They always picked the most forgettable places to talk business.

Tonight it was a 24-hour laundromat on the edge of Blüdhaven — fluorescent lights buzzing, dryers groaning, the smell of cheap detergent hanging thick. Slade sat in a cracked plastic chair, civilian jacket zipped to his throat, boots planted wide like even sitting required a tactical stance. He looked like a man waiting on a machine to finish a cycle. He wasn’t.

The glass door chimed.

His sister walked in with a folder tucked under her arm and a coffee she didn’t bother to drink. No handshake. No greeting. Just a sharp nod before she slid into the chair across from him, pretending to care about the spinning clothes behind the dryer window.

The contract packet hit the table softly — too softly for what it weighed.

Names. Numbers. A payout with enough zeros to mean trouble. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t have to; the look in her eyes said it was one of those jobs. The kind that stays with you, even after the blood is washed away.

Slade skimmed the first page, jaw tightening just enough to register.

He didn’t smile. He rarely did. But there was a shift — small, dangerous, like a blade unsheathed beneath the table.

“Fine,” he muttered, just loud enough. “We’ll take it.”

Outside, the dryers hummed. Somewhere down the block, sirens wailed. And for the first time in weeks, the Wilson siblings were back in business — two mercenaries, one contract, and a city that would never see them coming.