You don’t know me, but that’s not important. I won’t tell you who I am, what I do, but if you’re as good as I think you are, you’ll figure it out.

I saw you today, walking a dog we both know isn’t yours, down by the water, amongst the tourists and teenagers that litter the beaches at this time of year. You looked relaxed. Smiled when a kid rode past and almost knocked you over. His mother tried to catch your eye, a blush creeping up her cheeks that was more than just embarrassment, but you didn’t notice. I guess you were lost in thought. Thinking of Tokyo, perhaps. But I wouldn’t want to presume.

I saw you today, and I paused. Something in your eyes, your smile. The casual way you held yourself, as if you were just another face in the crowd. You looked happy. You looked content.

Maybe that’s why I’m writing this letter.

Tomorrow, what has to happen will happen. You know as well as I that actions have consequences, and the ghosts you set in motion have finally come calling. I have come calling. People like you and me, we live in a world of grey. Right and wrong, good and bad, these things don’t matter. Things happen that need to happen, we help or we hinder, and the world moves on, never knowing the work we do in the shadows. The games we play between the streetlights.

The fact that I know your name will be of no surprise to you. We’ve been dancing around each other for years. Making a life from being no one. Being anyone. Being everyone we could ever want to be, except, perhaps, ourselves. Your hair was red in Tokyo. It suited you. It matched the bloodstained carpet. The arterial sprayed walls. You’ve always been messier than me. I wonder where you picked that up, or if you know it’s your calling card. I can always tell your work by the art you leave behind. Like a child’s finger painting. Like you’re dancing while you do it.

We met once, you know. In Seattle, before the world fell apart. You’d just finished a job—a cheating husband, I believe. Something far below your skill, but I don’t judge. We all need to earn a living. I was tailing a senator who refused to leave his embassy. I was getting restless with the chase and needed a distraction. You were perfect.

I thought you might recognise me. Might see something of yourself in my eyes. Might know my name the way I have come to know yours. But you were buzzing that night, fresh from the kill, and you had something else on your mind entirely.

You still had blood under your nails when you walked into the bar. Such a messy thing. But the lights were dim, the music loud, and the way you moved, no one was looking at your hands. I bought you a drink and you smiled, but I was one of many that night clamouring for your attention, and your eyes slipped from mine as easy as breathing. I’ve built a life around being no one, after all. It should have been a compliment that even you didn’t see through it.

I was surprised when the beautiful creature you took home that night showed up the next day, looking no worse for wear than the few bruises he wore proudly. I wonder if he realised the predator he was playing with. You were always so good at pretending. People like us don’t get to give up control. Always watching, always waiting, always planning the next move. But you looked so docile in his hands, pressed against the wall of the club, spread out on hotel sheets, pinned and perfect, eyes wide and hazy, silk bunched in fists I’ve seen snap a man’s neck. Perhaps you could teach me. How to let go. How to turn it off. How you make it look easy. How you make it look real. I’ve been a lot of things in my life, but free, I’ve never been that.

But alas. Ours is not a game with any rounds left to play.

I won’t tell you it’s not personal. You’re one of only a few people in the world who understands that it is. It always is. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy when it’s done. I’ve rather enjoyed watching you work. Reading the news and seeing your hand at play, working behind the scenes to shift the pieces one way or another. It’ll be quieter without you. One less ghost in the night.

I’m not telling you to put your affairs in order. I’m not telling you to make the most of the time you have left. You’ll be doing these things already. As I’ve done, every day, for a lifetime.

I’m not telling you to watch your back. That would be as insulting as it is unnecessary. And I’m not telling you to run. We both know running never does any good.

What I’m telling you is that I see you. The world says that people like us don’t have hearts, and perhaps they’re right. But I see the way you smile at young couples holding hands in the street. The way you walk slowly so the old man isn’t left in traffic alone. I see the way you choose to sit in the sun, even when the sight lines are better on the other side of the park, and how you frown when someone answers their phone too loudly on the subway. I see the way you twist the ring on your finger when you’re pretending to be nervous, and how your eyes linger on the scratched gold band after the prop has served its purpose.

I know the job you did in Morocco that left you retching in the street. I know the contract you turned down in Berlin, and why. I know when you’re not working, I’ll find you by the ocean. And that you linger in the cold places of the world, when the work allows. I know the book you’re currently reading is written in French, and that your glasses are tinted to hide the green of your eyes. I know in your left pocket is a blade sharp enough to kill me before I even feel it. And I know you’ve been watching me for the past hour from the other side of the bar.

I see these things. Not as a professional scouting a mark, but as one shadow noticing another. A life like ours doesn’t lend well to connections. Friends, family, lovers, these things we give up to do what we do, if we ever had them in the first place. Our work keeps us on the edges, ghosts passing in the night, and the only people who ever see our true faces die quietly in our hands. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but it can be lonely being the only one in the room who knows what it feels like to die.

I don’t presume to know you. We are all so much more than the sum of our deeds. But on the off chance that you’re anything like me, I wanted to tell you, before our little dance begins.

I see you.

And though the world may not, I’ll notice when you’re gone. Perhaps that’s all any of us can ever really hope for.

Until tomorrow, my friend.

This city suits you.

I hope your last night is as good as the ones that have come before.

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