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unforthI had once been an assassin for a mafia group. I had quite a reputation among many circles. I wasn’t an intimidating looking man, in fact I was small and kind of squirrelly, but I was still feared, and the sight of me could still instill terror once. I hadn’t relied on my physical strength, such things may impress the foolish, but physical prowess is insignificant when compared with bullets and the powers of range. Me, my specialty was the crossbow. That’s how I had recognized what had befallen my darling so easily. I was known for my ability to never miss, and it was well earned. I worked hard at my job, I practiced a lot, and I could make a crossbow shot at 300 yards with perfect accuracy. No one was my equal, and I killed far more than my share for my bosses, who would do anything to keep their own hands clean.
Anything, that is, except allow me to retire in peace. All I wanted to do was quit, they could train someone else easily enough, but no, that wasn’t something they’d allow, god forbid they lose one asset peacefully. They thought that I wouldn’t leave, but they had another thing coming. I did them one better than they ever expected. I went to the feds, and I sold them all out, the lousy bastards, in exchange for an amnesty and freedom from my crimes. After all, I was just a hired gun, if I hadn’t killed my targets someone else would have done so. I knew enough to bring down a lot of really powerful people, though. When I left, I sent my boss, and my bosses boss, and his boss, and their cousins, and their families with me. I took out basically every other person in the mafia that I had ever met and knew something even slightly incriminating about down with me. It was so easy. In exchange, I got a new lease on life, a new identity, a new home and total innocence in the eyes of the law. As long as I kept my hands clean from then on, nothing would ever go wrong again.
Something had gone wrong, though, that was obvious enough, and there was no one else to deal with it but me. Given where my darling had been hit, given the weapon that had been used, it would only be a matter of time until the FBI found out about this situation, and from there it wouldn’t take long for them to nail my nuts to the wall. Even if I could convince them that I hadn’t had anything to do with anything, it wouldn’t change the assumption that they wouldn’t have come for me if I hadn’t done something to get their attention, hadn’t committed some act that had drawn attention to me again. Such an action would annul my legal protection, the key to being me was to keep as low a profile as possible. Only problem was that I hadn’t done anything. Nothing at all.
Except that I must have done something, or else how would the assholes have found me? Even as I walked to my car and set out to take care of this myself, I tried to think of what I might have done. The drive was long and monotonous, and I knew it by heart, giving me plenty of time to consider what indiscretion I might have been caught in, what stupid thing I might have done wrong. The worst part was, though, that it probably wasn’t something I’d done on purpose. The stupidest things could get a guy caught. Probably, knowing my luck, I’d been at some function at darlings school and been caught in the background of some photograph or something, and the wrong person had seen the local paper. Maybe I had accidentally responded to someone saying my actual name in a supermarket. Or maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time – some jackass goes on a pleasant vacation to a distant locale and coincidentally spots a familiar face in the crowd. There were some many possibilities, so few of which didn’t actually require me to have done anything, that it wasn’t really worth thinking about. It wasn’t a conclusion that I liked, but I didn’t see how I could draw any other conclusion. I had spent my entire life hiding, first from the law and then from the outlaw, to have made any stupid slip up now. No, it was certainly just bad luck.
Anything, that is, except allow me to retire in peace. All I wanted to do was quit, they could train someone else easily enough, but no, that wasn’t something they’d allow, god forbid they lose one asset peacefully. They thought that I wouldn’t leave, but they had another thing coming. I did them one better than they ever expected. I went to the feds, and I sold them all out, the lousy bastards, in exchange for an amnesty and freedom from my crimes. After all, I was just a hired gun, if I hadn’t killed my targets someone else would have done so. I knew enough to bring down a lot of really powerful people, though. When I left, I sent my boss, and my bosses boss, and his boss, and their cousins, and their families with me. I took out basically every other person in the mafia that I had ever met and knew something even slightly incriminating about down with me. It was so easy. In exchange, I got a new lease on life, a new identity, a new home and total innocence in the eyes of the law. As long as I kept my hands clean from then on, nothing would ever go wrong again.
Something had gone wrong, though, that was obvious enough, and there was no one else to deal with it but me. Given where my darling had been hit, given the weapon that had been used, it would only be a matter of time until the FBI found out about this situation, and from there it wouldn’t take long for them to nail my nuts to the wall. Even if I could convince them that I hadn’t had anything to do with anything, it wouldn’t change the assumption that they wouldn’t have come for me if I hadn’t done something to get their attention, hadn’t committed some act that had drawn attention to me again. Such an action would annul my legal protection, the key to being me was to keep as low a profile as possible. Only problem was that I hadn’t done anything. Nothing at all.
Except that I must have done something, or else how would the assholes have found me? Even as I walked to my car and set out to take care of this myself, I tried to think of what I might have done. The drive was long and monotonous, and I knew it by heart, giving me plenty of time to consider what indiscretion I might have been caught in, what stupid thing I might have done wrong. The worst part was, though, that it probably wasn’t something I’d done on purpose. The stupidest things could get a guy caught. Probably, knowing my luck, I’d been at some function at darlings school and been caught in the background of some photograph or something, and the wrong person had seen the local paper. Maybe I had accidentally responded to someone saying my actual name in a supermarket. Or maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time – some jackass goes on a pleasant vacation to a distant locale and coincidentally spots a familiar face in the crowd. There were some many possibilities, so few of which didn’t actually require me to have done anything, that it wasn’t really worth thinking about. It wasn’t a conclusion that I liked, but I didn’t see how I could draw any other conclusion. I had spent my entire life hiding, first from the law and then from the outlaw, to have made any stupid slip up now. No, it was certainly just bad luck.
