The dampened sound of a bullet rang out through the air, followed moments later by the sound of a .408 casing falling to the concrete Chris was laying on. A thinly padded mat was all that separated his chiseled chest from discomfort as he lined up another shot.<br/><br/>Calculated.<br/><br/>Locked the charging handle again.<br/><br/>Then pulled the heavy trigger.<br/><br/>"Six..." Chris murmured as he repeated the steps one last time. Two headshots, two to the heart, one in the throat, one with a pierced lung, and one with most of their jaw missing. Seven dead, exactly as detailed in the contract. The young man methodically began taking apart his rifle, breaking the firearm down and returning it to a heavily beat case. As he stooped over to collect the shell casings and his mat, Chris felt the familiar vibrations of a phone in his pocket.<br/><br/>While he knew his personal phone was turned off on these sorts of missions, he always left a second phone on no matter what. Even if Emmy was basically the only person that really contacted him through the second phone, the least he could do was be easy to reach if she truly needed him. And from the short message she had sent, it seemed like something<i> had</i>in fact happened that required him to show face at home instead of sneaking around.<br/><hr class="bbc-hr"/>The next morning, Chris touched down in Zero City's main airport, having booked a slew of flights through his many aliases as a hitman out of habit. He hadn't even changed out of the grimy, dust-coated<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2F1s%2F2022%2F01%2F12%2F04%2F52824423-0-image-a-98_1641961746524.jpg&amp;hash=4da4aa87b0d92fa6eb0c09868757dc9e" href="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/12/04/52824423-0-image-a-98_1641961746524.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">clothes</a>he had been wearing when he left Dubai after the contract, but the dirt hadn't bothered him since he entered boot camp.<br/><br/>After a short detour to a rental shop, the sound of a motor easily reaching triple digits hit the highway. He passed a cop parked in the median almost immediately, but at the speed he was going, the blur didn't even register on the officer's radar, let alone the poor trooper's brain.<br/><br/>20 minutes later, that same<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnet.com%2Fa%2Fimg%2Fresize%2Fa700c87f78665ac9f24f1d9e3700718bc0ade78a%2Fhub%2F2020%2F05%2F13%2F1bbd0e94-dc7e-4c88-ac5b-052e5f5c73d1%2F2020-ferrari-f8-tributo-ogi-1.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26fit%3Dcrop%26height%3D900%26width%3D1200&amp;hash=2fd65435e080f942c942e4d9165d446b" href="https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/a700c87f78665ac9f24f1d9e3700718bc0ade78a/hub/2020/05/13/1bbd0e94-dc7e-4c88-ac5b-052e5f5c73d1/2020-ferrari-f8-tributo-ogi-1.jpg?auto=webp&amp;fit=crop&amp;height=900&amp;width=1200" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">blur</a>pulled up to the mansion's front gate blasting<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FRYTqq02gZIo&amp;hash=a7454bc47c716125f38d80061b72e174" href="https://youtu.be/RYTqq02gZIo" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">My Name is Murder</a>as loud as the radio could go. Chris stopped just long enough to let the gate open, then drove up the driveway and drifted to a stop, spraying the side of the house with a handful of gravel chips that had caught in his tires. He hopped out and popped the trunk of the sports car, pulling out a rucksack full of clothes and daily items and slinging over his shoulder, then made for the front door.<br/><br/>... Or he would have, if the brilliant red hair of his favorite sibling didn't catch his eye.<br/><br/>"Adz, Emmy got ya too huh?" He called out, waving his free hand to the redhead as he surveyed the rest of the driveway.<br/><br/>Besides their vehicles, there was another bike, either Tristan's or Kenji's. Besides Addy, the rest of the girls never really showed an interest in fast cars and motorcycles, or at least not around him. There was at least one other vehicle he didn't recognize, but the Mustang, though, that was Emmy's. He had seen her sitting on the hood a few times when he usually delivered his contract money and bailed out until the following day or waited until she<i> </i>got bored and went inside. It wasn't that he was avoiding Emmy all the time... Who was he kidding, he had basically avoided everyone since he left. Even his minimal calls with Tristan and Addy were short, and when he<i>did </i>call Emmy, it was only to let her know he was alive. If he didn't keep moving... didn't keep his mind off what happened after Mother's death...<br/><br/>By now, he had caught up to Addy, a vine stretching out of the ground to help catch her bike as she tried to cripple herself with it. He lit up a cigarette and took a drag, then offered her the pack, out of habit from his service days. "Let's at least hear her out before you going running again. It's not like either of us have proper jobs to go get to in the morning."