Note: I wrote this when I was bored and felt I needed to write something other than poetry for this site. Reviews are not necessary, but appreciated.

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‘The Hit’

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The cold rain poured down endlessly, pounding against his long leather coat. His denim jeans were soaked through and his trainers were soggy. His white muscle shirt was wet from being pressed hard against the wet roof tiling. His best going-out clothes were now ruined – he at this moment regretted wearing them. On the plus side, with the amount he was getting paid for this job, he could buy a newer, better outfit.

Staring through the scope of a rifle trying hard to keep it fixed on the window of a penthouse suite in some adjacent building is hard enough. The fact that his clothes were drenched only made it worse. The coldness of the night was finally setting in – he was shivering. A professional like him never shivered. It was unheard of.

Finding it difficult enough to focus, the man – a well-built Caucasian who looked to be in his early to mid-thirties – removed his blue-tinted sunglasses and stuffed the expensive shades in to an inside breast pocket. He didn’t need them much – not yet. He needed to concentrate, to focus; otherwise it’d never go ahead as planned. He didn’t want to fail. Failure in his line of work meant more than just a lack of a lousy paycheque. Oh, it meant much more than that.

The man readjusted his position on the rooftop, remaining invisible against the night’s curtain of absolute darkness. He glanced briefly at his Omega wristwatch, illuminating the face; it read 12:55AM. Hopefully his target would be arriving any minute now – hopefully. Once he did, it was a simple matter of pulling the trigger and delighting in watching the poor bloke’s brains splatter over the bedroom wall.

The man had spent a good few years in this profession – a little over five and counting. He was a hard-nosed professional; there was no doubt about that. He’d accepted his first contract five and a half years back. Back then, he’d only just come out of the military and was looking for a proper career. His skill with his weapon of choice – an SG-550 sniper rifle – was unprecedented, certainly in the world of Mafioso hit men. Back then, the elderly don’s son was running a recruitment drive. When he’d seen the man’s skills he’d deemed him a talented individual and he’d wasted no time in hiring him on the spot.

So here he was, on what must’ve been his thirtieth hit for the Loretta Family. Twenty-nine whacks ago, he’d had all of two hundred British pounds in his pocket. Now he had two million. He was feared and revered – just what every assassin wanted. What they could only dream of, even. Yet here he was.

His eyes caught something through the scope. He instantly snapped back into reality and focused immediately. His target was entering his penthouse suite. He’d heard it through the open bedroom window. As his ears registered the front door of the target’s suite closing, he took up his practised position, lying flat on his stomach. Certainly, his suit was ruined, but in a few short seconds one man’s life would be over and his family’s life would be ruined. This man had interfered in Loretta affairs too long. He just had to be taken out.

The Mafioso’s ears didn’t register his target’s footsteps, but soon he had him right where he wanted him – the bedroom. At the target entered his bedroom, brushing back his blonde tresses behind his ear, he walked over to his windows and closed him, not taking a second to pay attention to the roof of the adjacent building – as far as he was concerned, nothing was there.

The target then began slowly removing his business suit. The assassin took a couple of short seconds to check his Omega wristwatch again; 1AM. It was perfect timing. The hit man slightly readjusted his rifle and waited a few short seconds. Naturally, the target turned his back to the far-off barrel of the sniper rifle, slipping off his pearl-white shirt and exposing his bare, muscular back. As if his night couldn’t get any better, the hired gun had a clear shot directly into human flesh. That was satisfying for him.

The assassin gripped the trigger tightly. His chance was now. It was now. Out of curiosity, he waited a few more seconds. His mind was screaming at him to pull the trigger and be done with it. The short wait had paid off. Now he had a perfect shot at the skull as the target bent down.

Without hesitation and with the practised precision of a professional, he pulled the trigger. We shall not go into too much unnecessary detail of what become of the poor fellow’s skull and brain matter, but we shall remain comfortable knowing that the deed was done.

Watching his target slump to the ground, the hit man once again slipped into the darkness of the night, vanishing from sight as the sound of distant police sirens filled the air…