Cartel Experience-Chapter 32: Lot of Blood.
It happened fast and of course it did.
People often say that once you truly master your own craft, whether it is arts, sports, strategy, or even murder, you reach a state that separates you from ordinary people. You enter a flow state where the mind becomes unnaturally calm and focused, stripped of hesitation, doubt, and emotion, leaving only movement, timing, and intent. In that state, you are no longer thinking about what you are doing... you are simply doing it, flawlessly and without resistance, whether that means creating something beautiful or ending a life.
Artists, athletes and many walk a thin line within this state, able to draw, paint or dribble through countless players, while those who are trained to murder can take a life in seconds and move through the worst situations as if time itself has slowed around them. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
Precision, control, and absolute presence, turning obsession into efficiency and stripping a person down to their most effective form. Once someone enters that state, they are no longer normal, no longer safe, and no longer bound by hesitation. They become something else entirely, focused, detached from reality, they are on their own word and in that moment, when Hoffa saw the pictures of his family, when he understood the threat only thought that was in him was to kill César.
César, however, was already ready to act. He was prepared to enter that state, the one where his body moved exactly as his character’s background had trained it to move, precisely the reason he had selected this character over the others.
Because this was a killer, one whose flow state was born in the brutality of hand-to-hand combat or the cold efficiency of any weapon placed within reach, someone who did not rely on strength or speed alone, but on timing, distance, and the certainty of outcome.
And when Hoffa did it, when he raised the gun from his chest and aimed it at César’s head... he was already dead.
He did exactly what César wanted him to do.
He baited him into mindless action, and it was only possible because César had learned from the news reports that Hoffa was a man with a long history of emotional outbursts. So he pushed him, again and again, until wrath and anger drowned out reason and, of course, it worked.
A father, a loving husband. A man who would protect his children and his wife at any cost... how could it not work?
How noble or rather, what a noble way to die, because the moment Hoffa chose emotion over control, the moment he abandoned awareness for rage, César slipped fully into the flow state and did what he needed to do.
The knife on the table was the one thing neither Peter nor Hoffa paid attention to. Neither of them reached for it, neither tried to push it away, move it elsewhere, or even consider it a possible danger. No, maybe Hoffa never even thought about it. He had a gun, and in his mind, who the fuck would reach for a knife when a gun was already aimed at his head?
But for César, it was the possibility he needed.
So when Hoffa reached out with the gun in his hand, the distance between them no more than a few centimeters, César acted.
His left hand shot forward, grabbing the gun and driving it upward to the left while simultaneously pressing the magazine release and within that same three seconds, as the weapon was forced upward, with now only one bullet in the chamber César leaned forward, his right hand reaching for the knife... and all it took was a single stab.
One clean stab to the neck artery... precise and efficient. Especially when César twisted the knife while pulling it out. Then it was over, at least for César, for Hoffa it was... pure agony and it was just sad.
His body immediately dropped to the ground from the chair and he tried to push his hand at the wound, to somehow live, but it was too much... his blood was gushing out from his neck and what made it more sad and terrifying was his eyes, his attempt to live. Yeah those eyes of his, desperate, pleading for breath, while he tried to speak, choked on his own blood, gurgling as it poured from his mouth and his last moments were spent staring up at César, not knowing what would happen to his family... it was pitiful and gruesome.
While César felt nothing but satisfaction.
Even as the white room was now drenched in blood, even with Hoffa’s last dying gurgles echoing around him, César’s focus was on only one thing.
[System: You have successfully completed the Special Time Trial Event.]
The happiness that shot through him... how absurd it was to smile while the ground was soaked with blood, the walls dripping the same, the stench suffocating. And yet, he was still happy, because he had thought he’d failed. Hoffa had taken a few extra seconds to die, the timer had run out, but the System counted... if death is certain, it still counts as a kill... and Hoffa had certainly died.
What card did I—
Something shattered his happiness, and he was vomiting, hard, deep, uncontrollable. He totally forgot about Peter, who was, well... emptying his stomach, to say it lightly, and he did for a reason. As César pulled out the knife, there was a moment where Hoffa’s blood sprayed to the side... right at Peter’s head, into his eyes and mouth, and just tasting that, and smelling that pure blood was more than enough for him, to vomit the shit out of himself.
A trained and experienced detective, but it was too much for him, like impossible to happen, and it happened. And to be true, he didn’t really pose any danger in César’s eyes. Nah, he was verging, but a danger more like the person who would act for him, the man inside the police.
"Say, what car did I get?" He didn’t even care about the blood on his hands or anything; the car was the most important.
[System: You have been awarded a Red Rarity Special Card, "Festive of Lost Souls".]
