Mr. McCourtney's Dark Secret [1]

*The next seven chapters will be in Mr. McCourtney's point of view*

One thing that was true about me is my love to Sophia. I really did love her since the first time I saw her. I didn't lie about that. I just never told her exactly when was that happened.

I saw Sophia for the first time when she came out of the taxi that brought her to her house. She just went home for Holiday season from her first year of college. I still remember what she wore, a yellow fury jacket and green faux leather pant. She wore a big circular earrings that was shown every now and then over her curly brown hair. But what mesmerized me was her face. Her face was so bright and beautiful. Her wide smile brought so much happiness that instantly shook my heart.

Sophia shouted happily, calling her parents while dragging her big luggage. Soon, her mother came. Sophia immediately left her luggage and ran toward her mother. She hugged the middle age lady tightly, as if wanted to release all the longing she kept for the whole semester.

When she saw a middle-age man stood in front of her house's door, Sophia exclaimed happily, "Daddy!!" Before ran toward the man and hugged him. The man laughed in so much joy, kissed Sophia's hair in so much love.

I let down my binocular. That heart warming scene was honestly making my heart unsettle. I sighed heavily then started the engine of car I was in before drove it away.

The next day of my surveillance, I followed both Sophia and her father to a supermarket. Subconsciously my attention was distracted. I no longer paid attention on her father, my actual target. Instead, I watched closely on her every movements. The more I watched her, the more I felt in love toward her.

It's Christmas eve. For me, that was supposed to be D-Day. I had made my plan from my a week-observation. That night was the best time for me to do the execution. But, I was not only nervous. This time I was so hesitate to do it. Once again, I watched the family's activity over my special binocular. The binocular was making me able to see through brick and dry wall.

The Sawyer was having Christmas dinner. Sophia was talking cheerfully about her college, about her new friends, about her dormitory, and other stuffs. She was just so full of life. I subconsciously imagined her expression when she found her parents' bloody bodies in the next morning. That imagination shivered me to the bone.

I shook my head a few times, trying to remove the vivid image of her traumatized face. But the image stubbornly stayed, as if it decided to break my heart.

"Damn It!!" I shouted while hitting the wheel in front of me. I felt so frustrated and angry to my self. I was angry because I was so easily fell in love to Sophia. I was so in love that couldn't bare to make her traumatized. I was so in love, that I decided to cancel my mission and just drove my car away from the neighborhood.

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Of course, my emotional decision was causing a major upset from my supervisor.

"I trusted you, Iggy," she hissed full of anger at that time.

"You knew how important this specific mission is for me.. for us. If you were able to complete it, we will climb up to the top, for sure. None of the other candidate knew about it, so this is our great chance! And you ruined it only because of.. what... love ??"

I kept my self a silence. Honestly, beside having no energy to reply after being electrocuted thrice in a row, I had no reasoning to defense my self. I knew this was all my fault, to let my heart carried away.

"I will give you another chance," she said again after bearing silence for over ten minutes.

I turned my head up to glance at her.

"A month. That's your deadline. If it is failed, you better kill yourself, because you will get the worse from me," she said in cold tone.

I knew she was being easy on me. Other executors had no second chance like she gave to me. So I just nodded my head to agree.

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Since I still had a month, I decided to postpone the execution up until Sophia went back to her dormitory. With that, at least she wouldn't be traumatized to see the death of her parents with her own eyes.

Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer were the leaders of anti-nuclear plant movements that quickly evolved after Chernobyl tragedy. But, they worked anonymously thus no one actually knew who were the leader of the movement, not even their own members. But my supervisor had her own informant who gave her solid evidence that this couple were the leaders. Terminating them was obviously would make great impact on our organization's crisis. Since, the nuclear-plant was actually one of our organization's missions.

The Sawyer couple were just entering their house. They just escorted their, our, beloved Sophia back to her college. I awaited patiently until all of lights in their house were off.

About an hour later, I went out from my car. Silently, I approached the garage where they parked their car. I grabbed a small remote from my pocket. It was a duplication of remote of their garage. I manage to stole the remote and made its duplicate a week ago.

I sneaked inside their house from a door that connected it with the garage. I only need to took a step to reach the car's key that hanged on the wall together with other keys.

I went back to the garage, deliberately didn't close the door completely. I then opened the car's door and started its engine. The engine's machine was actually not too quiet. But I had no worry about the Sawyer would awake because of it.

The Sawyer wouldn't awake by anything at that moment. When they were away, I changed their night high-blood pressure medicines with high dose of sleeping pills. Mrs. Sawyer had the habit to prepare her and her husband's medicines on their bed side table daily. Thus, I only needed to change those pills.

After starting the engine, I went out from the garage and closed its door again with the remote. I sighed heavily before leaving the neighborhood with my car. I deliberately planned the least cruel execution for The Sawyer. This way, the couple would die in their sleeps because inhaling too much carbonmonocyde. It was more complicated then just shooting bullets on their heads. But at least I could lessen Sophia's trauma over her parents' death. For her, I didn't mind to do extra job. I did it out of my love to Sophia.