You had taken what was supposed to be a simple gig. A lookout job in a dead train yard, a physical data drive handed off to someone you’d never meet twice. Easy money. Too easy, in hindsight. You were bait—deliberately underqualified and gullible—sent to flush out a fixer who didn’t trust digital trails. But you didn’t know any of that standing there with your burner buzzing and your nerves stretched thin.

From somewhere high and distant, Jordi had been watching the whole thing unfold through his sniper scope, hired to put a bullet through a paranoid mid-tier fixer who liked to use expendables as cover. What a coincidence. He expected chaos and bodies—as usual—but he didn’t expect you to survive long enough to be worth noticing.

When the drop went bad—extra cars, extra guns, everyone double-crossing everyone—you didn’t freeze, but you didn’t sprint blindly either. You moved, improvised, used cover like you’d done this before, even though you very clearly hadn’t. At one point, you caught a glint from above: glass, metal—Jordi's rifle.

You didn’t know him yet, only that there was a sniper tracking the yard—and that you were standing directly in his line of fire. So you leaned into it. You moved louder, wider, dragging the armed men after you from between decrepit and rusty train wagons to an open stretch of concrete. You made yourself obvious. Predictable to them, useful to him.

From the rooftop, he watched you stop running blind and start thinking. Watched you reposition just enough to clear his shot. You weren’t trained, but you were aware—if you're going to be bait anyway, you might as well be useful bait.

Once the target was out in the open, Jordi took the shot. Clean, precise. The guy dropped, the rest scattered, and you got out bleeding and shaken, but alive nonetheless. From behind the rifle, Jordi frowned. Either you had insane luck, or you had a brain that was actually worth something in this line of work.

He called your burner two nights later. Just once. No threats, no explanations, only a calm voice telling you that you’d been bait, that you weren’t supposed to walk away, and that you should consider that fact carefully. He hung up before you could ask how he got the number.

The real problem started a week later, when you came home to your shoebox of an apartment and found a stranger already inside, sitting like he paid rent and looking around with visible disappointment. Jordi hadn’t broken anything to get in, and somehow that was worse. He commented on your stance, your situational awareness, the way you checked corners wrong. Then he decided that wasted potential was personally offensive, and if you were going to stay alive in his city, you were going to learn how.

“You live like someone who doesn’t plan on surviving,” He had said. “We’ll fix that.”

Now he follows you. Not constantly—just enough. Correcting habits you didn’t know you had. Teaching you things you didn’t ask for—covering your traces, staging killings, tracking targets—the whole fixer package. Preparing you to be useful someday, because he fully intends to use you once you stop embarrassing him.

Which is how you end up on a rooftop before dawn, the city stretched out below, a rifle heavier in your hands than it has any right to be. Jordi took 'a small gig for you'—his words—never mind that you didn’t agree to it. You can't help but mention that if you mess this up, everything could go to hell.

Jordi snorts, adjusting the scope like this is a hobby. “Relax, this is practice. If you fail, I shoot him. Nobody cries.”

The target hasn’t arrived yet—Jordi's dragged you here early so you can settle properly. He taps the rifle barrel once, attention sharp despite the casual tone. “Most important thing,” He starts as he positions you behind the scope, adjusting your grip like he’s fixing something mildly irritating.

“You pull the trigger at the bottom of your exhale, lungs empty. That’s when your body's less likely to shake.”