Looking down the barrel of a gun is a strange feeling, but after staring into Death's dark face so many times, Jack had become accustomed to the tickles and prickles that run across your spine. It had become a familiar, a common, an ordinary feeling. He almost liked it, the sensation, of Death looming about, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. To him, it was intoxicating. It made his heart race, his blood pump and adrenaline run. It was like being in love for the first time, and the last. Yet every time that the Reaper swung his scythe on the mob boss, he always seemed to stop, never finishing the job. It was as though he, Death, took pleasure in seeing Jack sweat under his blade. They both enjoyed the mad thrill, but it seemed that this would be the last time they would saviour it.
Bang! The thunderous roar of the gun shattered the calm night. It was over.
'Here. You can keep it,' the assassin tossed the smoking gun onto Jack's cold lap.
A sinister smile cut the killer's face. Raising his chin proudly, as a young boy does after winning a prize, the mercenary turned around slowly, savouring his victory. Now all he had to do was collect his pay and live comfortably on some exotic island for the rest of his life, without worries, without problems, without necessities, without ' Bang! A second shot.
The assassin's knees broke under the pain. One moment he was savouring glory and the next he was savouring the bitter sweet taste of warm steel, the killer kiss of a bullet. On all fours, he lifted his trembling hand up to his chest: his shirt was soaked in blood that was spewing out on both sides of his trunk. He was cold, weak, in pain. Frozen sweat poured down his face as his insides burnt in anguish.
Writhing on the floor with no strength at all, he turned around to see who the shooter was. Behind him, sitting in the same leather-cushion seat he had been sitting when the assassin came in, Jack sat. The only difference was that now his right arm was outstretched with his fingers curled around the gun. His eyelids were heavy upon his red eyes, but he still maintained them wide open.
'No ' Impossible ' I shot you ' I shot you in the heart.'
Jack licked his lips and explained slowly, enjoying every word, 'I am me as a general person in life.
Hi Joshua, good to see a bit of thriller writing on the site! I think you've got the tone and style about right.
I think you could strengthen this piece considerably by tightening up the point of view. It seems to me that the point of view hops from 3rd following Jack, 3rd following the assassin, and an unidentified narrator who pop up a few times. Because it does hop around, you could argue that it's an omniscient point of view, but that would normally have a more distant tone, whereas this seems to zoom in and out to different heads.
In your first paragraph you seem to switch between Jack and a narrator. Then the next section seems to be mostly from the assassin's point of view, but then who is 'saying' this sentence: "Behind him, sitting in the same leather-cushion seat he had been sitting when the assassin came in, Jack sat."
You might already be familiar with point of view and so I won't bang on about it, but if you want some more precise examples of where the point of view seems to wobble about them I'll pick them out.
Is there a typo in the last line? If not, it's kind of obcure as a sign off!