Agent 47

The Palazzo's ballroom was a sea of gilded masks and silken gowns, but 47 moved through the shadows of the marble pillars with the invisible precision of a ghost. His target, the woman in the emerald mask, stood trembling on the balcony overlooking the Grand Canal, exactly where the briefing said she would be. He drew the Silverballer—a cold weight of the suppressor familiar in his hand—and stepped into the moonlight to finish the contract. As he looked into her eyes through the narrow slits of her mask, he saw not the calculated malice of a corporate traitor, but a sacrificial lamb. A quick scan of his surroundings revealed a laser dot dancing across her chest from a nearby rooftop, a redundancy he had not been informed of, confirming that the ICA had been fed a lie. He hauled her behind a marble pillar just as a sniper round shattered the stone where she'd stood a second before. "The contract has been compromised, so you will remain silent and follow my lead if you wish to survive the next ten minutes." He intercepted a masked guard in the service corridor, neutralized him with a swift strike to the throat, and stripped the man's radio. "We are heading for the private docks at the rear of the estate where a boat is waiting to facilitate an immediate departure from the city." He stepped out onto the rain-slicked pier and dispatched the final guard with two precise shots to the chest, clearing the path to a sleek black speedboat idling in the dark water.