I was awake before my eyes opened. The events of the night before flicked through my head like pictures on a slide projector. Mia with her legs wrapped around my hips and her hands on my chest for balance as she ground herself against me. Mia tipped forward over the bed with her legs spread wide, giving me access to her. Just the memories were enough to rouse me into some excitement, so I cut them short, letting the projector screen in my mind go dark. I didn’t have time for any distractions this morning, least of all a quickie with the woman from the bar.

More sobering thoughts came to me now. Mia was still in my bed. After our marathon lovemaking, she’d slept in my room all night, and now I had to figure out a way to get rid of her without appearing rude. I had no idea what time it was, but no matter what, there wouldn’t be time for a room service breakfast in bed or fresh coffee. I needed to call my boss and finalize the last plans. I needed to clean my gun and conceal it under my clothes. I needed to get down to the street and finalize my location and my escape route. There was so much to do and only a few hours left before the parade started.

I’d have to be harsh. Cruel, even, if Mia didn’t take the hint right away. I would likely never see her again anyway, so what did it matter if she thought I was a jerk? I’d just wake up, hint for her to leave, and then ask more directly if she refused. It felt like a shitty thing to do after the night we’d had together, but I didn’t have another option. I needed to get to work.

I lifted my arms above my head in a long, drawn-out stretch, making sure to shake the mattress, hopefully rousing my partner into waking, as well. The stretch was meant to be fake, but it felt nice. My arms and legs were stiff, and I realized how solidly I’d slept. It had been for fewer hours than I’d hoped, but the nights prior to a big hit were almost always lost to restlessness and anxious thoughts, so this was a rarity. As much of a distraction as Mia had been, perhaps she had been a worthwhile one. I felt refreshed.

When I didn’t feel any movement from the other side of the bed, I cracked one eye open a tiny bit to peek over. That is when I realized no one was lying next to me.

The blankets had been turned back carefully so she could slide out from between the sheets, and the clothes we’d tossed around the room had been picked through and Mia’s clothes extracted. She was gone.

Strangely, I experienced a moment of disappointment that I wouldn’t see her again. That one of the best lays I’d ever had would be a one-night stand. But the experience had worked out better than I ever could have imagined. Not only had Mia been incredible in bed, but she had boundaries. I could only hope my string of luck would continue throughout the morning because I was certainly going to need it.

I showered and dressed in a dark wash pair of jeans and a long-sleeved red shirt. Usually, I liked to wear dark colors while I took out a target, but a man wandering around in all black would be more unusual during Mardi Gras. Then, I gathered my supplies in a small black backpack and called Tad Drummell. He answered on the third ring.

“Jack.”

“Tad,” I said, knowing he preferred I call him Mr. Drummell.

“Are you prepared?”

“As prepared as I can be.” Tad knew this hit was dangerous, and likely my last. He knew the chances of me completing it were slim. That was the point. The son of a bitch wanted me done away with, but he also didn’t want to get his hands dirty. Plus, if by some miracle I completed the hit, then that would be one less thing off Tad’s plate. He always knew how to play things in his favor.

“You’ve never had trouble taking out a target for me before,” he said lazily, sounding unconcerned. “Today should be no different.”

My hand shook as I clutched the phone to my ear. “No different except for the time of day, the number of onlookers, and the fact that my target is an elected official. No different at all.”

Tad laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Do not doubt yourself now, Jack. This is no time for a loss of confidence. Call me when the job is done. Farewell.”

The line went dead, and I took a few deep breaths. Tad no doubt thought he was wishing me farewell for the final time, but I had no intention of ending the day as anything other than a living, free man. So, I pushed the conversation out of my mind, grabbed my bag, and left the keycard on the dresser. No matter what happened in the next few hours, I wouldn’t be coming back to the hotel room.

The streets were already bustling with people claiming benches, bits of curb, and sections of streetcar tracks running down the center of the road to watch the parade. The street was blocked off from regular traffic to allow for the parade, but businesses along the route were milking the extra foot traffic by setting out pitchers of water in front of their shop and throwing their doors wide with signs advertising big discounts and sales. While everyone was pushing for a spot as close to the road as possible, I was moving towards the back of the crowd. The prime location for me would be under the shade of a building or tree where I had a fence or trash can to use for cover. I also couldn’t be surrounded by people, but there needed to be enough pedestrians around that it wouldn’t be obvious where the shot had come from. But still, there couldn’t be so many pedestrians that I’d accidentally take one of them out instead of the intended target. It would be a delicate operation to say the least.

I’d scoped out the view from the large picture window in my hotel room before I left, and since the parade was moving east, I wanted to be on the south side of the road to have the clearest shot. As soon as my gun went off, I’d want to head west down Canal Street towards the city center rather than find myself blocked in by the Mississippi in the south.

The crowd thinned as I neared the end of the parade route, where the floats would turn left towards the French Quarter. One block before the turn off sat a large brick school building. Dense trees lined the walkway and opaque glass bus stops dotted the road on either side of it. Based on the location scouting I’d done the day before and the reevaluating I’d done that morning, the school would be the best place to make the hit. The shade from the trees darkened the space and the building was dotted with windows from which the shot could have come. It would offer me plausible deniability if anyone immediately suspected me after Gordon Sanchez fell. Hopefully the police would search the building first, giving me time to escape and blend into the panicked crowd.

Large stone steps with tall brick railings led up into the school building at several points. I chose one of these brick railings to be my cover while I leveled my gun at Gordon Sanchez. I’d be able to make the shot and then duck back behind the railing to stash the gun in my bag. Any onlookers would think I was ducking from the bullets just like anyone else, and when the opportunity presented itself, I’d run. It was as close to the perfect plan as I could get.

I hoisted myself up onto the railing and sat down, kicking my feet against the bricks, hoping I looked like any other paradegoer. Over the next thirty minutes, the lawn in front of me filled with people who couldn’t find space at the start of the parade route. They all stuck relatively close to the curb, giving me a wide berth of fifteen to twenty feet.

Faint music from further down the street became louder as the parade moved closer. I could hear the din of the crowd shouting and hollering. The people in front of me craned their necks and stepped out into the road to try and see the start of the parade. By my estimation, I had fifteen minutes before Gordon Sanchez was in my sights, as he would be on the second float in the parade.

Just as I was reached into my bag to assemble my gun next to the stairs, a figure to my right caught my eye. I looked over just as a person in loose black trousers and a white sweatshirt with the hood pulled up sat on the stairs fifteen feet to my right.

“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath.

A bush further obscured the person from my sight, but I didn’t have the benefit of foliage. If the person looked over in my direction, they’d see my rifle in an instant. It was an inconvenience more than a problem. I’d simply have to wait until Gordon Sanchez was visible before pulling out my gun. I could work around this.

Then, I saw the tip of the rifle. The person next to me was setting up a gun of their own. I blinked hard, sure I was imagining things. This couldn’t be possible. But it was. Someone else was planning a hit.

I pulled out my phone and punched in Tad’s number.

“What?” he growled, clearly not happy to be hearing from me again.

“Someone else is here to make a hit,” I whispered.

There was a long pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said. “I see someone else setting up to make an assassination attempt.”

“On who?”

“I didn’t ask them,” I snapped. “What the fuck do I do?”

Honestly, I was thinking I could just walk away and see what would happen. If the person was there to take out Gordon Sanchez, too, then I could let them make the hit and I wouldn’t have to worry about how I was going to escape. This could turn out to be a great thing.

“Take them out,” Tad said as if it was obvious.

“You want me to kill them?”

He sighed. “We don’t know why they are there or who for. They are an unknowable complication, and the best option is to take them out.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” I asked, scanning the street in front of me. Taking out Gordon Sanchez was going to be enough of an issue but adding a second body was impossible.

“You’re the hitman,” he said, his voice disinterested. “Figure it out.”

The line went dead, and I checked the time. I had nine minutes to kill two people without getting caught.

I threw my backpack over my shoulder and casually walked up the stairs and into the school. The hallway was dark, but there were lights on in the classrooms as I passed—teachers working on lesson plans and janitors mopping floors. None of them noticed me. My shoes beat out a quick rhythm against the tile floor as I walked to the hallway intersection, took a left, and then took the next left down an identical long hallway. I could see the double doors at the end of the hall and the shape of the stranger in the white hoodie through the paned glass. I checked my watch again. Seven minutes.

How the hell was I going to pull this off? I couldn’t shoot the stranger without drawing an inordinate amount of attention to myself, so I’d have to strangle them. Could I really strangle someone, get back to my perch, set up my gun, and take out Gordon Sanchez in seven minutes? Or six-and-a-half now.

But then I realized I didn’t need to set up my gun. This stranger had already set up theirs, and it looked similar enough to mine. It would fire just the same. The location they’d chosen to shoot from wasn’t ideal, but it would have to work. Plus, if everything went smoothly, there was a possibility I’d be able to make the deadly shot and then claim I’d tackled the shooter before they could hurt anyone else. I could kill Gordon Sanchez and then be praised as the selfless hero who tackled the lone gunmen. It was a wild idea, but it had merit. And since I had less than six minutes left, it was the only idea left.

I stashed my backpack in the corner next to the doors and took a deep breath. I’d have to move quickly if I wanted to catch the person off guard and mitigate the chances of a struggle.

The stranger was focused on their gun, setting everything up, kneeling down to check the sight. They didn’t hear me crack the door open behind them, and by the time it thudded closed and they began to turn, my hands were already around their neck. Their hood was up, which made it more difficult to get a firm grip on their neck, but there hadn’t been any time to take it off. So, I simply squeezed harder, putting all my energy into crushing their windpipe.

Gloved hands reached up and clawed at my hands, and I was taken aback at how small they were. It seemed like a strange thing to notice in the middle of strangling the life out of someone, but they were tiny, half the size of my own.

I tried to push the thought away, but then I imagined myself strangling a child or teenager to death. When it was done, would I feel justified?

I hadn’t yet made my decision, but apparently I’d been distracted enough for my grip to loosen. The person wedged their small fingers under my hand and pried it from their neck. Then, they spun around, arms raised to defend themselves, and my entire body went numb. My mouth fell open, my hands dropped to my sides, and I was so surprised didn’t even try to defend myself from the fist that connected with my nose.

Because the stranger standing before me with the gun was Mia.