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Gordon Cozier didn't make mistakes.
In fifteen years as a freelance problem solver, he'd maintained a perfect record. No witnesses. No loose ends. No sentiment interfering with business. His reputation was impeccable—he was the man who could make any problem disappear without a trace.
He worked alone. Always had. Partnerships meant relying on someone else, meant complications, and complications meant mistakes. Gordon had seen too many good operators go down because they trusted the wrong person or let emotions cloud their judgment.
So when he took the contract on Lucas Fellman, a mid-level arms dealer operating out of a Brooklyn warehouse, he approached it the same way he approached every job: efficient and completely alone.
Three days of surveillance. Fellman arrived at the warehouse between 10 PM and midnight every night, stayed for two to three hours doing whatever criminal bookkeeping arms dealers did, then left through the back entrance where his car was parked. The pattern was consistent. Predictable.
The building across the street was under construction—no workers at this hour, perfect vantage point. Gordon spent six hours confirming sight lines, analyzing each person in Fellman's entourage, studying escape routes, checking for complications.
There were none.
The warehouse sat in a commercial district, far from the typical restaurant streets. Foot traffic was minimal after 9 PM. Fellman had a habit of opening the fifth-floor window every evening for exactly one hour—probably couldn't stand the stuffiness of his own operation. That window would be his undoing.
On the fourth night, Gordon set up his rifle at 9:47 PM and waited.
Fellman arrived at 11:23 PM. Gordon's breathing was steady, his heart rate slow and even. He'd done this dozens of times. The mechanics were muscle memory now—calculate wind speed, adjust for distance, account for the slight tremor in any human hand by timing the shot between heartbeats.
At 11:47 PM, Fellman opened the window.
Gordon took the shot.
Clean. Quiet. Professional.
He was already packing up his rifle when he happened to glance down at the alley below.
A man was standing there.
Not walking. Not hurrying past like any normal pedestrian would. Just standing there, hands in his jacket pockets, looking directly up at Gordon's position.
Gordon froze.
The shot had been silent. The window had no glass yet, just concrete framing. The angle should have made it impossible to spot the rifle from street level, especially in the dark.
But this man wasn't looking at the building generally. He was looking at Gordon's exact position, his head tilted at the precise angle needed to make eye contact across six stories of empty air.
Then the man smiled—small, almost amused—and walked away.
Not running. Not pulling out a phone. Just walking, like he'd witnessed something mildly interesting and was now heading home for the night.
Gordon's heart was pounding. That didn't happen. That never happened.
He finished packing, breaking down his rifle even as his mind raced. Who was that? Had he actually seen the shot? Could he identify Gordon?
Standard protocol: eliminate the witness.
:::
Gordon made it back to his apartment in Queens by 1:15 AM. He stored the rifle in the hidden compartment under his bedroom floor, then pulled up his laptop.
Traffic cameras first. He'd been careful to use blind spots, but the witness had been walking on a well-monitored street.
He isolated the alley camera, ran the footage back until he found the man. There—walking casually, then stopping as if he'd caught a sound. Looking up, head turning with unsettling precision toward Gordon's position.
Gordon tracked him through three more cameras before losing him near a subway entrance. But the last camera had caught his face clearly enough for facial recognition software to work its magic.
John Rahway. Age thirty-two. Address in Brooklyn, about four miles from the warehouse.
Gordon pulled up everything he could find.
Bank consultant. Worked on Eastern Parkway. No criminal record. No military service. No connection to Fellman or his organization. Social media showed sporadic updates—shared beers with friends, visits to museums and state parks, a few international trips. One post from two years ago featured three tiny kittens he'd apparently found in a box on the street and fostered until they were adopted.
Perfectly normal life. Seemed like a nice guy, actually.
Civilian. Wrong place, wrong time.
Gordon stared at one of the photos—that same easy smile, now clearly visible in afternoon sunlight outside a coffee shop.
Protocol was clear. Fifteen years of experience was clear.
He had to eliminate John Rahway.
Tomorrow. Quick and quiet.
:::
Tomorrow became the next day.
The first attempt, a cat interrupted.
Gordon had taken up position on a rooftop with clear sightlines to John’s route home from the bar he frequented on Fridays—information Gordon had picked up through social networks. No cameras. No witnesses. Enough darkness to make it look like a mugging gone wrong.
John appeared, walking with the loose-limbed ease of someone three beers in. Gordon adjusted his scope, finger resting on the trigger.
Then John stopped walking and looked down.
A scruffy orange tabby materialized from between two parked cars, trotting directly toward John with its tail up. Gordon knew every cat in this neighborhood—they were all feral, skittish, wouldn't come within ten feet of a human.
This one headbutted John's shin.
John laughed—Gordon could see it even from a distance, the way his shoulders shook—and sat down right there on the sidewalk. The cat climbed into his lap immediately, purring loud enough that Gordon swore he could hear it from four stories up.
Gordon kept his eye to the scope, finger on the trigger.
He could take the shot. The cat would scatter. Job done.
But John was scratching behind the cat's ears with focused attention, smiling like he'd just won the lottery, and Gordon found himself thinking: I'm not going to shoot a guy petting a cat. I'm not that far gone.
He'd have other opportunities. Better ones. Later that same night, even.
Except John eventually stood up, and the cat followed him for half a block, and Gordon followed them both with his scope but never adjusted his position to get a clean angle once John turned the corner.
:::
The second time, it was an old lady.
Gordon had position near the subway entrance John used every morning. Clean shot, crowded enough that panic would delay any coherent witness statements, and Gordon would be three blocks away before anyone thought to look up.
John came up the subway steps at 8:47 AM, coffee in one hand, phone in the other.
Gordon tracked him through the scope.
An elderly woman was struggling up the stairs—the elevator was probably broken—and she was carrying a cat carrier. Damn cats again. John immediately pocketed his phone and stepped in to help, lifting the carrier and guiding her up. He walked her half a block to her building while she patted his arm and talked his ear off.
Gordon watched the entire thing through the scope.
By the time John handed over the groceries and crossed the street toward his office, Gordon's perfect shot was gone.
He lowered the rifle.
Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow for sure.
:::
The third time was the bicycle.
John was crossing against the light—not recklessly, just in that way people did when no cars were immediately visible—and a delivery cyclist came around the corner doing at least twenty miles per hour.
Gordon watched John twist sideways at the last possible second, the bicycle's handlebar missing his ribs by maybe two inches. The cyclist didn't even slow down, just swore and kept going.
John stumbled, caught himself against a lamppost, then continued walking like nothing had happened.
Gordon realized his hands had tensed on the rifle. Realized he'd been about to... what? Shoot the cyclist? That was insane.
But he'd been relieved when John dodged.
:::
The fourth time was the grocery bag.
John's paper bag split open right on the sidewalk—bottles, cans, vegetables, everything tumbling toward the concrete. Gordon watched through an open window as John somehow caught the rolling apple mid-bounce, snatched a can of something out of the air with his other hand, and then trapped the bag against his hip before anything else could fall.
It was pure reflex, impossibly quick, and Gordon found himself genuinely impressed.
Good reflexes, he thought. Probably played sports in college.
Definitely nothing suspicious about that.
And once again, Gordon didn't shoot.
:::
The problem was that he had been watching John for more than a week now. Following him. Learning his patterns. The cafés he favored, the jogging route he took on weekends, the friend he met for the movies on Wednesday.
Gordon told himself he was being thorough. Strategic. Looking for the perfect opportunity. Making sure John hadn't reported anything.
The truth was becoming harder to ignore: he was stalling.
:::
Then came the mugging.
Gordon was stationed across from John's apartment, watching the street. It was past midnight. John had been at the same bar as always, probably having those same three beers he always had on Friday nights, and would be home any minute.
Voices from the alley between Gordon's building and the next caught his attention. Three men, young, agitated. When Gordon leaned toward his window, he could see them clearly—one checking a gun in his waistband, another bouncing on his toes, the third watching the street.
Then the third one saw John approaching half a block away—phone out, attention down, completely oblivious—and quickly rejoined his companions. Urgent whispered conversation. Agreement.
They were going to jump him.
Gordon watched John walking closer, still looking at his phone, completely unaware.
This was perfect. He could let it happen. They'd rob John, maybe threaten him, maybe things would go wrong in exactly the right way. Either way, John would have his phone and wallet stolen, and three actual criminals would be the natural suspects if anything worse happened—like death.
Gordon pulled out his rifle.
He didn't let himself think. Just aimed.
First shot—the one with the gun. Dropped clean.
Second shot—the bouncing one. Down.
The third started to turn, mouth opening for a scream. Gordon shot him before he could make a sound.
Three seconds. Three bodies.
Gordon was already moving, taking the fire escape down three floors in seconds, hitting the ground and dragging the first body behind the dumpsters. Then the second. Then the third. He finished just as John walked past the alley mouth, eyes still on his phone, completely unaware of how close he'd come to disaster.
Gordon pressed his back against the brick wall, breathing hard.
He now had three bodies to hide and one target very much alive.
And he couldn't regret it. Couldn't even pretend to regret it.
This is completely out of hand, he thought.
But he still didn't shoot John Rahway.
:::
Three days later, Gordon was following John to work—half a block back, blending into the morning commute—when John stopped walking.
Just stopped. Middle of the sidewalk, people flowing around him like water around a stone.
Then John turned around.
And looked directly at Gordon.
Their eyes met across thirty feet of crowded sidewalk. John's expression was calm, knowing, and just a little bit amused.
He smiled—that same small smile from the night of Fellman's death—then turned and continued toward his office building.
Gordon stood frozen while pedestrians jostled past him.
He knows.
He'd known the whole time. Known Gordon was following him, known Gordon was... whatever Gordon was doing. And he hadn't run, hadn't called the police, hadn't done anything except apparently find it entertaining.
That wasn't normal. That wasn't civilian behavior.
Gordon made a decision.
If John Rahway already knew, there was no point in pretending otherwise. Time to face this directly. Figure out what John actually was, what he wanted, and what the hell Gordon was going to do about it.
:::
Gordon stood outside John's apartment building for ten minutes before ringing the buzzer.
This was either the stupidest thing he'd ever done or... actually, no, it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done. Walking directly into a situation he didn't understand, with a target who'd demonstrated unsettling awareness and suspicious reflexes, abandoning every protocol he'd ever followed.
Gordon pressed the button for apartment 4C.
"Hello?" John's voice came through the speaker, light and pleasant.
"I think we should talk." No point in games.
A pause. Then: "Fourth floor. Door's unlocked."
The door buzzed open.
Gordon climbed the stairs slowly, hand near the gun under his jacket, hyperaware of every shadow and corner. The building was old but well-maintained, with decent lighting and no obvious ambush points. Fourth floor hallway was empty.
Apartment 4C's door was indeed unlocked.
Gordon pushed it open carefully, staying to the side.
"Come in!" John called from somewhere inside. "I'm in the kitchen."
Gordon entered, closing the door behind him but not engaging the deadbolt—keep the exit clear. The apartment was small but comfortable. Books everywhere, a decent couch, framed prints of national parks on the walls. Smelled like coffee and something sweet baking.
John appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing jeans and a t-shirt from some 5K charity run, holding a coffee mug. He looked exactly like his photos—short tousled blond hair, blue eyes, easy smile. Completely unthreatening.
Which made Gordon more nervous, not less.
"Coffee?" John offered. "Just made a fresh pot."
"No."
"Suit yourself." John took a sip from his own mug, leaning against the doorframe. "So. Gordon Cozier. Freelance problem solver. Fifteen-year perfect record. Works alone. Lives in Queens. You always order your coffee black, with two sugars, and you tip exactly fifteen percent."
Gordon's hand moved toward his gun.
"Relax," John said, still smiling. "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't have let you make it past the second floor. There's a pressure sensor on the third-floor landing. Would've been very easy."
"Who are you?"
"John Rahway. Bank consultant. You've been following me for two weeks, you probably know what brand of toothpaste I use by now."
Gordon didn't move. "Cut the shit. You're not a bank consultant."
"I absolutely am a bank consultant," John said cheerfully. "I consult for banks. Very boring work, actually. Lots of spreadsheets." He paused. "I also do some freelance work on the side. Different kind of problem-solving than yours, but similar market. Sometimes I think about actually being a bank consultant. Full-time, I mean. But then I'd have to go to so many meetings, and I'd probably murder someone anyway, just out of boredom."
Understanding hit Gordon like cold water. "You're a contractor."
"Bingo." John raised his coffee mug in mock salute. "Though I prefer 'independent specialist'. Sounds classier."
Gordon's mind raced, recalibrating everything. "The night Fellman died—"
"I was finishing a job two buildings down. Different target, same general area. Timing was pure coincidence." John's smile widened slightly. "Though I have to say, I only caught you because I have very good ears and happened to be in exactly the right position. Lucky, really."
"You saw me kill someone."
"Technically, I saw a muzzle flash and inferred the rest." John shrugged. "Wasn't my business. I had my own mess to clean up. But then you started following me, and I got curious."
"Standard protocol—"
"—is to eliminate the witness. I know." John straightened up, walking back into the kitchen. "Except you didn't. You had about fifty opportunities over the past two weeks, and you didn't take a single one. So I started wondering: what do you want?"
That was the problem. Gordon didn't know.
He followed John to the kitchen doorway. The room was small and bright, afternoon sun streaming through the window. A cake sat cooling on the counter—chocolate, from the smell and color.
John caught him looking. "Made it a few hours ago." He pulled two plates from the cabinet. "Want a slice? I promise it's not poisoned."
Gordon stared at him. "How would I possibly trust that?"
"Because if I wanted to poison you, I'd have done it weeks ago—when you were having coffee at that café across from my apartment." John cut two generous slices of cake. "I watched you nurse the same cup for forty‑five minutes while you pretended to read the paper and actually watched my building. You went to that café multiple times. It would've been trivial to dose your drink."
"You—" Gordon stopped. "You were watching me watch you?"
"It's polite to be aware of one's stalkers." John slid a plate across the small kitchen table, then sat down with his own slice. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed. "See? Not poisoned. Though I suppose I could've built up an immunity to whatever poison I used, Princess Bride style. But that seems overly complicated."
Gordon remained standing.
John ate another bite of cake, completely relaxed. "So. Why didn't you shoot me?"
"I was being thorough—"
"Bullshit." John pointed his fork at Gordon. "You don't stay in this business fifteen years by overthinking. You had clean shots. Multiple times. I practically gift-wrapped opportunities for you."
"You—" Gordon's jaw tightened. "You were testing me?"
"I was curious," John said, grinning. "And then there was the mugging. See, I knew those guys were there. I heard them setting up. I’ve got eyes on the streets around my apartment. I was going to handle it myself—had a knife, would've been quick. But then I heard silenced gunshots—three of them. And I thought, Huh. Is Gordon Cozier saving my life, or just eliminating inconvenient witnesses?"
Gordon said nothing.
"I got my answer," John continued softly. "You didn't have to. Wasn't part of your protocol. But you did it anyway. So I'm asking again: what do you want, Mr. Cozier?"
The answer sat in Gordon's chest like a stone, too complicated to voice. He'd been asking himself the same question for two weeks.
Finally, he pulled out the chair and sat down. Looked at the cake on the plate in front of him.
"If this kills me," he said, "I'm going to be extremely annoyed."
"Noted." John was still smiling.
Gordon picked up the fork and took a bite.
It was excellent cake. Moist, rich chocolate with some kind of espresso undertone. Definitely not poisoned, unless John was an absolute psychopath who'd waste this quality of baking on murder.
They ate in silence for a minute.
"I don't know what I want," Gordon admitted finally. "I know what I'm supposed to do. What protocol says. But—" He stopped, searching for words. "You're not what I expected."
"Bank consultant who moonlights as a killer?" John said with a smile. "That's pretty much what you are too. Just swap 'bank consultant' for 'security systems specialist'."
John finished his cake. "We're basically the same person, except you're terrible at actually killing your targets, apparently."
"I've never missed a target."
"You're missing one right now. I'm sitting right here."
Gordon met his eyes. John was still smiling, but there was something sharp underneath it now. A challenge.
"Are you trying to make me shoot you?"
"I'm trying to figure out if you actually want to." John leaned back in his chair. "Because here's the thing: you've been following me for two weeks. You know my patterns, my routines, my favorite coffee shop. And somewhere in there, you stopped seeing me as a witness who needed eliminating and started seeing me as... what?"
Gordon didn't have an answer.
"I'll tell you what I see," John continued. "I see someone who's very good at his job but maybe a little tired of always working alone. Someone who maybe, just maybe, is curious about what it would be like to have a conversation with someone who actually understands what we do."
It was too accurate. Gordon felt exposed, like John had reached into his head and pulled out thoughts Gordon hadn't fully articulated to himself.
"That's a lot of assumptions," he managed.
"Am I wrong?"
No. But Gordon wasn't going to say that out loud.
John stood up, collecting their plates. "Look, here's my proposition. You've spent two weeks not killing me. I've spent two weeks not killing you—and believe me, I had opportunities too. So maybe we call it even and see what happens."
"See what happens," Gordon repeated flatly.
"Yeah. Keep each other's numbers. Maybe get coffee sometime. Complain about difficult clients." John rinsed the plates in the sink. "I work alone too, always have. But it might be nice to know someone who gets it. Someone I don't have to lie to about what I do."
Gordon should leave. Should eliminate this complication and go back to his perfectly controlled, perfectly solitary life.
Instead, he heard himself say: "You mentioned having good ears."
"Freakishly good. Also excellent spatial awareness and faster reflexes than I have any right to." John dried his hands on a towel. "Genetic lottery, I guess. Makes the work easier."
"The bicycle thing wasn't luck."
"Nope." John grinned. "I heard him coming from the next block over. Poor guy really needs to oil his chain."
Despite everything, Gordon felt his mouth twitch toward a smile. "The apple catch?"
"Okay, that one was partly luck. But mostly practice. I used to juggle."
"You used to juggle."
"Four years of theater in high school. Had to pick up some skills." John pulled out his phone. "So. You want to exchange numbers or keep stalking me the old-fashioned way? Because like I said, I've started stalking back, and I'm much better at it than you are."
Gordon stared at him. This man was absolutely going to get him killed, one way or another.
He pulled out his own phone.
They exchanged numbers in silence.
"Great!" John pocketed his phone. "Now, do you want to stay for dinner? I was going to make pasta."
"I should go," Gordon said.
He didn't move.
John waited, eyebrows raised.
"What kind of pasta?" Gordon heard himself ask.
"Carbonara. Real carbonara, not that cream sauce nonsense people here try to pass off."
"You can make real carbonara?"
"I spent six months in Rome on a job. Learned from a grandmother in Trastevere." John was already pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. "So is that a yes?"
Gordon knew this was a terrible idea. Knew he was violating every rule he'd ever set for himself. Knew that getting involved with another contractor—especially one who'd witnessed him on a job—was exactly the kind of complication that got people killed.
"Yes," he said.
John's smile was bright and beautiful.
It took Gordon a few seconds before he realized he was smiling too.
:::
END