American variety show: Sniper Elite

Chapter 117, Part 2

Night fell over this quiet middle-class community, and the neatly trimmed lawns gleamed green under the streetlights.

Beta sat in an armchair in Fabio Brook's living room, holding a P30 pistol.

Unlike his dissolute company boss, the project manager in charge of the renovation of the 87th floor of the Liberty Tower is a family man. The living room walls are covered with family photos: Fabio embracing his wife at Disneyland, his little daughter's smiling face, and heartwarming moments of unwrapping presents under the Christmas tree.

An unfinished jigsaw puzzle sits on the coffee table, with several colored crayons scattered around it.

Beta's gaze swept over these traces of life, finally settling on the wall clock. The ticking of the second hand was exceptionally clear in the quiet room. According to his investigation, Fabio would take his family to an Italian restaurant three blocks away every Friday, usually returning before 23 p.m.

The sound of a car approached from outside the window, its headlights sweeping across the curtains and creating a blinding band of light in the living room. Beta's figure flashed by in the bright light: black helmet, black gloves, and a P30 pistol pointed at the door.

The engine's exhaust note hadn't even faded when a little girl's laughter came from outside: "Daddy, can we go eat tiramisu again next week?"

Then came Fabio's gentle reply: "Of course."

The metallic clang of the key entering the lock was particularly clear in the stillness of the night. When the ceiling light in the entryway came on, Fabio and his family of three froze in place.

The uninvited guest, fully armed, stood on the sofa, the dark muzzle of his gun pointed directly at them. Fabio's wife gasped, instinctively pressing her daughter's face into her arms, her nails digging almost into her palms, barely managing to stifle a scream.

"Who...who are you?!" Fabio spread his arms to shield his wife and daughter, his voice distorted with fear. His gaze darted frantically between Beta's helmet and pistol, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.

The little girl peeked through her mother's fingers at the silent, unfamiliar black figure on the living room sofa.

Beta flicked his thumb, and the hammer clicked.

“This gun has a silencer,” his voice came from inside the helmet. “Even if I fired now, your dear neighbors would just think it was the sound of the TV.”

The gun barrel was slightly raised: "Now, please come and sit in the living room."

Fabio's wife trembled all over, but still tried her best to protect her daughter: "Please, please take whatever you want. We promise we won't call the police, we didn't see anything." Her voice was broken, and her fingernails dug marks into her youngest daughter's shoulder.

Beta twisted his wrist, and with a dull "pop," the glass display of the family photo on the wall shattered.

The picture frame crashed heavily at the woman's feet, and flying shards of glass left tiny bloody scratches on her calves. The woman trembled violently as if electrocuted, almost wanting to meld the child into her body.

"See that?" Beta slowly lowered the gun. "Quiet enough, precise enough. Now, do I need to repeat the invitation?"

His gun barrel drew an arc between the three men, pointing towards the sofa in the center of the living room.

The family of three moved cautiously along the wall like frightened sheep, deliberately keeping the furthest distance from Beta.

Fabio spread his arms to shield his wife and daughter behind him, and the three of them slowly shuffled to the edge of the sofa in a contorted posture, finally huddling together like quails to sit down.

"Take your phone out." Beta's gun remained motionless. "Put it on the coffee table."

Fabio's trembling fingers pulled his phone from his pocket and carefully placed it on the glass coffee table. His wife, on the other hand, was shaking uncontrollably, as if she had malaria, and it took her three attempts to finally get the phone out of her bag.

“Puff—puff—”

Two muffled gunshots rang out, and two cell phones shattered into pieces, flying plastic fragments grazing Fabio's cheek. His wife tightly covered their daughter's mouth, forcefully silencing the child's impending screams. Large tears rolled down the little girl's cheeks, wetting her mother's trembling hands.

Beta's helmet visor reflected the light from the chandelier, and he pointed the gun at Fabio: "You know exactly who I am. Your boss, Simon Black, was just killed by the same gun in the restaurant."

Fabio opened his mouth several times but couldn't make a sound. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded with sandpaper: "I...I really don't know."

Beta turned the gun around, the dark barrel pointing directly at the little girl.

Fabio instantly broke down, his voice rising eight octaves: "I know! I know everything! That money was embezzled from the company account! From the company account!"

"The exact amount." Beta's gun barrel remained fixed on the little girl's trembling figure.

"Three hundred and thirty thousand dollars!" Fabio slumped onto the sofa, tears mingling with sweat streaming down his face. "It's all the money Simon gave me, I'm returning it all to you. Please, spare my family."

Beta tilted his helmet slightly, the metal visor reflecting a distorted human figure: "Embezzlement is a serious crime, Mr. Fabio."

Fabio's wife's fingernails had dug deeply into the sofa leather, while the little girl's sobs were filtered into muffled whimpers by her mother's hands.

"I'll do anything! Anything! Just please let them go!" Fabio knelt on the ground, his forehead pressed against the edge of the coffee table.

Beta slowly moved the muzzle of his gun, pointing it at the children's crayons and drawing paper scattered on the coffee table: "Write a confession. Sign it. Now."

Fabio lunged at the crayons like a drowning man grasping at a straw, his fingers twitching as he scribbled across the paper.

Meanwhile, Beta began disassembling the muffler, the creaking sound of the metal threads rubbing against each other echoing like a stopwatch in the quiet living room.

As the writing grew more hurried, Fabio's hands trembled so much he could barely hold the crayon. The letters became crooked and distorted, the handwriting grew larger and larger, and finally it became almost illegible scribbles. When he heard the "click" of Beta removing the silencer, a bead of sweat fell from the tip of his nose, spreading a wet stain on the confession.

“Madam,” Beta suddenly spoke, his pistol now restored to its original shape, “Take the child upstairs. Let her not see what happens next.” His voice was eerily calm.

The crayon in Fabio's hand rolled to the ground.

He slowly raised his head, his vision blurred by tears, and saw his wife carrying their daughter, backing away step by step. The little girl's face was buried in her mother's neck, and her pink dress flashed by at the corner of the stairs.

After a few seconds of silence.

"boom!"

The deafening gunshots rang out like thunderclaps. Fabio's wife collapsed onto the stairs, pinning her daughter beneath her. Her heart-wrenching cries pierced the night sky.

When the smoke cleared, only Fabio Brook's fallen body and a blood-soaked confession remained in the living room.

The child's crayon writing spread out in the pool of blood, like a distorted abstract painting.

The man in black wearing a helmet has disappeared into the New York night.

(End of this chapter)