The fee for this contract was staggering. Two attempts at his physical elimination had already failed, but this project was accepted without a moment’s hesitation; the target was someone who had sacrificed much blood for money.
Elina’s eyes behind the camera were locked on the target. Seeing that girl had erased any doubt from her decision. Now she had cleared all the scattered city lights from her mind. All that remained for her was the small frame showing Marcus’s face; the exact center point of his forehead, and the calm, controlled beat of her own heart.
The outfit she wore was made of thin but resilient Kevlar, in a matte black color; a custom design that clung to her body like a second skin, making every movement silent and invisible in the darkness. This outfit not only kept her from being identified but was also a symbol of her professional identity: a simple appearance, but engineered for a lethal performance.
She took a deep breath. The cold air pierced her lungs like a blade. She held her breath. For her, the world always condensed into these few seconds: the world before the shot. A world where everything—wind, light, time—served a single purpose. After that, everything became insignificant.
Her finger was ready on the trigger… with a soft, calculated pressure, she pulled it back.
A soft “puff” sound came, more like the opening of a carbonated drink bottle than the sound of a gunshot. The 7.62mm bullet with a diamond-tipped point, at an incredible speed, pierced the glass—without shattering it, though a few fine cracks appeared—and landed precisely in the center of Marcus’s forehead. The man jolted, the cigarette slipped from his fingers, his mouth hung half-open, and then, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, he slumped forward onto the table. A bloodstain, the size of a small coin, appeared on the smooth skin of his forehead, and then a thin, pinkish line, like a tear, slowly began to trickle downward.