and what moves them is money."

"I know, but the Secret Service does serve a party, and their director is in that position because of the prime minister." She looked outside. "When the DCA learns that their agent died and connects it to the Secret Service and political games, they won’t stop at the election. They’ll sabotage the mayoral elections, maybe even tear the whole Secret Service apart."

"Still, I think this is—"

"Marcello, this government is the most corrupt one, since this fucking country exist." Sirina interrupted him. "We need change, and that change will start when Vienna wins and becomes the mayor." She said, and no answer came.

They all already knew the answer. What they did was driven by good intentions... they killed a César and a civilian for the greater good, even though the NSA had never done anything like this before. Moreover, their actions and beliefs now pushed the entire NSA to the edge.

Sabotaging the election, even if it’s just the mayoral one, is a huge deal. The capital is the heart of all politics, a place where every move matters. And yet, they did it for what they believed was a better future... or at least, in their own minds, a better one and they used him for it.

Out of nowhere, César became the key piece in a political shift... a tool that could change everything, or at least his dead body... all because he was misunderstood to be an agent of the DCA.

And the funniest part was that he had never cared about politics, never even knew what parties existed or how it all worked, he had only used a few ministers and even the prime minister for his own benefit.

But now, everything is completely different.

The NSA sabotaging the Secret Service, faking his death so the DCA would act in favor of the opposing party, sounded almost like a conspiracy theory.

But it is true that a chane needs to happen

The prime minister and the whole ruling party are a total mess, stealing billions, destroying the healthcare system just to raise medicine prices,abandoning the people. And all they do is brainwash the voters, mostly elderly people, promising pensions and bullshit, while the future of the country, the younger generation suffers with shitty wages or has to leave their homeland to work in foreign lands.

How convenient it was that César had shown up... how convenient that everything had lined up perfectly to make it possible... yeah... except for the fact that, well... the dead had risen... or were about to.

[System: Pulse detected. Cardiac activity confirmed. Four bullets impacted the abdominal region, striking the stomach, liver, and small intestine. No exit wounds detected]

[Estimated blood loss: severe.] [Vital signs unstable: rapid deterioration detected.]

[Survival probability: critically low.]

[Emergency intervention required. Activating two Heal Special Cards.]

While the System was acting to save him, César was enjoying the process of being at the brink of death.

The silence in that darkness was so calm, so absolute, it almost felt reassuring. There was a strange comfort in it, a weightless kind of peace that made the world outside fade away. It wrapped around him like a blanket, holding him in a stillness that nothing could break. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

He sank into it, letting himself dissolve into the shadows, hovering at the edge of the abyss, just before death could reach out and claim him. There was no fear here, no pain, no rush of time, only the silence.

Since his first near-death experience, he had always craved this. It was the one place where he could truly breathe, where the chaos of life and the screams of the world couldn’t follow him.

It was a place with nothing, and that was exactly what he needed. Nothing but him and the endless darkness, stretching out forever, empty and complete.

The most peaceful place he had ever known.

[System: You can open your eyes.]

"Oh... I’m back." He whispered as he opened his eyes, finding himself on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, at the light... at the opposite of the darkness. "Ah... I was drifting like an astronaut in space."

[Sytsme: And also lost two Heal Special cards. I needed to use two.]

He didn’t move, didn’t try to stand up, he was dizzy, and his head hurt like shit. "Which means I was so close to dying that one didn’t even work. So where are my achievements?"

[System Notification: Congratulations, you have completed three achievements.]

["It is tickling." — Get shot. Reward: 1x Heal Special Card.]

["I got shot, but who cares?" — Survive being shot multiple times. Reward: 500 Store Points.]

["At the Edge of the Abyss" — Near-death experience. Reward: 1000 Store Points and 100.000 dollars.]

[System: How are you?]

"Sad. I played too much with her... but at least I got a pistol." He grabbed it beside him. "Serial number scraped off. What the fuck... why would she suddenly want me dead? It doesn’t make sense."

[System: Maybe she realized that you are not a DCA agent.]

"Nah, just think about it. I’m worth way too much after I killed Hoffa. She’d carry me around like a trophy, not just kill me like this."

[System: Then you need to hunt her down to get the answers.]

"N-no, don’t say it like that." César giggled. " It makes me sound like a predator."

[System: You are a predator.]

"Just... stop it, though I do need to get after her."

[System: Like a predator.]

"Yeah..." César shook his head with a smile and slowly got up from the ground, still feeling dizzy, but the goal was clear.

Pop out like a fucking ghost and ask Sirina nicely what her intentions were with this bullshit.