Vague explanation:
We're looking at the year 2248 or thereabouts.
This is the aftermath of a coup made by some uppity jerk in an upper 1% family.
The assassin is a constant staple in all of my work, but this storyline is definitely him at his worst.
He's an opportunist, and definitely the deadliest thing on Earth, and not easily identifiable as a 'nice person.'
He's also superhuman and about in his sixties when this goes down.
To avoid confusion, his name is in the last paragraph. It's the only time it's mentioned.
The motto for this could be 'truth is a commodity not for the untruthful.'

-------

He hung up his phone and looked around, incredulity and mirth battling across his face to make his eyes water.
It was done.
He was free and nobody was left to hold him down.
Add to that the money in the bank and the villa even after the Hearthrow estate was done being bled dry by assessors and collectors. When Meir returned, he would have to acknowledge him as Baron.
Everything, in the end, had been surprisingly easy, had almost sped along of its own accord, destiny sluicing its way forward, when he had 'pulled the trigger,' as it were.

A pair of black black eyes watched the dapper, and living, Baron of Hearthrow from above. The eyes were hidden and shaded behind ludicrously recognizable sunglasses and set in a face unaffected by the years of rage and bloodshed it had been party to. For all of that, he still looked tired and strangely bemused. Now that he was wrapping up business here, he would take some time for himself, rest those weary eyes and relax.
But that was hours away.
Baron Hearthrow had stopped in his kitchen for morning coffee and was making his way up the wooded slope to the car he had days ago called and placed.
The man in the sunglasses turned and melded back into the woods, cutting a quicker path than the laughing Baron believed he himself needed.

The Baron saw the car, looked around, still not believing his luck. It would be unlocked and the key in the console.
A classic Audi model with an anonymous key lock, gas in the tank, and here it was a lovely Sunday and the Baron had all the time in the world. Well, not all of it: Meir had that, and may even return one day.
By then the Baron would be ready for him, to parlay.
But that would be many tomorrows. And today was so perfect, the colors and birdsong and coffee so rich he could breath it all.
Baron, that was a title he quite liked. It mantled him well.
He walked briskly to the car, opened the driver's side door and slipped in, a shriek tripping up in his throat when someone he distantly recognized pointed a gun at his face and said, in terse benevolence, "Never climb into a strange car without checking for unwanted passengers."
The Baron gibbered, coffee staining his shirt and blazer.
"Kevin, shut the fuck up, close the door, or destiny will JFK the shit out of you."
Kevin didn't know who JFK was.
He closed the door and said, lamely, "I think you have the wrong person."
"Eyes forward, hands on the wheel." Baron Kevin Hearthrow did as commanded.
The gun dropped and Kevin followed it.
The man nearly snapped, "Eyes forward." It hurt just the same.
He continued, "No, it's not pointed away. This is a .45 and right now it's angled to put a steel-jacketed round to snap your femur clean and blow your balls all over your shoes."
The man rubbed his youngish face, pinching his nose and pushing his glasses up from closed bruised-looking lids.
Kevin had this opportunity.
"Don't. I can still see you."
Kevin settled.
"Who are you?"
A single chuckle, "Ha. Wouldn't you like to know?"
He checked his watch, an old steel timepiece with a leather strap, fine but very old and a little battered, "Tell you what, we've got about half an hour. Start the engine, put her in gear, but don't release the brake -- I'll tell you a story and you can guess."
Now Kevin recognized him: a member of Harod's security detail. He had been skulking around for a month, not particularly active, but always there, "I won't play games. Not with you."
"With who then?"
Kevin just tightened his lips.
Another single chuckle, all humor, no darkness, in that little drab of laughter, "Don't pout. I was just kidding. Start the car, do as I said."
Kevin, the shock wearing off, was beginning to feel rage, he was just finishing turning the engine over when the man spoke up again, "I could just leave you here. The car's rigged, so if you do take your foot off the pedal, that engine block is going to ram the steering column through your throat when the shit I taped to your radiator goes off."
"I'll call the police."
"On what?"
He was right. Service was out this far into the reserve bordering Hearthrow Estate.
"Plus, I've been using your phone for about three or four weeks. No calls in or out unless I say so."
Kevin, like so many of the upperclass, had never deigned to be wetwired, but he had his phone just the same. Always had. He said this.
"Your piece of shit Nokia is in your pocket, all zillion bucks of it, but I've got its mind."
The man's weird phrasing was making Kevin feel sick.
He didn't know what to do. So he sat there with his mind spinning. He wasn't very good at violence. He'd always outsourced it.
The man spoke again, "If you're just going to sit there, I'm going to doze. My gun's got its eye on you." The man was sitting up, Kevin could just see his chin go down to his collar.
Kevin remembered the brake, he used this, "I'll kill us both."
A snort, "No you won't."
His foot grew suddenly light, reedy, he could feel it slipping. He would. He could.
He clamped his foot down harder. He couldn't.
"Weak." The man strangely flipped the parking brake to 'on' and then turned to faced the passenger side window, gun out under his arm, finger in the guard, now pointed higher, at Kevin's stomach. He was apparently asleep.
Kevin could go for the gun, but with how it was held, there would probably be an accident, a bad one. He wasn't much good with pistols, anyway.
Kevin resigned himself, maybe he could find something he could use, some angle he could play.
"Fine. Tell me your story."
"Fuck off."
This startled Kevin. The man was rough, was probably intent on killing him, but the crudity to his very person strained his principles.
He tried again: this man was some sort of base or common criminal; a simpleton; a prole; a peasant; Kevin would appeal to him and although things looked bleak, he would win out.
It simply couldn't be that his family line could be ended by someone without a distinction.
And not on this, his Perfect Sunday.
"Give a dead man his wish."
"Not worth the effort. You're going in the dirt, and it's a good story, one that really appeals to my sense of balance and serendipity. I don't pity anyone, much less the dead, and especially not when the motherfucker has hastily dug his own grave and handed me a noose."
Kevin couldn't compute most of what he meant and said, "How?"
"God you're ingratiating. You really want to know? Why don't you go to bed believing everything worked out in the end? It's what the investigation will turn up, anyway."
"I feel like I should know. It would only be right."
"Wrong. It does not matter a penny in God's empty pocket."
Kevin detected a smile, "You're playing with me."
"I'm bored, soliloquy is a hobby. I've been playing you, not ~with, mind, playing ~you for a month. You're the reason we're in this car together on this brilliant morning. You're the reason you're going to be dead and at the bottom of a river and one of your other dead and missing idiot pals is going to get the rap for it. If you had just restrained yourself from, been a little more quiet about, cutting off one young woman's head, you probably could've put me and my palid mare off for another eight months, I'd hazard."
"Priscilla!" 'Oh my God!' "But that wasn't me!"
"No, of course not, your bloodless blue hands aren't stained: You're too much of a weak willowy pissant to go and do pretty much anything."
The tone was even, the words stated flatly.
"No! I never knew--" Here it was, Kevin knew why the man was here now. His bitch half (quarter?) sister Priscilla had put him here as insurance. It could all be raveled into a misunderstanding.
Not that her head could much be put back on.
"T--tel-tell me what to do to make good."
"Hope this is a fuckin' Delorean, go back in time, and have a real hard sit down with yourself about what it might mean to be a human being." Still no flare, no anger. Sarcasm, maybe. Kevin didn't know what a Delorean was.
"I can pay you twice what she was. Three times."
"Chump. I owed her a favor."
Friends, then. This was revenge, clean and simple. Who was this man? "I-- I can never replace the love you shared, the friendship, but I can tell you--" Kevin was good at apology, and he really hadn't intended things in Athens to spiral so far out of control. It was a misstep, "-- that I never intended murder --"
"God! Shut. Up! You really don't get this, do you?" He sighed.
The man finally turned around, he had been talking to the door.
"I'll tell you what happened. I'll put you to bed on it. This won't liven your spirits because all I can prove is that whatever hope or delusion you have is just delusion. Also, I squandered your money, so you're broke."
Kevin choked, trying to regain his equilibrium.
"Just, stay quiet. You can ask questions but if you start pandering again I'll cold cock you and leave."
The man spoke:

So, I knew your sister from years back. I made a mistake, she forgave me when it was almost lights out for her mom, not yours, and I offered her a favor. She was a kid, so it stuck.
She called that in about six weeks ago.
She asked me to protect your dear old dad. From you most like. She knew something was cooking.

"How could you have known her as a child? You must be her age."
The man made a buzzer sound, "Eeeh! She's dead. I can't be her age because she doesn't have one. Anyway..."

I finagled my way onto his security detail. You people? Is people even the word? Anyway, you unutterable trolls hire the gentry to protect your fat asses so when one of you tries anything, it's a gnat takes the bullet.
It was a good gig: She said just for a week or so, and I got to hang around, chum with some ex-military whackaloons and drink scotch older than I am.
Then, shit started hitting the fan. Whatever was cooking, was boiling over.
I got interested. I stole your phone.

"But I still have it!"
"Yeah but you sleep like a crackwhore off a bender and I copied it! God damn you're thick. Should I go on? I'll count that as an inverted question. Or you can black out and wake up dead."
Kevin got the feeling this man was enjoying himself. It was inaccurate, he was just passing time, but Kevin would never know that.
The other adjusted his suit jacket indignantly and continued:

So I pretty much listened in on all of your calls. I was standing around. It was that or flip through naked photographs of your cousins.
Of course, you had been preparing for months. Years? Some time anyway, all antsy to get the show started and lights popping, so most of it was stuff I could not use. Just 'affirmatives' and 'wire him the money.' You weren't overtly threatening Harold--

"Harod."
"Whatever."

-- so I just kept a lid on the lack of empathy and hung tight.
One day, some people who will end up in a car and a ditch very much like the one you're inheriting today sent Harlo -- Harod -- Harry -- Whatever -- a package.
That package set things in motion. I was no longer employed. Free to do what I wanted.

"Priscilla."
"Almost. Her head. That yuppie terrorist group in Athens saw fit to send it and a threat to Dad and fuck his life up..."

... and I saw fit to use the increased security activity to start pulling you all to the ground, dividing and conquering with a page out of your book and letting you incestuous idiots eat your own cooking.
I started pulling strings, seeing who in the family was on who.
First to take out was that aunt of yours.
She was onto you. Was making overtures to your contact on the ground.
You know the one, with the pillow for a face.

"You're telling me you killed Aunt Meridin? I find that hard to believe."
"Fine. Don't believe it. When you get to the Infernal Gates, take credit for it. I'll never get the chance."
"No, now I remember: You responded when my assassin was escaping, you were shot, knocked unconscious. What happened to your cast?"
He sighed, "It was fake. I did get shot, but not by your assassin."

Earlier that evening, while taking a walk around the estate and getting some air, I found Siver, the one you called in. He was hiding in the cellar behind the stables. Since I knew your goofy code words, he let me get close enough to talk, and you know what that means.
With that taken care of, and the body in that incinerator that old piece of shit fort has for a heater, I bided my time.

"Siver's dead?"
"No. It was another body I put in the incinerator. Yes he's dead, and I scooped up a fat check, too. I've had it out for him for years: professioanl prejudice. He had one or more of my aliases under contract, too."
"No. Siver was the best."
"But he was working for you."
Kevin paused, "... what's that supposed to mean?"
"You're incompetent."
That hung in the air.

...Later that night I used the gear Siver'd been carrying to scale the wall and unlatch the window after Meredith--"

"Meredin."
"Nobody cares."

-- after Mimi hit the sack. Then it was a matter of going back around, looking sleepy for a while, going in, putting a bullet in what's-her-name, then shrieking like a woman being attacked.
The guy at the end of the hall came a-runnin' sooner than I expected. In the tussle, I took one in the elbow and he took two in the face, from the .22 I took off same dead Siver as the useless climbing gear. See, I had to get rid of the other security--

"But why?"
"What do you mean, 'why?' If anyone is left to talk about this, they'd mention ol' Jaeger Slan, and there's not going to be a body."
"That's your name. Jaeger Slan."
"Negative, it's a fake name I adopted. Also I needed Harrykins to bite the dust as part of that. He and I hadn't shit to talk about with his daughter out of the picture."
"I don't follow. Don't you have any honor or compunction?"
"Sure I do. I'm here, aren't I? I just tagged and bagged a global econoterrorist family, didn't I? Present company excluded."
"But if you had history with Harod..."
"It was black. He and I met up decades ago, and that was something that actually made me leery of showing up under cover at all. But it worked out for the best."
"What do you mean?"

Rewind a bit, a number of days, and here I was being driven to your great old estate by autocar, nervous.
See, I knew Harry when he was about your age. And I don't look a whole lot different, I don't think.
Priscilla had contacted him and told him that someone was coming, that he could be trusted, and gave him the name I gave her.
So when I stepped out of the car, what do you think he saw?
That's right. That same monster from all those years ago. What did he think had become of me? Probably that I'd faded, died in an alley somewhere, my smirk and my guns put to rest where they could never touch him.
Oh, man, the look on his ~face when I stepped out into the sunshine. He flatly couldn't believe it.
I couldn't even talk to him until he'd had a few.

"You're not an Immortal. You can go in the sunlight."
"Don't call them that. It's weird. And you're right. I'm human."
"But I've never heard of you."
"'Course you wouldn't, Kenneth --"
"Kevin."
"-- nobody cares -- I'm using a fake name. Your whole fucking family remembers Panama, though. What a shitshow. Did Harry tell you about that?"
"He told us the backers... backed. Backed out."
"Oh, he lied. Did he try borrowing any money from you after that? No? Good man. An 'asset' appeared down there, and fleeced him. And the backers. Nobody in your family is welcome anywhere in South America because of what I did and the US Government took action, with rifles, to make sure that the contacts you had festering on their purple mountains majesty went where I'm sending you."

So here was that old demon, back to haunt him.
I wasn't nervous, of course, not anymore, how could I be? Not when he was terrified enough for the both of us.
I shook his hand, said, "Baron."
He almost started throwing up and screaming and went inside. I brought a lot of ghosts with me, I figure.
So now we're back to that night. Did I mention I poisoned Aunt Mimi? Lethal dose from her medicine cabinet in her wine.

"How?"
"I'm quick. Shut up."
"Poison's a woman's weapon."
"Wow, Claudius Erectus. You're one to talk. Shut up."

She was dead before I went in. I'm not going to pop a sleeping woman, for what it's worth.
I will pop a dead woman, though. To attract attention.
I did that, and Bunko MacTavish, that Irish nutbar, blew right in the door. He was surprised, and pretty dead by the time his gun went off, since I was blowing back through the door, to make it look like I got thrown and all. In the tussle I also shot him in the face.
With what's-his-whiskey down, Mimi's goose done, I let myself be taken to the hospital.
It's easy to play off 'out' when you crash through an oak door and obliterate a rococo wall to the plaster and lathe with your back.
Nothing happened, but I did saw off my cast and rearrange it to look convincing.
Things were fairly tense by the time I got back.
Fairly ironic they gave me the same painkillers I used on your aunt.
Restocked and ready, I had a confrontation with Harry.

"You poisoned him?"
"Nope. Didn't need to. He was pretty on edge already and I wanted to allay some of your suspicions. I used your phone."
"What?" Kevin gasped.
"Yup. It was about twenty minutes. I laid it all out for him, omitting bits of the truth. I quite truthfully admitted to conspiring with ~you, though. I showed him everything you were carrying on him."
"You didn't."
"I did. You had quite the dossier. Don't worry, I'm good at it."
"... he shot himself."
"Yes." The man didn't look so stolid. "I kind of respect him for that."
Tears were running down Kevin's face, "You're... ~disgusting! Respect?" He was shaking, "Using the ... material... I had been gathering on him?"
"Blackmail, Kenny. Blackmail you had been gathering."
"Shut up!" Kevin shrieked, he hung his head, fighting tears.
The gun tapped his temple, "Eyes forward."
"No!" He made his first attempt to bolt. It would be his only one. The car lurched and the assassin's foot was slammed into the brake a split second later. A manacle grip over Kevin's elbow, numbing his hand immediately, bringing a sharp pain.
"You're moralizing now? Thinking I'm base?"
He, it, hauled him back in, pressed him into the seat.
"You... you..."
"Me me? What were ~you going to do with the photos, e-mails, accounts records? Make a macaroni horse for dear old dad? You're a twisted, spoiled little shit, Kenny."
Kevin slammed his hands on the steering wheel and turned to face the assassin in his car, "Use my ~name! You ~bastard!"
"Pff." He sat back and rifled through his jacket, gun absently jammed between his seat and the console, "Put your foot back on the pedal. I might just end it, anyway. I don't even know why I talk to you assholes."
Fine fingers in leather gloves found what they were looking for. Cigarettes. He lit up.
Kevin cranked the A/C. "Finish," he whispered.
"You sure? It's not going to get better from here. But I guess knowing you essentially drove your own dad to suicide is a pretty shitty thing to go to sleep on. You planning on making overtures to Saint Peter about what an asshole I am? He definitely knows."
"Finish!" Kevin shrieked again.
The other man locked the doors. Turned off the A/C.
"I respect your father because he took it on himself to end it when he recognized he was trash. Betrayed by his own son, daughter dead under his protection. He failed. He saw that. Now you and I are in the car and you're going to get a bullet in the head and nobody will ever know I existed."
Kevin didn't mention the explosives. They didn't exist, but like one other lie, Kevin wasn't to know.
"Finish." He said again.

Next was that old creepy bastard your fam's been protecting. And Harry's other security nut.
Do you know how much military hardware that fuck was carrying? Jesus Christ, the Hague would've had a field day prosecuting your whole god damned family ~tree on that spooky sonuvabitch.

"Meir. But you didn't. He got away."
"I drove with them. You get a postcard since? From either of them?"
"No. But he was an Immortal. Our progenator."
"You're so weird. You and him weren't related. See these?" The man held up his the glove not holding the gun to the light. Silver rings banded every finger.
"Silver." Kevin nearly gasped.
"I kill vampires, too."
"No. You're quick, as you say, but not quick enough for Meir."

Meir was simple. Amistad was something else.
The bloodsucker was agitated. He wasn't none too proud of you but couldn't pin it. Too bad he didn't ask me for help.
I rode with them back into town. The military gent driving, me shotgun, Meir, as is the wont of his kind, sitting in the backseat.
I offered to send The Indelible Hulk home and take Meir the rest of the way. He was going to take another taxi to the airport. He couldn't impose on me. I was wounded, after all.
Frankly, fucker probably couldn't even ~see me. I do something to their eyes.
I offered to drive him, he invited me up for drinks. We were at that hostel he uses on the border. Do you know it?

"No."
"Meir fed on kids backpacking through Europe, partly. Honestly he was low-end but it was somewhat cathartic to do some faded-from-grace no-gooder. See this?" He pulled a length of fine wire from his sleeve.
"Silver."
He let it go and it retracted back into his jacket. He winked behind his glasses.

Got it in one. Meir got it across his throat. I cut his head off, tripped the sprinklers, set his body on fire in his wine cellar and headed out.
The big guy was waiting for me.
I probably should've thought ahead a little bit because by the time I got back out, I could smell the ozone on his breath and he was ready for me. Like I said, heavy-duty killer. Do you know what a mod is?
Yes?
Well he was millions of dollars of stacked ordnance and avenging angel bullshit.
Luring him was easy, putting him down wasn't.
But when I was done he was a bargain-bin of useless bits and a leaking oxy-reactor. I've never killed anyone by lighting a cigarette before, but there's a punchline there I don't plan on exploiting ever again.
I made my way back, a good number of miles, and picked up the rental.
Then I dumped the rental and rented another one and stripped it. It's sitting in your garage right now, looking like some punks are running a chop shop.
Nobody's going to know what became of either of them. One burned out and the birds are sorting through the ashes.
The other next to his private reserve. None of his kids, in their flight thought to check the secret wine cellar.
Idiot.

"So that just leaves you and me, Kenners."
Kevin was looking over the wheel again, not sure how much he believed. He felt raw and tired.
"Any last words?" The thing in the seat next to him prompted, waggling the pistol.
"I hope this brings you satisfaction."
For the first time, the killer, if that's what he was, looked nonplussed. The gun dipped, his eyebrows rode up above his glasses, "Satis-- what? Satisfaction?"
Kevin stammered, "Yes. I hope you... hope you feel satisfaction at--"
He cut him off, "Oh, you misunderstand. I had half an hour to kill. In another fifteen minutes, I'm going to forget your name until someone brings it up later. Depending on how many years and how many eviscerated criminal empires down the road ~that is, it's going to be a tossup in my head whether I remember if I was even here. Your housing is always the same. Pretty, but samey."
Kevin didn't know how to respond.
"Welp, toodles, Kenneth, I leave you to your fate. Keep your foot planted." He simply got out of the car and started walking down the road.
Kevin looked at the open door. Down at his foot. At the key in the ignition.
"Think! Kenneth-! Kevin! Dammit! Think!" He seethed.
He did, entirely motivated by thoughts of vengeance for the last half an hour, he thought.
He had about four minutes of useless breathing exercises, clenched muscles, sweat, and his head literally exploded.
A rifle-round fired by a rig with a sonic dampener cut a clean hole in the safety glass of the back window of the Audi and blasted Baron Hearthrow's face all over the wheel, windshield and his instruments.
His body slumped forward, the car, straining against its e-brake, went over the verge, down the hill, and plunked sadly into the river.
In only a few feet of water, all the doors popped open and the windows rolled down. The seatbelts retracted.
After a few minutes, the sound of an idling engine was overlain by quiet birdsong.

Down the road and in the woods, Tset hung up on Siver. Using old, old, but proven, voice modulators, Tset had hired the assassin to kill himself, giving him Kevin's position.
Siver lived because Tset had called him off and had him dump his gear, but told him to stay near.
The gear worked to point definitely to another party.
He would catch up to Siver later. There was always tomorrow.
For now, the secret was safe with him.