Page 1 of The Hitman

1Zahra

Best laidplans lead you straight to hell.

That’s the saying, right? If not, it should be, and we should start saying it to all the Type A little girls with extensive notebook collections, color-coded digital calendars, and a favorite stationery brand. Me. I’m saying someone should have said this to me. Someone should have told little me that all my vision boarding and extensive wedding planning was bullshit. And after today, every time I see a little girl who even vaguely reminds me of myself, I’ll tell her to pack it in and do whatever she wants, if no one else will.

I’ve lived my life following all the rules. I’ve done it all the right way, and what do I have to show for it right now, at this exact moment?

An $80,000 bespoke couture wedding dress that’s covered in so many crystals, I’ve only been wearing it for two hours and my back aches.

An engagement ring so simple and elegant and expensive that the jeweler who made it has been begging me for a week to model some less expensive knock-offs for the summer engagement season because every woman of a certain class will want a ring like mine. Because so many women dream about being engaged to A-list action star Ryan Fuller.

I have so many pins in my head that my scalp has gone numb.

And I have a full-body flush while watching breaking news on every entertainment website show footage of the man I was supposed to be walking down the aisle to marry twenty minutes ago, stumbling into his hotel room last night with Candee Caine, the most famous exotic dancer in the tri-state area and reality television star.

I also have the profound pleasure of feeling that flush turn to fire threat level when I see hotel surveillance footage — almost certainly obtained illegally — of my best friend and MIA maid of honor, Trisha Mays, sneaking down the hall to my fiancé’s room the night before she was supposed to stand next to me while I married him.

And maybe worst of all is that I can hear my sister Zoe’s voice in my head. I can practically hear her sucking her teeth and telling me, “I told you so.” I can hear her in my head because she’s not in my bridal suite, because I asked Trisha to be my maid of honor and not Zoe. So, no, I stand corrected. The worst part of all this is that I’m watching the two people Zoe told me I shouldn’t trust betray me, knowing that I betrayed her for them.

I’m watching them make a literal fool of me, and on my wedding day, no less.

So yeah, you can bet that from here on out, I’m going to tell every little girl I see that plans don’t mean anything. Mine sure as shit didn’t.

But first, I’m going to kick my ex-fiancé’s ass.

“Zahra.” Anna, the producer who’s been tasked to follow me around for the past two months, says my name quietly as if she’s afraid she’ll disturb me. Joke’s on her; nothing will ever disturb me more than the footage I’m watching on a loop on the real news station now.

I shake my head but don’t answer her. I turn the volume on the television up so that I can hear Chip Collinson — respected entertainment journalist and supreme asshole — talk about my life falling apart. He hates me. The feeling is mutual. I bet he’s loving this. I turn the volume on the television up because I want — no, need — to hear Chip tell the world with barely contained glee that my fiancé cheated on me the night before our wedding. It’s shit icing on a shit cake.

“Our exclusive source says the actor spent nearly ten thousand dollars at the strip club,” Chip gloats. “We can only estimate what portion of that he spent on the dancers before he went into a private room with Candee Caine.

If that name sounds familiar, here’s footage of Candee from her reality show Candee Shoppe, which chronicled the dancer’s jet-setting lifestyle. Confidential sources indicate that a private session with Candee costs at least twenty thousand dollars. And if this is the kind of service she offers, I’d argue that she’s worth every penny.

How many times have we reported on a celebrity cheating on their long-suffering girlfriend? It’s basically a genre of its own, butthisis an exciting twist, the likes of which we hardly see anymore because, honestly, what celeb is this sloppy in the age of cell phone cameras?”

I laugh sardonically because that’s a damn good question, Chip, you jackass. He might suck as a person, but at least he’s a journalist who does his job well, and that’s the only reason I even entertain our professional relationship. Getting one of my clients a one-on-one interview with Chip is worth the hassle. Also, if Chip is reporting on this story — God, my life is a story! — it’s true. There’s no convincing myself that I’m not seeing what I’m seeing.

“If you don’t recognize thesecondwoman on the security footage, that’s celebrated entertainment journalist Trisha Mays. I hate to speak ill of a colleague, but it seems Ms. Mays is willing to go above and beyond for the scoop, even if it means betraying her best friend and Ryan’s fiancée, public relations wunderkind Zahra Port.

We have no idea what happened in that hotel room, but we do have live footage of Candee leaving the hotel thirty minutes ago. And if you’re keeping track, that’s nearly an hour after guests started arriving at the uber-posh Grand Garden Plaza Hotel for Ryan and Zahra’s wedding. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the wedding of the season might be a bit delayed. But the real breaking, still unfolding, scandal is that Ryan and Trisha have yet to emerge from their sordid love nest. To stay up to date on this story as it unfolds, make sure to keep an eye out on our website—”

I finally shut the television off. Chip’s giddy laughter is ringing in my ears even though the suite is so quiet it’s deafening. My heart’s pounding and my dress feels heavier and more oppressive than it did two minutes ago. I feel like I’m suffocating under the designer creation and the ashes of my life.

“Zahra,” Anna says again.

I turn to her this time, not because I want to hear whatever she has to say, but because now that I can’t see the video footage of my life going up in flames, the righteous indignation is already seeping from my pores, and I feel helpless. I hate feeling helpless. Not feeling helpless is the literal point of all the notebooks and calendar alerts.

I turn to Anna, but I come face-to-face with the camera, because, oh right, Ryan and I have been filming a reality tv wedding special. I’d forgotten that.

Apparently, so had he.

“What are you feeling, Zahra?” Anna asks in a voice I know they’ll edit out in post because there’s no chance they won’t release this footage.

I should call my lawyer and get her started on fighting the television network, looking for a loophole — any loophole — that can bury this footage deeper than my garbage relationship. But I’m still frozen.

What am I feeling? I consider that question, but I can’t land on a single answer, because I feel nothing and everything all at the same time. I’m angry as fuck. I’m embarrassed. I want to murder Ryan for putting me in this position. I want to pull out Trisha’s bonded extensions one by one. I’m ashamed of myself for choosing them over my sister who hates me now. I feel hollow.

“What are you thinking?” Anna prods, trying a different tactic.

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