As Sirina left the office, Hoffa and Peter didn't say a single word to each other. Both of them knew that the moment she steps into the room with César, things can only go one of two ways.
The first is that César says something atrocious, maybe even admits he is a cartel member, or worse, reveals that he caught them selling drugs on the side with fucking street gangsters. If that happens, they are all completely fucked.
And then there is the second, brighter option.
He says nothing. He is smart enough to make something up on the spot and end the conversation quickly, because a cartel member shouldn't be stupid enough to start stirring shit especially not with the NSA director.
But the thing is, César isn't dumb. No, he has lived through many different lives, each one with different Directors, each with their own methods, their own goals and will, their own identity within the criminal underworld. And it was never just about corruption itself, but also about cooperation about using each other.
Countless times, Directors maintain good relationships with the mafia, with cartels, even with street gangs, just to get information they wouldn't obtain otherwise, or that would take too much manpower and money to acquire. In short, the criminal underworld and the major agencies live in their own bubbles, two different worlds overlapping and mixing, but there are always problems. One side always wants more influence over the other. That's when the agencies try to pull the strings, and the mafia and cartels respond with a simple fuck you, starting a war out of nowhere.
That is why, in his most recent life, César was tortured and why the Attorney General was the one who saved him every single time. He had power, countless informants, and deep connections, all of them valuable, but the agency wanted more control over him.
And now, in this life, both Hoffa and Peter knew that Sirina was the kind of director who liked to pull the strings, the type who preferred to rule from the shadows, to have her hands in everything without getting blood on them. Though, if blood was needed, she was more than capable of that as well.
She did it all, and would do it all again if needed. Torture, ordering countless hits, and more and that was the reason why not a single big name was in the capital, something that, even César himself didn't fully realize.
No one entered the city, and those who did… well, they simply disappeared. That was why Hoffa and Peter didn't speak, because they knew that if she chose to pull the strings, they were nothing more than puppets in her game, both in theory and in practice.
César, however, wasn't particularly worried. To be honest, he couldn't even clearly see her face as the sunlight poured through the window when he looked at her. He just nodded, because it felt like the thing he was supposed to do.
And now he had a much bigger problem on his mind.
This water is shit… what the fuck are they putting in it…
[System: Maybe it's not just water, but it's vitamin water or electrolytes.]
Oh… so they're drinking vitamin water… you know what's got more vitamins? Cocaine.
[System: That is completely false. Cocaine is a processed chemical drug known in this world as Éden.]
"You didn't get the joke, huh?" César giggled, thinking about how he was selling Éden.
Back when he was a big figure in his third life, problems always followed. The bigger you got, the more they hunted you, the feds watching, raiding everything over and over. Smuggling the drug became nearly impossible with the old tricks.
So, to make it easier, he packaged Éden as vitamins.
His workers put a few grams of Éden into those tiny pills that some vitamins came in, then packed them up and shipped them with legitimate papers, claiming they were destined for a hospital or pharmacy.
Of course, the trucks were diverted, and the product was sold elsewhere and suddenly, that vitamin became the best-seller… a vitamin the health department didn't even know existed.
That was a good multivitamin…
[System: I get it now… haha-ha-haha. It was funny.]
Please never laugh again—
Suddenly and finally the door opened. After waiting far longer than he should have, someone came to talk to him, but, of course, it wasn't the person he had been waiting for… and in a way, that was even better.
An older, yet stunning woman walked in, blonde wolf-cut hairstyle, black high heels, just a gorgeous woman. It was safe to say Sirina immediately had César's attention, for all the wrong reasons.
"I see you've made yourself comfortable." Sirina said, slowly sitting in the chair across from César. He looked at her differently than he had at Peter. His eyes weren't searching or threatening, he didn't seem dangerous, but something about him felt off, and she felt it and that was what excited her. "I'm Sirina, one of the detectives at the department." She added, extending her hand.
"Oh, I never thought a gorgeous detective would come to talk with me." César said as he shook her hand, but he immediately noticed some strange things about her, little details that he only knew because of his experiences.
"And I never thought a witness would flirt with me." Sirina answered as she laughed a bit in a cute way, not professional, but she did it with reason.
She wanted to create an atmosphere, a light, casual one where they could talk and even joke, because that was the number one rule they were taught. Even if you were sitting across from a serial killer, a murderer, or any kind of criminal, you wanted to make them feel like you weren't a detective or an agent, just someone they could speak to freely, someone who, in some way, understood them.
The problem was… the person sitting across from her had already died five times in different lives, and he knew exactly how it worked… and there was help.
[System: There is an earnable achievement.]
Uh… what?
[System: Achievement — "In the Lion's Den."]
[Earned once you successfully threaten any law enforcement agency director.]
At that moment… the smile on his face completely changed the situation, and Sirina realized she might have walked into something far more dangerous than she had expected.
It was like a clown… a fool's smile… stretched ear to ear.