And if I can’t kill him, then I’m out. No more wasting my time or dishing out pinky swears. I’ll be paid for the first two jobs any day now, and then I’ll be paid a lot for this one, and that should be enough to get me by for a bit. No one can maintain a hit-a-night average anyway, and having three hundred and sixty-five deaths on my conscience wasn’t one of my resolutions this year.

Though neither was being poor as fuck, so here we are.

The back gate into Saint Clare’s courtyard suddenly opens, and I jolt to life. I’d been expecting to wait out here for hours, but when St. Clare himself steps out into the street and closes the gate behind him, I straighten.

This is too easy. There’s no fucking way I’m being handed my mark.

I know I’m not going to get a better chance than this, but I don’t reach for my gun because, as weird as it sounds, I almost feel like I’m looking at a celebrity. Not, like, the famous kind. But the kind where you see them on TV or social media enough, and then you see them in real life, and it takes you a second to adjust. Plus, he’s taller than I thought he’d be. Maybe my height, and I don’t know why that catches my interest, but it does.

He walks off, and it suddenly occurs to me that memorizing details is pointless when those details won’t exist soon enough. The bastard doesn’t turn around, just heads for the road, and as much as I want to get it over with, I can’t shoot the guy in the back. There has to be some kind of code about that, right?

Backstabbing totally fine.

Back banging is a no-no.

Ah, unless we’re talking sex. Then the rules are completely different.

I pick up my pace, but he exits the quiet street before I can catch him. I’m not about to shoot him in the middle of all these people either, so I keep following, hoping I get the chance again. It needs to be exactly right.

Where it’s quiet.

Not in the back.

But also not close enough to make out his expression.

Gah. My hands are getting sweaty, and this hoodie is feeling way too hot. It doesn’t help that I have my mask and hood up either, but there are for sure cameras out here, and I’m not going to give them anything. Despite Arlie’s advice, I kept my leering skeleton. I’m not sure why. But this guy was with me for that first hit, and I was okay there, so now it feels sort of like betrayal to ditch it.