Nolan

*One year ago.* The wind at this altitude was a whisper, but I factored it into the math anyway. Distance: 840 yards. Wind speed: four knots, easterly. Target confirmed. I stared through the thermal optic scope of my rifle, watching her pace the length of her penthouse living room. The glass was supposed to be bulletproof. It wasn't *my* bulletproof. I had my finger on the trigger, breathing in the slow, measured rhythm that preceded a kill. She was crying. I couldn't hear it, but I could see the way her shoulders shook. She threw a crystal glass at the wall, and I watched the shatter-pattern catch the city lights. Then, she did something strange. She didn't collapse. She wiped her face, stood up straight, walked to her computer, and began decrypting the very files I had been hired to stop her from finding. She knew she was marked for death, and she was doing it anyway. My finger rested against the cold steel of the trigger. Five pounds of pressure was all it took to end a life. I held my breath. I watched her push her dark hair out of her eyes, fierce and terrified and breathtakingly alive. I exhaled. I pulled my finger away from the trigger. *Target lost,* I typed into my encrypted comms. I packed my rifle. If I didn't kill her, they would send someone else who would. Which meant I had a lot of work to do, and a resume to forge. I was going to need a new suit. *Present Day.* The suffocating bass of the underground nightclub rattled the ice in the untouched glass of bourbon on the bar. She thought she was being clever. She had slipped out the bathroom window of the restaurant her father had forced her to attend, bypassed two of my outer-perimeter men. She was currently standing near the emergency exit, thinking she had finally lost her security detail. She didn't know I had tracked her through the GPS micro-stitch I had sewn into the hem of her coat, or that I had arrived at the club ten minutes before she did, anticipating her exact route