Cartel Experience-Chapter 48: SIB is here.

The fastest start in César’s life was this one and it was a mess, tangled in bullshit that came out of nowhere like a fucking peek-a-boo. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem as he had always started things like this. Jumping straight in, no hesitation, no plan, just pulling the trigger, but nothing had ever been like this.

Chaos could be the perfect place to grow, to fight, to become stronger. But not this kind of chaos. Not this one, all tangled up in fucking politics and now it made sense why nobody in the capital, not a single big name in the criminal underworld had built here.

Not because of the NSA, the DCA, or any agencies, but because of this police bullshit. That’s everything but proper chaos which is the at the broader regions, where cartels and mafia families kill each other every day.

But in the city, people live in their own bubbles. The only thing that matters is politics. That’s why every agency is losing its mind over Hoffa, because of that dossier and the weight of it, the evidence that could fuck up both sides of the political spectrum, though the ruling party had the magic weapon with them, the holy grail... propaganda.

Every day, the news floods them with videos, wars in other countries, immigration crises far away, disasters happening somewhere else. It makes them afraid of things that don’t touch them, pushes them to ignore what’s happening in their own city, in their own country. That’s why so many people in the capital don’t give a single fuck about the border regions, about the wars there between cartels and mafia.

They live in a society wrapped in bubbles. They feel safe and that is exactly the point. That’s why politics is something that can wage a war, and why it is the complete opposite of any life César has lived so far.

In the other lives, the political presence on Sandria was almost nonexistent. Politics existed, sure, but you couldn’t tell them apart from the mafia. You couldn’t tell the politicians from the drug lords.

And corruption? That was the least of anyone’s worries. Nobody cared about corruption anymore because it was everywhere. The people had bigger problems, mass shootings, random bombings, street wars.

When the line between the criminal world and the so-called law was completely blurred, politics lost all meaning. The politicians were the mafia. Parliament, congress, whatever they called it, didn’t exist to discuss laws, taxes, or public policy. It existed to argue over drug prices, trade routes, kill lists and in the end, everyone was constantly turning on each other.

And at the top, it wasn’t the president or the mayor or anyone you’d normally call powerful. No. It was the richest, most ruthless drug lord, the one who pulled the strings, controlled the money, and decided who lived or died.

Those versions of Sandria were like a Mexican drug war on steroids. Everyone is killing everyone, from the military to the police to cartels to the mafia. The streets were battlefields.

It was so bad that life expectancy matched that of a literal warzone, and yet people still lived their lives.

Shops opened. People went to work. Goods were traded, money still changed hands. There wasn’t hyperinflation, nah, parents sent their kids to school and pretended life was normal.

But normal back then was different.

Normal meant living with death. Not getting shocked or panicked by a body on the street.

People adapted to it and maybe that was what César was missing, he had adapted to that too. The constant tension, the constant action and it wasn’t just him who thought of it as bullshit.

"This is the most ridiculous thing that could have happened." An older man’s voice came as he lightly poked Hoffa’s face with the pen in his hand. "Why not kill anyone else? Why Hoffa, someone connected to higher-ups? Why not Sirina, or—"

"Enzo, it would be better if you kept those thoughts to yourself." A younger man said calmly as he was writing something into his notepad. "Talking about directors’ deaths can cause problems if someone overhears."

"Well, they can suck my dick." Enzo continued as he stood up. "That’s how the young ones say it now, right? Suck my dick instead of "I don’t care." .

"But you’re here." Simon as he looked up from the notepad. "Which means you do care."

"No, Simon. I care about cartels shooting bazookas at each other. I care about mafia bosses eating lobster and getting shot up by some fifteen-year-old in Crimea. That’s what I care about." He looked back at Hoffa’s body. "This, I don’t care about. I’m only here because Hoffa is connected to people who want to save themselves, or more importantly, their careers." He sighed as kept staring at Hoffa’s dead body. "That’s why I like the cartels. They don’t give a shit about reputation, good or bad. They take action into their own hands."

"Stop idolizing them." Simon said as he closed the notepad.

"I’m not idolizing them. I’m telling the truth. The capital is a political powerhouse, and I don’t want to be in it. I like action, like investigating how the Vincenzo family got their hands on anti-personnel mines. That is interesting, but this." He gestured around the interrogation room. "This is just painful and boring."

"I think this is far more interesting." Simon began. "They said it was a cartel member, which means one of them is actually trying to move into the city. That is more than interesting."

Enzo laughed as Simon said it. "Nobody would be dumb enough to come into the city, Simon. Nobody." He looked at him and giggled slightly. "It was the fucking DCA trying to set the political space on fire, nothing more." He pointed a finger at Hoffa’s neck. "The stab was precise and deep. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing and then there’s Peter, that detective. He’s fucking shocked and terrified." He looked back at Simon. "If you put it all together, it’s obvious." He pointed up to the cameras."The footage magically vanished and on top of that, Sirina was here too, but they didn’t even call her in for a statement or anything." He shook his head. "DCA, once again."

"I don’t believe that, and it sounds like you only said all of this to blame the DCA so you could go back to dealing with the cartel. Still, I’ll go through your points." Simon said, pointing to the table. "Why would a DCA agent put pictures of Hoffa’s family members on the table and leave his fingerprints on it? Why would a highly trained DCA agent kill him inside an interrogation room? How many officers could have seen him? The cameras are everywhere, not just inside but on the surrounding streets. The DCA doesn’t operate like this." He looked at Enzo. "And more importantly, they wouldn’t have called us if it was the DCA.

"But in fact they called us." Enzo said, a smile starting to spread on his face.

And that smile could mean very bad news to César, because now even the SIB was joining the party.