Alok was still on the tail of the target. He had been on tail for the last week. He knew the target’s daily routine by now. 8am, he was on his way to work, 2pm, left work and headed back home, stayed for a few minutes and headed out to a restaurant to eat. By 6pm he was in a hotel or he was back home in front of the TV for hours before going to bed. Alok had picked up some new information for bus contractor with the bugs he had planted in the Target’s bedroom. The 2 occasions he had picked up anything relevant and useful was when he was having a conversation on the phone about a secret meeting. His contractor has found that very useful and had asked him to move the elimination date 3 days upwards, Alok never complained about change of plans, he was always prepared, besides his clients paid for an effective and efficient service and with the prices he charged, he made sure to give them their money’s worth.

So it was that the elimination date was tomorrow. After mapping out his strategies, he had decided that the most efficient place to take our the target would be in his own home and he would clean up after himself of course. Now he turned around and headed back home, to get an overnight bag, he would be spending the night in his car parked across the street from the target’s house.

He was outside the target’s house now, across the street. He had brought his overnight bag along. He didn’t tail the target today because he might start getting suspicious of the car always behind him everyday right across the street, out all night. He simply waited, while the client was gone during the day, checked his security measures, he had hidden a roll of plastic wrap somewhere in the house, he hated cleaning up after a job so for this one he brought along a preventive measure, before he took the client out he would wrap the entire room he was going to make the hit in, he didn’t want blood splashing on the walls and making it look like an actual crime scene, he was hoping to play this out as nothing but suicide, he brought his gloves with him, that way his bio data was safe and wouldn’t be anywhere in the house.

He waited for hours, at some point he felt the target would go to a hotel instead of coming back home and that would put a hole in his plans.

He didn’t need to wait anymore, he soon saw the target’s car enter his driveway. Alok waited for him to enter the house and proceed to his room before getting out of his own car and going across to the Target’s house.

Other hand

Ava got home quite late as she had stopped at a diner to have lunch then headed to the office to finish up some of the workload on her desk. By closing time, she was all set to head home. She didn’t spend so much time on the road although she had been stuck in a really bad traffic but it had been cleared up pretty fast.

She knocked on the door, the door opened to reveal Anika dressed in her night dress as she didn’t have a party today unlike yesterday.

“Welcome back mom” Anika said as she took her mother’s handbag from her with the intention of taking it to the room for her.

“Thank you, how’re you?” Ava said.

“I’m alright, how was work?” anika.asked.

“Not so stressful, I didn’t have much to do today” ava replied.

“Well, come along, I left the heater on just in case you were to come in late so you would be able to take a hot bath” anika said.

“That’s so thoughtful of you” ava replied with a smile.

“Anything for you mom, now I was whipping up something for dinner, let me go check on it, I left the gas on low heat so my food won’t get burnt, meanwhile, you just take a nice bath and come down for dinner” She said and immediately left.

Ava wasn’t all that fatigued, she had almost forgotten the events of the morning, how funny would that be if she forgot to tell her Anika about the recent developments? She got out of her clothes, got into the bath tub and started to run the water. Soon she was immersed in a nice and soothing bath, she savored the feeling it gave her for a while, took her bath and stepped out. She put on a gown, put her hair in a bun and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She found Anika bent over the pot trying to stir the food, she sat quietly and waited, soon the meal was cooked and Anika served their portions on plates.

They began to eat in silence, Ava figured she would rather talk about today’s events in the sitting room than in the kitchen so she just ate her food.

“Mom, how’s the food?” Anika spoke up in between bites.

“You shouldn’t talk while eating and the food is alright, you did a wonderful job honey”

“I’m a woman now mom, you don’t have to reprimand me for table etiquette, thank you for the compliment by the way” Anika replied.

“I see, a young lady is more like it but oh well, can we just eat?”

“Alright, alright” Anika scoffed.

They were soon done with their meal, Anika collected both plates for washing while Ava sat waiting for her, she was soon done with the chore, cleaned up and walked out to the sitting room.

Ava followed suit, they sat on separate ends of the same couch, with Anika flipping through channels trying to find something interesting to watch, Ava started,

“Honey, can we talk about something?”

“Sure mom” Anika said With taking her eyes off the TV and her finger off the remote.

“So, this morning I went to see a family friend”

“Okay…”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve met him before, Mr. Guarav?”

“Sure mom, what about him?”

“Well, We concluded on something quite trivial and essential for the growth of our companies individually”

“Oh wow, what’s that?” Ava was finally getting her attention as Anika still hadn’t let go of the remote but had turned to face her.

“Well, congratulations sweetie, you’ll be getting engaged really soon!”

“What??! Mom??!”

“We talked about this yesterday didn’t we?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think you would move that fast”

“Well, we’ve already conclude arrangements and we’ve struck a deal so like it or not, you’re getting engaged”

“Alright, who’s the boy?”

“Glad you asked, he’s Mr. Guarav’s Son and also the Heir to the Kapoor Business Empire, now you see why we need this merger?”

“Hmm, I see now, okay, I just hope he’s good looking because if he isn’t, I might have a hard time convincing myself and him also that I fancy him” Anika said as she turned back to the TV.

“Of course he is, you have nothing to worry about”

“Alright”

“Now, I would leave his number for you so you can phone him up then the both of you can go on a date to know each other well”

“Okay mom, got it”

“Good, now see to it that you also appeal to him as well as without this engagement, with the current decline of our company and the current state of the economy, we would be broke and have nothing to feed on soon, we need their resources to shoulder us till we can get back on our feet, you hear me? Appeal to him” Ava said as she stood up.

“Okay mom, I understand”

“Good, now I will be retiring to bed, good night Nika”

“Good night mom, sleep tight”

“Thank you, sleep tight as well”

Ava climbed the stairs and headed to her room to turn in for the night, she got it and closed the door behind her, as she lay in bed, she thought about the events of today, now the wheels had been set in motion, she was optimistic that Nika could do a good job of making him fall for her, after all she was a model and could charm any man with her ways, she was optimistic that Nika wouldn’t fail, she drifted off to sleep.

Other side

Alok got to the porch and waited a bit before heading to the back of the house. He had already studied the entry points and getaway points of the house, he got to the back, slid open the sliding door and crouched. He checked his watch, it was 2am. The target would be fast asleep by this time following the stressful day he had had at work. Alok was always careful to take out a target at their most vulnerable point, he didn’t anybody trying to a hero and fighting back. He hated those kinds, they always put up a fight not knowing Alok was a trained martial artist and most times he always used weapons and not his hands. The pay was big enough and that alone obligated him never to make a mistake of not taking out a target.

The target was In bed, snoring nosily. Alok walked into his bedroom slowly and quietly, wouldn’t want him waking up. Alok went to the Target’s wardrobe and got out his roll of plastic wrap for the occasion, he was set to start wrapping the whole room but not before he took a couple of sleeping pills and shoved it down the target’s throat, that should keep him knocked out for a good while and also put him in a deep enough sleep to block out the noise Alok was going to make pretty soon.

He wrapped everywhere, from the bedside lamp to the walls, the plastic wrap itself always stuck fast to any surface, so it was good for a job such as this one. Alok was soon done with wrapping, he put on his leather gloves to protect his bio data, the ones on his fingerprints, he put a silencer on his pistol and sent the bullets flying straight into the target’s head, there was no noise except for the sound the gun made after each shot, it sounded like a whistle that had a lot of air in it. This wasn’t the first time Alok was using this method of elimination.. He remembered his very first time, the target had let out a moan at first before the 2nd and 3rd shots hit her skull, for nights on end, Alok would see hear that moan and see that face, he was soon diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and soon he was required to go see a therapist, it was so bad that even the most relieving thing as sex would bring an episode of PTSD and he wouldn’t be able to perform, he laid off sex for months because of that. That was his first time he had used that method, he had used it on couple of new targets and with time he had gotten used to it, he no longer closed his eyes while he did it like the first few times. He was a contract killer and one had to have the stomach for such a job.

He checked the pulse of the target then his neck to feel a pulse there also, once he made sure he was dead, he proceeded to the hard part of the night, staging the killing to look like a suicide.

He quickly removed the wrap, rolled in a corner and began positioning the target in rather suggestive positions, he put his pistol in one of the target’s hand and put the bottle of sleeping pills in the other, the cops would take the body for a toxicology report and obviously would find traces of the pills in his system, he had given the target an overdose of pills. After that, he went round the house debugging the place and taking out his cameras he had put in place for surveillance. His work her was done. He put all of this things in a trash bag, he would burn everything when he got home. Leave no traces. It was like he was never here which he wasn’t of course. He stepped out, checked his wrist watch, 15 minutes to 5am, the sun was rising already. He didn’t beat his record, well there was always a next time. He closed the sliding doors, went across the street and back into his car, he put the trash bag in the backseat, when he got home, he would send the confirmation mail then.