Words: 1708
Warnings: Arthur's language, Murder for hire (no death in this chapter), poor university students and desperate girls before valentines day.
Chapter 1: You have the worst apartment.
"The target is a Mr. Ivan Braginski, we weren't given much information about him but the customer is willing to pay a LOT of money for this, so we didn't bother asking why,"
"Braginski... Ivan... sounds familiar"
"Yeh, he's hired us before."
"killing an old customer? Could be a mafia rivalry, I thought you didn't want us to get into that stuff, too much risk to the 'business' you said"
"I know, I know, I'm looking out, let's see how this goes down first, just be careful"
"Your lack of trust in me is slightly offensive"
"Just hurry up and get back here."
Arthur hung up the phone and walked into a Starbucks. He strolled up to the girl at the counter who was overly happy for the tired, jetlagged brit who grumpily said "Medium Irish Breakfast tea please"
She looked at Arthurs suit and the briefcase in his hand, "Important meeting?" she said as she wrote the drink on the side of the cup and handed it over to a man making said drinks.
"You could say that, yes," Arthur said gruffly, just wanting his tea so he could leave and get some sleep before his work.
"That'll be $6" Arthur just pulled a small face at the price and handed over a note, throwing the change in his wallet and taking the drink when it was made. "Bye"
He heard her call as he walked out, rolling his eyes. He sipped at the tea, English Breakfast Tea... he looked to see if the girl was even listening to his order, but all the cup has was a phone number written. "For fucks sake," he said, throwing the still full cup in a trash can.
All he wanted was a damn drink.
He pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket, a small map was drawn on it, guiding him around the blocks of buildings in the city.
He walked through the city centre, and immediately a woman stopped him, "Sir, sir, I work with the Oxfam charity, we're collecting money for the poor people in third world countries who can't afford fresh food or water, please would you consider to donate even the smallest amount.?" She held up a bucket with a sticker labelled 'Oxfam' on the side and Arthur had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He didn't say anything and took a $100 bill out of his wallet, throwing it into the bucket.
"Thank you so much, sir, I'm sure that the people you help will be incredibly thankful, if you want, we can take your address and can send you quarterly updates about your work" She smiled and held up a form, but Arthur just held up a hand in dismissal, not wanting to say anything he tried to walk off, but she grabbed his arm. He had to stop himself from knocking her our as his reflexes told him to. He looked at her with a deep scowl that seemed permanently indented onto his face. "You don't have to give us your address, but please let me give you my number," he said, batting her eyelashes.
Arthur shook her off and continued walking at a faster pace now, for crying out loud how desperate were these people? It was the day before valentines day, and a small part of Arthur wanted a date as well, but no, he was in America, hunting down some mafioso being hit on by every desperate girl who had the chance, unfortunately for them, Arthur wasn't looking for anyone of the female variety.
He continued walking, not stopping for anyone who asked for his time, and just followed the map in his hand. Eventually, he found himself outside of the 'sunnyside palace' which looked less like a palace and more like somewhere a crack whore would go for a back alley abortion.
The place definitely didn't fit in with the buildings around it, they were planning on knocking it down to be rebuilt as one of the modern office building around it but Arthur was lucky it was still standing.
He went into the 'reception', and somehow his scowl deepened at the sight of damp and cockroaches, gravity and peeling wallpaper. nobody sat at the desk, not that mattered, it just meant let suspicion. He pulled out a small gas mask now, putting it on to cover his face. It wasn't used for its intended purposes, but as something to conceal his identity. He could see the only camera's around were broken, but for the rest of the building, he couldn't be sure.
'703...704...' a man sat outside an apartment looked at his weirdly, oddly enough, Arthur hadn't even noticed his presence, and when he noticed the needle in the man's arm, he simply kept walking, the guy would probably think that Arthur was a hallucination of sorts, why else would a man in an expensive suit with a silver briefcase wearing a gas mask walk down the halls of a cheap apartment block? He continues looking for the room, '705... 706... 707... 708... 709' he looked around, the man from before was a hallway away, probably passed out and drooling on himself, so figuring the coast was clear he pulled out 2 small metal bars and worked on unlocking the door. To Arthur's surprise, the door opened as he barely touched it. Either the lock was broken, it had left it like that, or the poor guy had been robbed.
Arthur pushed the door open and walked inside. For a brief moment, he really did think that somebody had broken in, but nothing seemed missing. just messy.
An old red couch sat on one side of the room, one of the cushions missing, leaving a black showing, a tv which seemed like it would be expensive it was wasn't as scratched to death, a dining table with a leg missing and 2 mismatched chairs, the wallpaper and floors though were pretty much perfect, if not a little bit of damp. "probably a student" he said, walking through the apartment. He came to the bedroom and entered, a messy bed, clothes on the floor, it smelled like weed and for what he hoped was the last time, rolled his eyes. Straightening out the bed, he put the briefcase down on one of the bedside tables, clicking it open.
He pulled out a small thin file, inside it nothing more than the targets picture, address, and age, plus the times that this man would be in certain places. Arthur noted the time 1600 for a meeting and ignored the rest of the file, putting it to one side.
Below the file, was a disassembled rifle and 3 pistols, each with silencers, though they were for emergencies and a small battery-powered alarm clock.
Arthur closed the curtains and took out the pieces, quickly assembling the rifle and holding it to point at a sock that was hanging from the top of a calendar to see if the aim was right. Once he figured that it was, he left it empty, resting against the wall and pulled out the alarm clock. He set the time for 1500 and put it on top of the suitcase, laying down on the bed.
The owner of the 'apartment' was not supposed to be home for another week, not the usual 'couple of hour' schedules Arthur was used to working with, so he figured he'd be able to catch a few hours of sleep without interruption.
He remembered the door and before deciding to sleep, went back to it, putting the chain on, he even considered raiding the man's fridge (because it was very obviously a man living here) but clearly, the guy didn't need any more trouble.
He went back to the bedroom, and after double checking the alarm, he lay down, took off the mask and slept.
Arthur woke up to the beeping he was use to and slammed his hand down on the alarm. Worried he'd broken another one, he checked it. Not smashed to pieces. good.
Still grumpy he never got the tea he needed, and wanting to get this over with, he put back on the mask and opened the curtains.
He cracked the window open slightly and reset the alarm for 1545. 45 minutes he spent walking around doing pretty much nothing, just wondering if he could ever be able to get this weed smell out of his £2000 suit. No.
His phone buzzed as the alarm went off, he clicked the off button on said alarm and checked his phone.
"Is it done yet?"
"15 minutes max."
Arthur rested the barrel of the gun on the windowsill and aimed it at the building across the road.
It took 10 minutes, but eventually Ivan showed, glad to have this over so soon, Arthur aimed, following the Russian as he entered the building, just to show up through one of the oversized windows a few floors up.
His phone buzzed again. "It's been 15 minutes"
"It's been 14! If you hadn't texted me it'd be done by now"
"then maybe you should have done it before you texted me back"
"I would have but whenever I don't text you back right away you call me, and right now I don't need to hear the awful voices of 21 pilots with that sickeningly bad ringtone you set up on this blasted thing."
"JUST SHUT UP AND SHOOT THE DAMN GUY, and do it cleanly, we have over £100,000 resting on this."
"Cleanly? sure, that's how guns work." his sarcasm leaked through the phone, "And that's a lot of money for one guy, what did he do?"
"Damn you're snarky today, maybe you're just... gassy... haha, get it, because of the mask. And we didn't ask, too much money to risk, now please stop texting me and just shoot him, professional."
"Oh, shut up and stop worrying, I have a couple hours minimum to off this guy, no one is leaving that room anytime soon andI'mm the most profesional man you have. when i get the tea i want..."
None the less, he threw his phone onto the bed and aimed the gun, lining it perfectly with Ivans' head.
Just as he started putting pressure on the trigger, he heard a voice from behind him.
"Who are you? and why are you in my house?"
I have so many ideas for fanfiction but because I update them all on the same day every week, I have to stick to 2 multi-chapters ones and one-shots every Wednesday that way I'm sure they're all done on time. So I'm sticking to the simpler ones as I improve my writing. I hope you like this so far.
Please Review.