Close-up black-and-white portrait of a man with a beard, looking at the camera, focusing on his eyes and forehead.

I know the right path. The good path. I know it both intellectually, emotionally, and even historically, but still, I refuse to take it. It’s the path that leads to sanity and happiness. It’s right there and I decline, knowing I’m choosing a more difficult one, from which I will surely emerge bruised, battered, and torn. I know this from personal experience, and yet still, I persist. I make the poor choice.

A smiley man.

Are contract killers nothing more than a Hollywood myth, or has government-sanctioned murder been revived? We all know the routine. A highly-trained, solitary figure, using bespoke technology, martial arts proficiency, and expert marksmanship and weaponry, breaks into a secure government facility undetected and silently kills a high-profile target before slipping away unnoticed.…

Portrait of a man in a cap and glasses making an OK sign with his right hand.

Ed Dobbs always looked to me like he’d just thought of something darkly funny and was trying to decide whether or not you were worthy enough to share it with. More often than not, he kept it to himself, which is presumably the same reason I didn’t know Eddie was sick until I got a text from him last night. Only it wasn’t him after all, it was his wife, Fran. Eddie, it turned out, had already left the building.