After my fourth attempt failed, I knew I had to try again. Failure was never an option.

I decided to try someone new, a different target out of the many options I had in the palm of my hands. The escaped man could wait a little while longer. I could not.

Peter Wesley, twenty-six, the youngest of them all. He had been born into wealth and never had to lift a finger for himself, and it showed in his day-to-day life. Mr Wesley never went anywhere without a servant by his side to open the doors and make sure the peasants of London went nowhere near him. He thought himself to be royalty.

The people needed to know the truth.

With so many servants following him, I had to bide my time with Mr Wesley, wait until he was completely alone before I tried anything. I followed him for many weeks, watching his every move so I could find out when he would be without staff. There were moments, small windows of opportunity, but they were few and the time windows minuscule.

Still, I never turned down an opportunity, especially not for a man like Mr Wesley. He needed to be taught a lesson, and I was the person who would teach it to him.

I waited at the gates of his factory, my cap obscuring my face. When the gates to his factory opened, I would seize my opportunity. His carriage arrived less than five minutes after the gates opened, which gave me the smallest of margins to get the job done. No matter how small the margins for error might have been, I had to do it.

When the bells started to chime, the gates to the factory were swung open by two workmen who tried to chase me away. I stayed close and waited for the right moment. The workmen stayed near the gates too, but they were too focused on the people leaving through the gates to notice someone going through them.

I slipped through the gates and merged with the crowd leaving the factory. Their faces were worn, exhaustion radiating off their bodies. They moved as one entity, one body with no individuality. Their work had stolen everything from them.

Mr Wesley always stepped outside the factory doors before the carriage arrived. He would reach the gate just as it pulled up, and the servant opened the door to him. Every single day was the same, and I had to hope that this day would be no exception.

I wasn't going to let another man get away from me.

Not this time.

When the last of the workers had shuffled through the gates, the workmen returned to the building. I pressed my back against the brick wall, keeping myself tucked in the shadows and out of sight, blending into the darkness.

I pulled the hammer from my waistband and waited. Blood roared in my ear. Seconds felt like hours until I wondered whether he was going to emerge on time or if he had become delayed by paperwork and my opportunity had already slipped away. That couldn't happen.

Several seconds later, as time started to tick by, I heard footsteps on the floors just inside the factory doors. Mr Wesley preferred to announce his arrival with footsteps on a wooden floor. I preferred to move quietly.

He emerged from the doors. The carriage and the other workmen were nowhere to be found. Someone seemed to be smiling at me that day. Someone wanted me to complete this task, to free the forsaken from this man's grip.

I watched him take several steps forward, pulling his pocket watch from his pocket. He glanced down at it.

He didn't hear a word.

Within a few seconds, he lay face down on the ground where he belonged. Blood dribbled from the wound on his head, pooling on the cobblestones, staining the ground where many men had died at his own hand.

A fitting place to die.

~~~

First Published - February 6th, 2023