Everything went well with Kelly's transfer, and while it had not been easy for her, she'd been excited to meet her oldest brother. She'd even managed to claim 47's hand for the transfer, claiming that she needed something to hold on to and he was going to be it. Now that he had met all of his siblings, 47 was coming to have a greater appreciation for where his inherent stubbornness had come from.

That stubbornness had kept him alive and nearly at the top of his group during his training, in spite of the fact that he had been on the small side for his age. Although he had grown into his height after he had left the training center, (he was easily as tall as either of his brothers now) he had his mother's more slender build. It had meant that he had been forced to push himself into being able to do things that were far more difficult than he should have been able to accomplish. Now there wasn't a single inch of his body that wasn't sculpted and honed into the most efficient tool in his arsenal.

"I am so glad that I finally have a quiet brother," Kelly said. 47 was leaning against one wall of her new room, while Greg was sitting in the visitor's chair next to her bed. "You wouldn't believe how loud and wild Mathew and Greg can get."

47 shrugged. "Loud gets you noticed and that's not exactly a good thing in my profession," he pointed out. In fact, even now he had put himself in a place where he would be easily overlooked by anyone coming into the room.

"Makes sense," she said, ignoring Greg's protests that he wasn't that loud. "So, what's your favorite way to kill somebody?"

"Kelly!" Greg protested. "You don't ask questions like that!"

"This coming from the king of impudence," Kelly retorted. "I'm drugged to the gills. I've got an excuse," she added smugly.

47 had the feeling that this new family of his was always going to amuse him, as long as he wasn't the focus of their impudence. "Actually my preference is for subtlety rather than one specific method. Whatever gets the job done with the least amount of fuss is usually the best, but there are also the client's wishes to be taken into consideration."

"Like wah, um what?" Kelly asked.

47 could tell that she was beginning to slip under. She would be asleep soon, and there was no telling if she would even remember this conversation. "I've been asked to make things look like accidents, natural causes, robbery, revenge, competition from others in the same business," he told her matter of factly. "I've even had a contract for an assisted suicide."

"Wow," Kelly said and yawned. By the time she finished she was asleep.

"Can you tell me about that one?" Greg asked. "I'm curious, but if you don't want to talk about it you don't have to."

47 frowned slightly at the memory. Now that he was a father, looking back at that contract disturbed him. "It was a thirteen year old girl. She had a very excruciating terminal illness. I don't know where she got the money to pay me, but I do know that it was done over the internet and I have some suspicions that she hacked one her government's accounts. Her family certainly wasn't wealthy enough to afford my fees.

"I had taken the contract thinking that she was much older. I knew about the illness but I hadn't been aware that it was terminal. She was at home rather than a hospital, so it was more than easy to simply walk into her room. She was sitting up in her bed, working on her computer when I walked in. She actually told me to wait a moment because she was busy getting the last part of her funeral paid for.

"She was just this tiny little thing, so very frail, but strong too. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want her dead, much less why she wanted to die so badly that she'd actually hired someone to kill her. She told me when she'd finished that she hadn't expected her uncle's contacts to send someone so cute." Greg tried to stifle a laugh, but 47 just shrugged at him.

"I was all of twenty or so at the time, so I suppose she liked what she saw. Anyway, I asked her what was so bad about her life that she'd taken out a contract on herself. She smiled at me and told me that she was tired, it was time and she was ready but her family, especially her mother, wasn't. They were about to bankrupt themselves over trying to save her and she wasn't going to let them do that. She also told me not to worry about my fee, that she'd already taken care of it and patted her computer proudly.

"Then she explained to me about her condition and what she had to look forward to while her family struggled to save her. It was fairly horrific." That was all 47 would say on that matter. Greg really didn't need the details. He wished that she hadn't been quite so graphic, but he knew that she thought she'd needed to persuade him to finish the job. She hadn't, he'd just wanted to understand what had driven her into hiring him. For all that he hadn't been all that familiar with human emotions, even he knew that people who were suicidal were rarely happy, and she was a very happy young girl from he had seen. From the moment he'd accepted the contract she was dead, all that had been in question was how he was going to do it.

"The only thing that she asked for was a kiss before I killed her. She never knew it was my first one as well." He remembered sitting there next to her on the bed, and the sweet smile that she'd given him afterwards. It had stayed on her face as she watched him slip a needle into her IV. She'd died seconds later. It was easiest hit he'd ever done, and he was glad that he'd chosen the least painful method of the options that were available to him.

"The client gets what she wants, huh?" Greg asked sympathetically.

"Unless there is a good reason not to, and then I usually pass on the contract rather than trying to persuade them otherwise. These types of contracts are extremely expensive and the clients should get what they want at those prices, but that doesn't mean that I have to accept a contract either."

"So, out of sheer curiosity, how much does a contract cost?" Greg asked.

"A hundred thousand per contracted kill is my usual fee, although there are times when it does go higher," 47 told him.

"One of those would set you up for a year," Greg said, flabbergasted.

47 shook his head. The very idea of only working once a year horrified him. "I'd go crazy if I only worked once a year. I usually take a contract once or twice a month, perhaps three or four if Nika's pregnant."

Grace slipped into the room just then, and 47 was grateful. He could tell that Greg wanted to ask about why he took more contracts when Nika was pregnant, and that was one discussion that he really didn't want to have right now. "Greg, Candy's down in the waiting room and they're starting to wean Mom off of the ventilator."

"Thanks, tell Kelly where I am and about Mom," Greg said as he hurried out the door.

Grace sat down in the newly vacated chair. She smiled as she spotted 47. "They don't let her in because she's not family and she's been working extra hours to make up for the time Greg spends here." The two eldest siblings settled in, watching over their sleeping sister.

It was only fifteen minutes later when someone came into the room with a cart. Grace looked up, but seeing the scrubs and other accoutrements of the medical profession, didn't bother to watch as the man began taking Kelly's vitals. 47 wasn't so lax. He carefully studied the man, noting things in his body language that tweaked his instincts. It wasn't until the man glanced to the side, picking up a syringe from the cart that 47 realized why.

Instantly 47 reached into a pocket, brought out one of his garrotes, and whipped one end around the man's neck. Catching the flying handle, he brought the fiberwire tight against the man's throat and kicked him in the back of the knee. Within seconds the man was on his knees, on the floor, trying desperately to claw himself free of the wire cutting off his breathing. Grace sat stunned as 47 loosened the wire just enough to allow the man to talk. "Hello Jason," he said calmly. "How much is the contract?"

"I don't know…" Jason gasped.

"Jason, don't lie to me," 47 chided as he tightened up the garrote. "As many times as we've competed on the same contracts, you'd think that you'd know better than that." He waited for a moment before letting the man breathe again.

"47? Oh hell," Jason cursed as he recognized the emotionless voice. "Shit, the contracts are half a million each, the entire family. You want it, you take it. I'm not about to get in it with you again."

"What were you planning on using?" 47 asked, as though he had all the time in the world to get his answer and he was simply curious.

"Morphine OD, kid wouldn't feel a thing. She's already on a lot of the strong pain killers," Jason said. "I hate hurting kids. You know that."

"Thank you for that," 47 said as he released the garrote. Jason didn't notice, being simply to glad to get some air down his throat, that 47 was reaching for his head. A quick snap and Jason was dead. "It earned you a quick death."

Grace was still in shock. "Half a million each? For the whole family?"

"You're right, that is a bit excessive," 47 said thoughtfully. He reached over and picked up his garrote. "Even being my family shouldn't buy you that much attention."

"What?" Grace gasped out.

"Grace," 47 said coldly. He'd seen this sort of shock before, usually just before someone began pleading for their lives. He knew that she would come out of it soon enough. "There is nothing in your background, or in the rest of the family's background that would have someone take out a contract on you, much less the entire family. Very few people will take out a contract on a child, much less seven of them. I am the only reason that anyone who had that sort of money would care about you, but it still doesn't make sense that someone would pay five times my usual fee just to get rid of someone I don't even know." Almost out of habit 47 reached into his pocket for his gloves, pulled them on and pulled the body out of sight of the door. A quick wipe down of his garrote before it was placed back in his pocket, and he was satisfied that things were cleaned up enough as he had no intention of hiding what he'd done.

"You knew that we were in danger," Grace said. It wasn't an accusation, but a realization. This cold, and seemingly indifferent attitude, this was what Diana had warned her about. This was 47 focused on what he did best.

"The timing of the accident was far too coincidental," 47 said as he pulled out his phone. "Mendoza found signs that Dad's car had been tampered with." He dialed a number that he really had no business knowing, but he hadn't been able to resist getting. "Mike, it's not a fucking crap shoot."

MisPer, FBI Building