CROSSHAIRS

PROLOGUE

He promised himself he wasn't going to drink too much last night. 

Well, by the time he sobers up and takes an insane amount of Advil -- in his case, 4-- he'll be sure to add that one to his long "Promises I Intended to Keep But Didn't" list.

RJ groans when he feels the heat of the sun touch his bare skin. He doesn't remember the details of what happened last night -- and how he got home -- but one thing he remembers is stripping off his clothes and jumping into the bed, not even bothering to close his window blinds. He tries to reach for the nightstand and feel around for his phone but he doesn't find it. "Fuck it," he mutters under his breath, and removes his duvet only to feel a cool breeze pass through between his legs. Yes, that part. He realizes it a second too late because when he looks out the window, he sees an old woman in a hotel room directly across his, looking at him wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He quickly covers himself up with a pillow and closes his blinds. He's thankful that nobody else saw him, but it was still embarrassing on his part. He curses himself and makes a mental note to always, always close his window blinds next time - drunk or not.

As soon as he freshens up and gets dressed, he makes his way to his laptop - well, his company's laptop. He logs in on his account but his access gets denied. He tries logging in again, not thinking much about it. He is hungover after all. But after a couple of attempts and a warning pop-up flashes on his screen, he gets suspicious. He tries to hack his brain of any memories that happened the night before. "Please. Anything,"  he pleads with himself. Nothing. He panics. What if he gave out his account details to someone last night? Or worse, what if he let slip where he works?

Richard Faulkerson, Jr., or RJ as his friends and family call him, is a good man. Well, leaving out the 3-time divorcé part, he is mostly a good man. He has a good-paying job - one that a lot of people would kill for, he has a nice penthouse apartment, he has some nice cars, and he doesn't have a family to care about.

At least until he decides to get married again.

And it's not like his job is some top-secret, highly confidential one. He works at a Fortune 500 company, and he's pretty high up there which explains the penthouse, the cars and, well, the partying. 

But, as with any other human being on Earth, RJ has a secret. The man doesn't have a lot of secrets, and he's pretty much an open book, but this one he's willing to take with him to his grave. He has another job, and only a handful of people know about it. Not his closest friends, not even his family.

He finally hears his phone ring and he answers it almost immediately. A woman's voice, unfamiliar to RJ, begins to talk on the other line. "Check your messages after this call," the voice commands. And before RJ could speak, she hangs up the phone. He hurriedly checks his messages and sure enough, he sees an unopened message from an unknown number. He opens it - a link for an article.

Or rather, a website.

More specifically, an obituary website. He reads through it and his heart starts to race as soon as he reads the first and only entry: RICHARD FAULKERSON, Jr. (B. 1992, D. 2017).

Okay rewind. Remember the 3-time divorcé thing? That wasn't entirely true. There weren't any separations, and he sure as hell isn't paying for alimony. It was a perfect cover-up by the other company he works for - the one that gave him his highly complicated, encrypted laptop. They didn't want any suspicions to arise, especially in their line of work. RJ, on the other hand, likes it when things are organized.

He's a loyal man, in every sense of the word. He adored his ex-wives and their family, and they loved him, too.  

So loyal in fact, that when The Other Company orders him to kill his wives, he'd do it in a heartbeat.

Now isn't that something to be adored?