He took several hours to set up his nest, finding the perfect vantage point in a third-floor window. It was an office building that had already cleared out for the weekend. He decided the best course of action was to take her out as a sniper. Being far enough away as he killed her would help alleviate his guilt.

With the crowded streets, there wasn’t a way to snatch the woman and dispose of her without witnesses, but with the closeness of the buildings, it would be easy to pick her off even if there were several people around. The silencer on his rifle would quiet the gun but it wouldn’t completely muffle the noise of the gunfire.

With the way the street was set up, the noise would echo off the other buildings and make it hard to place where he was sitting. So, anyone who saw the woman die wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where the shot came from. It was the perfect spot.

He had his gun set up, perched out of sight from the people down below. It was loaded and ready. He stole a chair from one of the offices and spent the majority of the time people watching through a set of binoculars. He kept a careful eye on the women, seeing none who fit his description, and he was not willing to make a mistake by killing the wrong one.

He didn’t like the idea of killing women. He’d be damned if he shot the wrong one. Even with pushing twenty-four hours without sleep, he wasn’t foolish enough to not be thorough.

He lost track of the hours that went by since he arrived in Denver. He was that tired. He spent that time breaking into the building and setting up his little nest, getting snacks and drinks to tide him over and even setting up his laptop for a bit of entertainment.

He had gotten out of the loop of popular television shows and had never really gotten into the idea of binging. There was too much to do and oftentimes, things were too dangerous for him to pursue a show. Technology was great, but there were some aspects of it that he didn’t feel the need to take advantage of, binge-watched television shows being one aspect.

The binoculars he used were high-tech, giving him the opportunity to zoom on each face of the people down below. He didn’t mind the people watching. There was something to seeing what a normal life was supposed to be like.

What people his age were supposed to be doing. The later the time got, the scene changed, and the crowd around the bar that he had decided was the bar was more popular than he first anticipated. Peaks was its name, and he couldn’t really fathom the reason behind it. But it still managed to draw a crowd.

A line had begun to form around the block, leaving him cursing. Too many people were there, and he hadn’t spotted his target yet. But, once he did, he was sure that his plan of picking her off from this position was becoming more of a bad idea. There were too many witnesses. There was no chance this wouldn’t make the news.

A splash of shiny blue caught his eye and he adjusted his view. A blonde made her way through the crowd, not bothering with line, and stepped directly up to the door. Her hair spilled around her shoulders and her body looked lithe, sexy.

She had the build, and when he zoomed in on her features, he was struck with her beauty. A beauty . . . and his target. She fit the description to a tee.

Unfortunately, she slipped out of sight and into the bar. He lost his opportunity because he had been admiring her too much, like he hadn’t just recently gotten laid. He lowered his binoculars and sighed. “Blue dress.” He shifted behind his rifle and prepared to wait her out. He would still have to go through with it.

“A few more hours and it will be a done deal,” he murmured as he fit the entrance of the bar in his crosshairs. Then he could go back to entertaining his thoughts of retiring and getting to work on his family, finding a woman he didn’t have to pay to love him.

Hours passed as he watched the door, waiting for the mark to come back out. The crowd had thinned, and it looked as if his decision to wait had been the best idea. There would be fewer people to see him shoot her. A flash of blonde hair caught his eye and he watched the woman come out.

The time in his scope told him was just before midnight. His tired nerves put him on edge as he watched her traipse out of the building followed by a man. He found himself hesitating. There was a familiarity there that he couldn’t place. While the dress she wore was something that was sure to draw a man’s eye, something she had succeeded on, it was definite that she wasn’t the type of woman he would normally be familiar with.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in Denver, and he was sure the whore he had spent time with then hadn’t been a blonde. This woman wasn’t a whore or a prostitute.

He closed his eyes for a beat, pulling away from the scope that sat on top of his rifle. He rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger as he tried to push the desire to sleep back. Fatigue was fucking with his head. Behind his closed eyes, the vision of a pair of large blue eyes that had plagued him since that fateful night tore through his tiredness. He stopped at that, his eyes shooting open, thinking of the email with its description. Blonde, blue eyes, female with a slim athletic build. Age twenty-six. Could it be her? The little girl from Kosovo? Had enough time passed since then?

“What is she doing here?” he demanded to the empty room and immediately found her with his scope again. His finger hovered over the trigger as more questions seemed to assault him. Why was she up to be eliminated? The second time to kill her, could he do it? “Shit.” He growled and dropped the rifle, letting it rest on its stand, and rubbed a hand over his face. Her face plagued his dreams. Had she come all this way to haunt him for not taking her out then? Could he do it now? Did someone know he had let her go? Was this punishment? It suddenly felt like it.

Once again, he found himself hesitating. He didn’t even know her. He shouldn’t be second-guessing himself. He was losing his shot and opportunity. With a curse, he began to pack up his nest. He would have to tail her and find another opportunity to fix what he should have done in Kosovo.