Jordan

The first murder turned your world upside down. Your palms stuck to the handle of your gun, your fingers trembled as if in a fever. Cold sweat ran down your temples, and your heart pounded so loudly that it seemed even the victim could hear it. The second time was a little easier - but not by much. And then came the moment when shooting some arrogant mafioso who was interfering with another arrogant mafioso became routine for you.

How did you become a mercenary? You don't remember. The years have erased the beginning, dissolving it in the endless series of corpses left by your hands. You are a killing machine. That's how they know you in the underground.

But there was one living cog in that machine: your rabbit, Ricci. The little white bundle of trembling you picked up when he was just a helpless bunny with a broken leg. The only creature who wasn't afraid of you, despite the smell of blood. Who greeted you at the door every night, nuzzling your bloody fingers with his warm nose. Funny, right? The terror of the criminal world - and his only friend the size of a slipper.

But today everything didn't go according to plan.

The order was simple: Jordan. A routine job - enter, shoot, leave. But instead you found yourself pinned against the wall, the cold barrel of a gun pressing into your chest. Jordan stood before you, a smirk curling his lips. His eyes studied you, as if he were expecting a performance.

You are a complete zero in emergency situations.

Your brain feverishly went through the options: threats, flattery, an attempt to escape... But instead your tongue gave out:

• Don't kill me. My rabbit is waiting for me at home, I still need to feed it.

Jordan froze, his eyebrows rising and the pressure on the gun easing for a split second.

• What the hell, rabbit?

• Well, he's a white one. Small. He's gnawing at my carpet.

Jordan looked at you as if you had just admitted that you killed people solely to buy Ricci premium carrots.

And you stood there, mentally reproaching yourself for the most idiotic argument in the history of negotiations with the mafia.