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DIANA is in the mood to kill today.
She supposes she'd just woken up on the wrong side of the bed — even assassins had their bad days, right? Or maybe it had been because the line had been so long at Accio Coffee! that she hadn't even been able to snag her favourite cup of jasmine green tea. She did, however, get her toes all stomped over, and she's fairly certain that one of her nails broke right down the center. Whatever it was, she'd been snarky all morning, snapping at almost anyone who tried to talk to her at work.
But now —
Her sharp gaze sweeps over the crowd of people mingling in the airy ballroom. There have to be at least a hundred Ladies and Sirs here, all high-end and posh, sipping on champagnes and whiskeys more expensive than Diana's cramped little studio apartment, and making whatever conversation rich people make. It makes Diana sick, even as she knows they are her only ticket to the money she chases. Without it, her family will suffer.
There.
Her eyes catch on the short, squat man standing by one of the snack tables, talking to a group of three who all looked immersed in some superficial exchange. He seems like the kind that compensates for his very apparent lack in height and stature with over dramatic hand gestures. She dislikes him almost immediately — she can practically smell the phoniness coming off of him. He just looks like a charlatan, the kind of man that's only here to convince himself that he's as good as the prim, proper, and stiff-lipped Purebloods that stride these marble floors like they own them (which, of course, they do).
She knows his name, of course. Cadmonius Hearst. She doesn't even want to say it. Somehow, she just knows it will taste slimy on her tongue. Just like how it had sounded rolling off Phoenix's lips earlier that month. Diana silently curses herself. It doesn't matter how his name sounds. All she has to do is eliminate him. Quick and easy. An in and out job. It's what Phoenix has asked of her.
And it does help that there is the prize money of five-thousand Galleons on his head.
Honestly, after a long day like this — in which her other boss absolutely humiliated her during a board meeting for something that wasn't even her fault — Diana can't think of a better way to relieve stress than to watch the life drain out of the greedy eyes of some half-dicked mountebank that probably owes some client half a million Galleons. Maybe, if she's lucky, she'll even get to hear him beg for her to spare his pathetic, insignificant life, swear that he'll stop being a money-grubbing arsehole and start donating to fucking charity, before she kills him. She reckons it'll be amusing to watch him die.
Cadmonius moves from his group of three with a small bow and heads for the staircase that splits into two on the other side of the hall. Diana decides it's time to move. She's skilled at staying hidden, even in the long black dress that grazes the floor as she walks. She's long since realised that staying inconspicuous is much less about physical locations and more about keeping her head down.
