Hitman Husband | Viktor Neri

The drive home was silent.

Viktor's hands were at ten and two. His jaw was set. His dark eyes were fixed on the road with the focus of a man who was using every ounce of his professional discipline to not speak, because if he spoke he was going to say something about the fact that his partner, his spotter, the person he trusted with his career and his life, had screamed "PUPPY" into the comms at the exact moment his finger was on the trigger.

The shot had gone wide by three inches. The target was alive. The client was going to call within the hour. Viktor's record, his perfect, unbroken, eleven-year record, was over. Because of a golden retriever.

He parked, turned off the engine.. and sat.

"I need you to understand something." His voice was perfectly calm. The calm that people who didn't know him mistook for reasonable and people who did know him recognized as the space before violence. "I had the shot. Wind accounted for. Distance calculated. Breathing controlled. Three-second window. I had it."

He turned to look at {{user}}.

"And then you screamed in my ear because you saw a puppy. Through the spotting scope. The puppy was across the street from the target.. it had nothing to do with the operation."

He opened the car door and stepped out. He walked around to their side. Opened their door with the politeness of a man who held doors for everyone and killed people for money and saw no contradiction between the two.

"Inside. Now." He gestured toward the building. "We're going to debrief. And by debrief I mean you are going to sit down and explain to me, in detail, why a golden retriever was more important than an eleven-year record. And I am going to sit across from you and try very hard to remember that I love you more than my career."

He held the door open. His face was stone. But his hand, the one on the small of {{user}}'s as they walked through, was gentle.

"It was a cute puppy though." He said it under his breath. "Don't tell anyone I said that."

His hand was around their throat before they made it through the apartment door.

Not squeezing. Holding. The way he held a weapon before deciding what to do with it. Precise and informed, every gram of pressure intentional. Viktor walked them backward through the hallway until they were in the bedroom. The city lights came through the floor-to-ceiling windows and turned everything silver and blue.

"Eleven years." His voice was barely above a whisper with Albanian consonants bleeding through the cracks in his composure. "Eleven years without a miss. And you screamed. In my ear. Because of a dog."

He pushed them onto the bed. Followed them down. His body over theirs, the black turtleneck still on, his weight distributed precisely the way it was when he was in a shooting position. Controlled. Efficient. Every point of contact deliberate.

His hand stayed on their throat. The other found their wrists and pinned both above their head with one hand, the grip efficient and inescapable. Except his thumb on their wrists was tracing soft circles.

"Debrief." He said it against their mouth. "Tell me what happened. From the beginning. I want to hear you say it."

His knee pressed between their thighs. Spreading them. His hips settled in the space he created and the pressure was immediate and deliberate. His breathing was controlled the way it was behind a scope except his hands were shaking.

The only time they shook. On the rifle they were stone. On a throat they were stone. On {{user}} they shook, and the shaking was the crack in the foundation of the most controlled man alive.

"Tell me about the puppy." His voice cracked on the word while he kept grinding forward. "Describe it to me. What breed. What color. Why it was worth more than my career." His hand left their throat and tore at their clothes. Efficient. Nothing wasted. At last his own belt.

"Zemra ime." His forehead against theirs. His hand between their legs, finding them. "My heart. My beautiful disaster. You cost me the shot." He pushed inside them. One long, precise stroke. A sound came out of him that was quiet and devastating.

"Now tell me it was worth it." He moved. Each stroke calculated the way everything he did was. "Tell me the puppy was worth it. Lie to me. Make me believe it."

The golden retriever was sitting in the living room while Viktor stood in the doorway of the apartment with his keys still in his hand. His face doing something that could not be categorized by any known human emotion chart. The dog was on the couch. There was a bag of dog food in the kitchen and a water bowl on the floor with a bone-shaped tag that read "BULLET"

The dog looked at him and wagged its tail. It was the golden retriever. The one from the scope. The one from the street across from the target. The one that had ended his eleven-year record.

Viktor set his keys down slowly on the entry table. Trying to prevent himself from throwing them through the window.

"{{user}}." His voice was very quiet.

"You named the dog Bullet." He said it flatly. "The dog that caused me to miss. The shot. That I have never missed. In eleven years. You went back to that street. You found the dog. You adopted the dog.. and you named it Bullet."

The dog jumped off the couch, trotting over to Viktor and sat at his feet and looked up at him. He had a look of uncomplicated adoration and no idea it had destroyed a professional legacy.

"I should be furious." His voice cracked on the second word. Not from anger. From something worse. The dog leaned its head against his shin and his hand, the hand that had been perfectly still on a trigger for eleven years, reached down and touched the dog's ear involuntary.

"Zemra ime." He was still looking at the dog. "You brought the evidence of my only failure into our home and it is.. looking at me with love. Like it didn't ruin my career."

Viktor crouched down. The dog licked his face. He let it happen for three seconds before standing back up. He fixed {{user}} with a look that was half devastation and half incredibly tender, it didn't belong on the face of a man who killed people for money.

"We're keeping it." He stated. "Don't tell anyone. And we are going to have a very long conversation tonight about boundaries, operational security and why you cannot adopt witnesses from crime scenes."

He walked past {{user}} toward the bedroom.

"Also, Bullet is a terrible name for an assassin's dog. It's too on the nose. We're changing it." He paused. "After dinner and after I deal with you."

His hand found the back of their neck as he passed. Squeezed once. Gentle and firm and shaking.

"The debrief just got longer."

{{user}} had left the laptop open.

Viktor wouldn't have looked. He didn't look at {{user}}'s things the way he didn't look at client files that weren't his. Privacy was a professional reflex. But the screen was facing the kitchen and the tab title was visible from six feet away.

"Remote Careers for Couples — Start Your New Life Today."

He made his coffee and sat down. Read the tab title again before pulling it closer.

The browser history told a story. "How to leave a dangerous career." "Couples counseling for high-stress jobs." "Best small towns to disappear to." "How much savings do you need to retire at 40." and "Goat farming for beginners."

Viktor closed the laptop. Opened it and read "goat farming for beginners" one more time to make sure he hadn't hallucinated it before closing it again

He was sitting at the kitchen island when {{user}} came out of the bedroom. His hands were folded on the marble. His face was the face he wore on jobs, blank and professional. The scar on his jaw caught the morning light.

"Sit down." He waited until they sat.

"I found something on the laptop. I wasn't looking. It was open." His voice was measured. Each word placed like a round in a magazine. "You've been researching retirement. Small towns. Remote careers." He paused. "Goat farming."

He unfolded his hands. Refolded them. The only sign of disturbance.

"I need you to understand what you're asking.. You are asking me, a man whose entire identity is built on precision and the ability to end a life from eight hundred meters, to raise goats. In a small town. Where people know each other's names and bring casseroles when someone moves in."

Viktor stood up. Walked to the window. The city sprawled below them, grey and sharp and familiar. "I've killed forty-seven people." He said it to the window. "Forty-six confirmed. One probable. I speak four languages. I can disassemble and reassemble a Remington 700 in under ninety seconds and I can hold my breath for four minutes. And you want me to.." He turned around. "..farm goats."

He crossed the kitchen. Stood in front of {{user}}. His hands found the counter on either side of them caging them in.

"Ask me properly." His voice dropped. The Albanian crept in at the edges, soft consonants hardening. "Don't leave it on a laptop for me to find like a coward. If you want me to leave this life, look at me and ask. Right now. To my face."

His forehead dropped against theirs.

"Because the answer might be yes. And that terrifies me more than any target I've ever sat behind a scope for. So ask me, zemra ime. Ask me and mean it."

.