It was Saturday, a few weeks since I'd received the assignment. Some people thought assassins just went right out to take out our victim, but there was planning involved. I leaned against a lamp post across the street from my target’s office building. The neighborhood was the perfect spot. Minimal foot traffic. Semi-upscale section. Plenty of alleys on either side. I didn't bother remembering his name past the point of finding him. I knew some who kept mementos of their kills. A tiny reminder, but that was evidence and a stupid serial killer mistake. They got off on reliving the kills. I only needed the moment the life drained from my mark.
I casually smoked a cigarette. I'd given up the habit a decade ago, but no one really paid attention to some guy in a suit having a smoke on the curb. I’d always smoked to blend. Enjoying it was never part of it; just something other people did and I was curious as to why. I snubbed out the smoke and pocketed the filter so as not to leave DNA. The light was slowly dying as dusk moved seamlessly into night. I always appreciated the peacefulness of it.
Boredom was a constant in my life. Killing was the only act that I had which would drive it away. A short man, round around the middle in an expensive, perfectly tailored suit exited the front door. I casually strode across the street. My distance behind my mark was enough that his instincts wouldn't kick in that he was being followed. Yet still close enough he was always in sight.
My mark walked to the parking garage down the block. I'd already scoped out his spot on a mid-level. And while it would've made more sense to wait for him there, a stranger hanging out around vehicles had the potential to draw attention.
The time of the act drew closer, but my heart didn't pick up speed. I subtly looked around and even nodded at a lady who passed me, her smile small and brief. It was that polite smile that always came with false politeness—just some societal expectation. I'd studied every visual, emotional cue—every microexpression. In order to blend, you need to be perceived as normal and respectable.
I slightly increased my pace when he turned the corner into the garage. His vanity worked in my favor because he took such pride in his middle-aged crisis sports car. He parked it on a nearly empty level. My steps echoed as I slipped inside and shot out my arm to catch the elevator door before it closed.
I chose the floor above his and reclined against the back wall of the elevator. He didn't spare me a glance or start in on the small talk so many people tried awkwardly to initiate. If they used security footage in the elevator, the brim of my cap concealed my face and the prosthetics I used softened my angler features. I'd padded my shoulders, chest, and waist, and probably added a twenty-pound illusion to my slender frame. The inserts in my shoes gave me another inch in height. I'd already scoped out the security protocol, and they only videoed entry and exit points.
The small ding signaled we'd reached his floor. He exited, and just as the door began to close, I stepped through the narrow space. I stopped as I let my gaze scan the dim interior. The lights didn't break the shadowed edges. A few cars were parked on the opposite side, and my mark's footsteps were the only ones I could hear. I bent my arm behind me to reach under the hem of my jacket, and everything inside me went still at the sound of steel on leather as I unsheathed my blade.
Even in the cavern of the garage, with practiced stealth, my steps barely made a sound. I mentally planned it out, saw it in its every step, from the grab to the second I pressed my blade to his throat. The last few steps, I jumped and placed my hand over his mouth, and his futile struggles were nothing against my strength. The cool edge of my knife against his throat instantly ceased his fighting, and I dragged him to the other side of his car. I kicked at the back of his knee, and he fell, and I released him.
He opened his mouth to beg and the corner of my mouth lifted into a cold smirk.
“You can have whatever you want. Here's my wallet.”
He frantically dug the item from his back pocket and tried to offer it to me. When I didn't take it, he promised me everything from his car to whatever money I wanted.
“I have a hundred grand…it's yours.”
“Do you think money solves everything?” I asked as I drew the lethal point down his rounded cheek and nearly gasped as the skin split. The thrill started to build, and the pleasure nearly had a shiver running the length of my body. He bit his lip to keep in his scream as I repeated on the other side.
Terror made people do odd things. When he could call out for help, he seemed frozen. I crouched down to put us at eye-level. I started picking the buttons from his shirt until the pale, smooth skin beneath was revealed.
“Do you know why you're going to die?”
His answer was a stuttered no, and I leaned in close, the stench of his sweat tickled my nose, and I nearly groaned at the way he flinched.
“You're about to find out.” The strike was quick, and he fell backward, the sound of his head hitting the cement rang in every direction.
Then a scream and a cry for help jerked my head up. Fuck, a familiar man stared at me in horror, and as he fumbled to open his car door, he dropped his keys. I overtook him quickly and trapped his body between mine and the driver's door.
“Oh, how I wished you hadn't seen this,” I whispered in his ear as I wrapped my arms around his neck in a submission hold. I compressed his carotid arteries. He clawed at my arm, but I felt the life ebbing from him, and when I could've held on longer and ended the complication he caused, I eased the pressure. He slumped to the ground at my feet, and as I reformulated my plans, I stowed both men in the car, my target in the trunk and Harrison in the front seat. I had a limited time frame until they'd come to and I needed to be at my destination. My car was stowed at a storage unit I rented on the other side of the city. I had my second parked in the garage at my cabin.
Both needed to die, I'd made it this far without detection, and I couldn't allow Harrison to keep living. He wasn't the first witness I'd done away with since I'd started this particular career path. Yet, I'd never known any of the others. It was too close to home.
I drove out of the garage and toward the city limits and beyond to the mountains and my sanctuary.
Minutes turned slowly into an hour. The banging in the truck alerted me to the fact my mark had come to, but Harrison, except for a few groans in his sleep, remained still beside me. He looked so peaceful. Unaware what I had in mind for him. I'd always wanted to play with him, and since he would die, there were no constraints on my actions. A few days of teaching him how pain could be pleasure, then kill him as I’d planned. This way I could find out if I was right about the sweetness and submissiveness the man kept hidden.
I'd researched him and memorized his routine. No one came into my life without me learning everything about them. He had no one left. His parents both deceased. No friends that I could find other than the employees of his favorite eating establishment. He lived a rather sad existence. If I didn't write his paycheck, I could dump his body anywhere, and it would just be another John Doe.
I cursed the whining of the engine as the car struggled to make it up the steep hill to my cabin. The place was purchased under an alias I'd created through a corporation long defunct. No mortgage and completely solar-powered from electricity to the water pump. At some point, I figured I'd need to retire, and this played a part in my plan. I broke into the small clearing, and the headlights illuminated the front door. The man in the trunk had stopped trying to escape fifteen minutes ago.
I made quick work of parking inside the garage, and I got Harrison in a fireman's carry to take him inside. I'd stow him in the cellar and decide what to do with him later. The stairs creaked under our combined weights, and with cold efficiency, I stripped him. The scent of musty, wet earth caused me to wrinkle my nose, and there was a definite chill in the air. I shackled his wrists and ankles, secured him to the far wall and tossed a blanket over him. I didn't spare him much study before I jogged upstairs to take care of my job.
The money was good, and with what I'd saved up over the last decade, I'd never have to work again. It wasn't the reason I took the job. No, I took it for the fact it was the one place I'd fit and where my skills were perfectly honed. In the living room, I removed my clothes and padding until I wore only my jeans, then kicked off my shoes beside the door.
Grass and damp soil teased the spaces between my toes and the soles of my feet as I descended the porch steps. I had a workroom off the garage that led to what I learned was a stone furnace used by blacksmiths. Cremating the body was easiest, and then only ashes need spreading. I squared my shoulders and widened my stance to strengthen my center of gravity. Then I opened the trunk. If I'd anticipated a fight, I was sorely mistaken because he lay curled in a shivering ball.
I dragged him from the cramped space, and he tried to dig in his heels, but I had him locked in the room and strapped to the work table in the center in no time. He had his eyes squeezed shut as if not looking at me would change his fate. It wouldn't.
I slapped his cheek, and as quickly as he looked at me, they were closed again. I straightened and moved to the counter with my tools laid out, shiny and pristine. I didn't always kill. Occasionally, I'd get a job where someone needed information.
“I find it interesting that you don't want to look at me. From what I heard, you love imparting secrets to law enforcement about what you've…witnessed.” I chose a scalpel and turned to the table. “What should I remove first?” I forced my thumb into the side of his mouth and pushed the blade into his tongue. “Your tongue. Or maybe…”
I didn't warn before I held his head still and removed his eyelids. His screams were let free. No one lived any closer than a five-mile radius. “Now do you see me? Well, let us begin.”