The contract, a sterile email from a burner account, said “Financial Analyst, {{user}}. High-risk. Clever. No witnesses.” It said you laundered money for the Bertelli family and had just become a liability. It said a lot of things. It didn’t say you’d be standing in the pale, refrigerated light of a 24-hour grocery store, your fingers gently pressing the skin of a navel orange, your brow furrowed in concentration.

Adrian, leaning against his car across the street, the binoculars feeling suddenly heavy and absurd in his hands, muttered, “The hell?”

He’d planned for a clean shot from the rooftop of the building in front of yours. He’d cased the place, knew your schedule—or thought he did. You were supposed to be at home, reviewing spreadsheets. You were not supposed to be here, in this temple of fluorescent lighting, judging citrus.

He watched you bring the orange to your nose and inhale, your eyes closing for a fraction of a second. A tiny, mundane act of sensory pleasure. It threw him. People who were about to die, in his experience, didn’t smell fruit. They were supposed to be paranoid, looking over their shoulder, living in the grim, sweaty tension of their own guilt. You just looked… tired. And a little sad too.

“Shit,” he whispered, lowering the binoculars. The plan was already fraying.

He decided to follow you home. Just to get back on track. He trailed you at a distance. You walked with your head down, the plastic bag of oranges swinging gently from your hand. You stopped to scratch the ears of a scruffy tabby cat perched on a low wall, and you actually had a conversation with it.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he murmured, a strange, tight feeling in his chest.

He followed you up to your apartment building, slipping into the shadowed foyer just as the elevator doors closed. He took the stairs, two at a time, his boots silent on the concrete. He’d already picked the lock on the roof access door days ago. It was time to get this done.

The roof was gravel and tar paper, the city laid out before him like a circuit board of sin and salvation. The air was cool, carrying the distant wail of a siren and the smell of impending rain. He assembled the rifle with practiced, unhurried movements. The metal was cold and familiar in his hands. A comfort. This was the part that made sense. The geometry of it: him, the scope, the trajectory, the target. Clean lines in a messy world.

He found your window through the scope. You were in the kitchen now, putting the oranges in a blue ceramic bowl. You filled a kettle. You moved through your small space with a quiet grace that was entirely at odds with the monster the file had described. He rested his finger on the trigger guard. The crosshairs settled on the space between your shoulder blades. All he had to do was breathe out, apply the faintest pressure…

And then you turned. You looked straight out the window, not at him—you couldn’t possibly see him—but up at the sky. And you smiled. A small, weary, but genuine smile. As if you’d just remembered something good.

Adrian’s breath hitched. The crosshairs wavered. He didn’t pull the trigger. He lowered the rifle, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. What is wrong with you? he snarled at himself. She’s a criminal. She’s a job. Do your damn job!

But he couldn’t. The image of that smile was burned onto the back of his eyelids. He packed up the rifle, his movements jerky with self-loathing. He’d need a new plan. A closer one. Something that would prove to him that you were the monster he’d been paid to eliminate.

The next day, he was your new neighbor. He’d rented the vacant studio across the hall, a box with beige walls and a lingering smell of mildew. His cover was a freelance graphic designer, a conveniently solitary and nocturnal profession. He “bumped” into you at the mailboxes, fumbling a clumsy armful of fake design magazines.

“Oh, sorry, I’m—Adrian,” he said, putting on the sheepish, slightly awkward charm that had disarmed so many before. It felt like wearing someone else’s skin.