The gun was stolen and scrubbed, I had gloves on to avoid fingerprints, and I had deactivated every security camera in the school near my perch and along my getaway path. I was as prepared as I could be for the hit, and I just had to hope it was enough. I estimated I had a little more than five minutes before Gordon Sanchez would be in my sights. My heart fluttered in anticipation.

When I’d first arrived, there had been a man sitting on the stairs to my right, but an overgrown bush blocked his view of my gun, so I’d determined he wasn’t a threat. He was gone now, though, which worked just as well. The fewer people around me when the shot rang out, the better. Canal Street was spacious and lined with buildings for the gunshot to echo off of. No one would be able to tell exactly where the shot had come from, and by the time they did figure it out, I’d be long gone.

Gone from New Orleans, and gone from the mafia life, certainly. No more murdering people for money, regardless of whether they deserved it or not. It wasn’t for me to decide. I’d leave it all behind and start over, try and make a new life for myself. One where I could be with someone without lying to them. Where I could be honest. Maybe someone like Jack.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. It took me a moment to register the hands around my neck. I was only aware that I wanted to push air out and suck it back in more than I’d ever wanted to do anything in my life. I opened my mouth, my lips flapping open like a dying fish, desperate for air. Then, I tried to claw at the mystery hands, but they were meaty and strong. Immovable.

Of course, being strangled to death was bad enough, but nagging at the back of my mind was the idea that I would never know who had killed me. Or why. I’d die with unanswered questions. Then, I realized I would die in the same way many of my targets had. We’d been sitting together in a hotel room or in their car, and then suddenly there was a gun against their head and lights out. I always thought I was doing them a favor by doing it quickly, but maybe it would have been more kind to explain to them what was happening and why.

My head felt heavy and inflated, like a balloon encased in a block of cement. A black fog crept into the edges of my vision, and I felt myself giving in to it, sinking back against my unknown attacker. Then, relief. I was able to sneak in the smallest amount of oxygen when the attacker’s grip loosened a bit. My head cleared enough for me to fight back. I slid my hand underneath the warm fingers around my throat, pried them off, and spun around. My fist was flying through the air before I had a chance to understand what I was seeing. Or who I was seeing.

“Jack?” His name came out as a harshly whispered question. Was I hallucinating? Had my brain lost so much oxygen that I was seeing things?

Jack was staring back at me with blue eyes as wide as I’d ever seen. He looked like he saw a ghost.

“Mia?”

He was real. Holy shit. He was real. I glanced back at the gun behind me to see whether it was possible Jack hadn’t seen it. No, he’d definitely seen it. How could I explain this?

Wait. He’d tried to strangle me.

I held out my hands to keep him at arm’s length. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he hissed, pointing to the gun.

“Did you follow me?” I asked. “Are you stalking me or something?”

His eyebrows lowered, a deep line forming between them. “You are standing here with a gun pointed towards thousands of people and accusing me of stalking you? Do you really think that is the biggest crime happening right now?”

He had a point, but I would never admit it. “You aren’t answering my question.”

“Then we have something in common,” he said, swatting one of my hands out of the air and stepping towards me. “What are you doing? Who even are you?”

I pressed my palms into his chest in a desperate attempt to hold him back. I needed to think. Could I kill him? Did I want to? Was there any way I could let him live and still complete my mission?

The sound of a trumpet broke into my thoughts, and as if compelled by the music, I turned back to the street. I’d been so distracted by being strangled and seeing Jack that I hadn’t realized the parade was in view. The first float was at the end of the block. My time was up. I had one minute before Gordon Sanchez would be in my sights. Maybe.

When I turned back around I noticed that Jack looked panicked. Except, he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes were trained at the end of the block where a giant paper mache fleur-de-lys rose from the center of the float and people in gold-sequined outfits danced around it. He was focused on the location of the parade rather than the woman in front of him with a gun. What did that mean?

The crowd was screaming and cheering. The sound was deafening, loud enough I could hardly think. But the parade continued to move closer, and my window was closing. What was I going to do?

Jack’s eyes flicked from me to Canal Street over and over again, but he didn’t move towards me. He didn’t throw me to the ground and shout for someone to call the police. He just stood there, so I decided to do the only thing I had time left to do: try to get my shot.

I removed my hands from Jack’s chest and spun around, kneeling in front of the gun in an attempt to line up my shot. But no sooner had my knee hit the ground than large hands wrapped around my upper arms and yanked me to the side.

This was it. I’d been caught. Jack would call the police and I’d be sent away for the rest of my life, penance for the lives I’d taken.

Except Jack didn’t pin me to the ground and call the police. He crawled over me and knelt in front of the gun just as I had been trying to. I lunged out and knocked his arm so he couldn’t grab the trigger, feeling certain he was about to try and shoot me. Jack cursed and thudded a closed fist against my temple. The blow send me sprawling across the top three steps, just barely catching myself from rolling all the way to the bottom.

I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see the barrel of my own gun pointed at my face, but instead I saw Jack swivel the gun towards Gordon Sanchez’s float, which was passing in front of us, moving closer to the turn that would send it by the French Quarter.

Gordon was sitting in a red and gold velvet chair next to the mayor, dressed in fanciful clothes that made them look like modern-day royalty. The mayor held a scepter in his hand.

“Fuck,” Jack said, stomping his foot on the cement. He stood up and then brought his closed fist down on the cement slab that topped the brick railing. “Shit.”

I could have said the same. I’d lost my opportunity. Gordon was gone. I’d failed to complete a mission…again. I was going to be killed, and it was entirely Jack’s fault.

“It’s an impossible shot,” Jack growled. “I’m more likely to hit a pedestrian at this angle than him.”

Him? I repeated the thought out loud, and Jack turned to me.

“Gordon Sanchez,” he said, stretching his hand towards the float, which was now turning the corner.

“You’re trying to kill him, too?” I asked.

Jack sighed and shook his head. “I was trying to until you showed up and ruined everything.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. “How did I ruin everything for you? You’re the one who tried to strangle me and distracted me while my target waved and rode on by.”

“You were a liability,” Jack hissed as he turned around and got in my face, his lips pulled back. “I was told to kill you because you were an unknown. If you hadn’t shown up, I would have killed him.”

I stretched onto my tiptoes, so our faces were less than two inches apart. “If you hadn’t shown up, I would have killed him.”

We stared at each other for a few seconds, neither of us willing to look away and concede. And honestly, being so close to him, I couldn’t help but think of how close we’d been the night before. My face reddened, and I looked away.

“So, you’re in town on business?” I asked, raising one eyebrow and pursing my lips. “It seems like maybe you left out a few details.”

“What’s the saying about living in glass houses and throwing stones? Because you are definitely in violation of it,” he said. “I seem to remember you offering up a similarly vague response to the question.”

“What would you have had me say?” I asked. “I’m here to kill an elected official.”

He sighed. “This is pointless. None of this makes any difference. Gordon is gone. We lost our opportunity.”

The reality of the situation began to press down on me. Seeing Jack had distracted me from the fact that I’d failed my mission. Again. Killing Gordon was supposed to save me. It was my last chance to make things right. What was I supposed to do now?

Then, shots rang out. Instinctively, I ducked forward and covered my neck with my hands. I felt Jack’s hand on my back.

We both looked up at each other at the same time. “What was that?” I asked.

People began to scream and run down the street towards where the parade had started. The floats stopped in the middle of the road as everyone tried to figure out what had happened.

“Shit,” Jack said, eyes squinted as he looked towards the curve in the road.

“What?” I asked, following his gaze, trying to figure out what was happening.

“Someone shot Gordon Sanchez.”

As soon as he spoke, I saw the float Gordon had been on. The mayor was scrambling off the opposite side of the float with the help of passersby while blood dripped from the other side, puddling on the street like an oil spill. Who shot him? How many contract killers could there have possibly been at one parade? What were the odds of that?

There was an explosion behind me and once again I ducked forward. This time, Jack wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me down with him. We rolled down the stairs, knocking the gun stand over and sending my gun clattering into the grass.

I looked back to see that the glass doors behind us had been shot out and there were smoking bullet holes in the bricks on either side of the door.

“Someone shot at us,” Jack said, rolling onto his stomach so he was flat on the ground and looking up.

Before I could say anything there were more screams, these ones much closer than the others.

“They have a gun! They have a gun!” a woman shouted.

My heart lurched in my chest and I looked around for the shooter, expecting to feel the warm sting of a bullet tear through me any second now, before I realized the woman was talking about me and Jack.

The woman was middle-aged and wearing a long purple robe with a mask that she had pushed up onto the top of her head once the shooting began. She was waving her arms and pointing at us, screaming non-stop. “Over here. There’s a gun over here.”

People began looking in our direction, and I realized that Jack and I were royally fucked.

I felt a tug on my arm and I looked up into Jack’s face. He’d stood up at some point, though I hadn’t noticed.

“Come on,” he growled, yanking me to my feet.

I stumbled up numbly, my legs barely holding my weight.

The stinging sensation I’d expected to feel before began on my cheek, and it took me a few seconds to realize Jack had slapped me. “Mia!”

I blinked. “I’m okay.”

He nodded and grabbed my hand. “Run.”

So, we ran.