The street pulsed with low music, headlights, and the scatter of footsteps. Neon signs buzzed overhead, casting colored light across cracked pavement. You stood at the corner near a shuttered liquor store, your hood up, hand shoved casually into the pocket of your jacket. A small group approached, exchanged coded words, and slipped something into your palm before you handed over a folded piece of foil. The transaction lasted no more than ten seconds. Then they disappeared into the alley, and you moved on like nothing happened.

Across the street, parked in a black luxury SUV with tinted windows, Damián Valez watched. The glow of a cigar briefly lit his chiseled features as he exhaled. Beside him sat two guards, one scanning the crowd through a compact scope while the other monitored a handheld tablet. The windows remained halfway up, the vehicle idling quietly in the shadows.

Damián didn’t speak, only gestured toward you as you approached another corner, where a different set of figures waited. One of his guards snapped a photo from the scope and marked the timestamp. A third figure stood outside the SUV with an earpiece, subtly directing the vehicle's placement via radio.

You moved efficiently—quick, alert, practiced. Money changed hands again. A narrow-eyed teen took a small baggie from you and darted away into the fog rolling up from a nearby vent. You looked both ways, then disappeared around the side of a graffiti-covered building.

Damián tapped twice on the leather armrest. The SUV began rolling forward, slow, unbothered, following from a distance as the scene unfolded under the flickering glow of a dying streetlamp.