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Chapter 1 – Hired Relief

It’s fucking raining

Again

It wasn’t that I minded the wet or the cold – I really didn’t, but it screith et back into the boss ainst ment when it came to an easy escape, I had put myself a little closer than I liked to be for this sort of job I had to be sure to be successful, and if it cost me my life…well, that was better than failure at this point

With h the scope of my Barrett M82 rifle The crosshairs focused on a set of double doors lass and , and there was a large “space available” sign over the entryith a phone number to call if you wanted a thousand square feet, which was just right for your office needs If you were to call the number, someone would answer, but you’d find there wasn’t really any available space

Not unless you had the right connections – preferably Russian, quite probably illegal Caspian Sea caviar, and definitely heroin Those connections et you a little corner office, but they would not, however, endear you to Rinaldo Moretti – my boss and sole owner of all the Moretti businesses Soal

Well, one of them was

Sort of

I shifted my hip and stretched ood seven hours, and I was hungry I brought a couple of protein bars with one This job wasn’t supposed to take this long, and I was getting frustrated and annoyed I forced ulated pace

Frustration and annoyance were not my friends, not when I was on the job I needed to keep et to walk out the door and die

Maybe the weather was causing a delay

I reached up with htened the cloth aroundthe rain fro with the whole co the door as I adjusted the bandana – never that I had to be quick, efficient, and deadly

No fuckups

The last fuckup nearly cost me my life and had ended with me exiled to the desert forthe right one would be a lot worse Of course, I couldn’t hit or miss him if he didn’t shohere he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there

“Cal out loud to ood I didn’t like that shit, so I clenched ain

Everything had been perfect up until this point After a week of scouring the Chicago city skyline, I had found the perfect building with the perfect view of the front doors No visibility from the street directly below and nicely shielded from view of both the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Observatory I only needed to be patient until…

…there he was

I had no doubt the h I had never met him before I had studied his picture for hours yesterday to be sure I wouldn’t h his family photos more often than his wife had

I blinked once, placed the crosshairs in position, and ser

Only a muted thump could be heard as I sent the bullet down the barrel and into his left eye Before he hit the ground, I was already back away froI moved the clothes around inside to cushion theand then headed swiftly to the rooftop entrance