Michael Roth is a middle-aged journalist who struggles to make ends meet. Though he used to write respectable pieces, he now sells short, clickbait-y articles to local publications and barely scrapes by. One day, Mike receives an email tip from a man claiming he has a story to tell. He meets the man, who calls himself Brack, in a bar. Brack tells him he is a professional hitman and regales Mike with stories of various gruesome kills he's gotten away with. He wants to tell his story without getting arrested and wants Mike to help. Mike promises to think it over, slightly incredulous but desperate for a good story.

Mike walks home from the bar, as he has sold his car. Brack approaches him in his truck and offers him a ride home. Mike agrees. On the way, Brack turns off the road, offering Mike a proposition. Brack wants Mike to perform a hit for him. He'll pay sixteen thousand dollars. Brack explains that a woman married a man but balked when she met his father. The father is a creep who allegedly used to molest his children, though the husband never admits it. Now that the couple has kids, the wife is terrified to leave her children alone with the predatory grandfather. Brack offers Mike a backpack full of supplies, directions to the house, and $6k up front, then promises to pick him up at a specified location. Mike, in a stroke of desperation and adrenaline, agrees. Mike approaches the house's back door, but before he can open it, he hears gunshots. The old man shoots at him. Mike hides in some shrubs, and when the man approaches, he quickly shoots him several times in the stomach before he sprints away. He goes to the meeting spot, but Brack is nowhere to be found. Mike returns home, surprised at his lack of remorse.

The murder is in the news the next day, and there is much speculation, but Mike is never found out. A friend and fellow journalist speculates that it was a professional hit job but can't find any confirmation. Mike later discovers that the old man's daughter, Lana, inherited her inheritance and moved away with her husband, Jonah. When he looks at a picture of Jonah, Mike recognizes him as Brack and realizes that Brack is the son who used to be molested by his father.

Mike settles into a dark new life pattern: he writes humdrum fluff pieces by day and makes money through various nefarious mediums by night — hit jobs, drugs, crime, etc. He has no regrets.