I turn in for the night, but someone visits me.

You decide to retire to your room. No one stops you when you enter the hotel. As usual, the skeleton crew maintains the front desk or lobby and hardly pays you attention.

Upon getting to your room, you find it exactly how you left it, but do a sweep of it anyway. A tinge of paranoia has made the environment a little less comfortable colors the air, even if there aren’t any open hostilities between you and Mikka (or any of his goons).

Once you are cleaned up and dressed to unwind, you review your equipment and the non-standard issue of your contract, your personal arsenal kept from RTE’s rules. The new Glock is set aside as you review clean your Mauser, Smith and & Wesson, Jäger, etc. and more. The familiarity of your original these firearms gives you peace, as you know how to clean and care for them their weight a steady anchor.

Your mind wanders to thoughts of, stirred by the tavern’s quiet—Delilah and Tiny’s Tavern before filing into Akiko and Sachio. Eventually, your mind even walks into a place of Scarlet and what she could be learning with follows, her eyes on Mikka’s trail. These thoughts are dispersed scatter when a knock happens at raps your door.

You glance at the Jäger on the tabletop and quickly load and rack it before approaching it, loading it with a rack, then approach. You use the peephole to spy on who the visitor is, hoping that it’s for Akiko, but your luck doesn’t stretch that far. It’s Sasha. You exhale, somewhat annoyed to see the girl.

When you open it, she pushes through and cranes her neck, dressed in dark clothes, and her hair is already pulled back into a ponytail. She spins on her heel to face you, hands on her hips. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

Considering all the recent events, you didn’t think about hadn’t dwelled on Sasha and all the dirty her owed favors she still owes you. It takes a full second for you to register that you’re blackmailing McKinley’s wife. Your session with Akiko had dulled out all of those meaningless, lustful nights with Sasha dulled those empty nights, her warmth a stark contrast. Seeing her, somewhat pampered in front of you, causes some stirs memories to return. You actually feel a pinch of Guilt pinches, sharp and unbidden.

“You’re kind of late, aren’t you?” You ask you say, unsure if you even want her in your room suddenly here now.

Sasha scoffs, her brown eyes bouncing to the guns on the tabletop. “I can leave, you know? But this doesn’t mean That won’t clear what I owe you anything more than the next you use me.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all,” you say, glancing at the firearms, too eyes flicking to the guns. You untuck the Jäger from the small of your back and place, setting it next to beside the other weapons others. “I wasn’t expecting you to pop in at… almost near midnight.”

“Aw,” Sasha smirks, her smirk wavering. “Is the big, bad bounty hunter tired from all the hard work he’s putting into his babysitting gig dancers?”

“Contractor,” you glare at Sasha, making sure that there’s marking the difference between the two branches of mercenary work. “It’s not the gig that has me wired keeping me up.”

Sasha laughs, her laugh sounds slightly strained. “Oh, right. I forgot that you’re trying to pin Mikka with violating our for breaking RTE’s company’s professionalism code.”

“Shut up,” you wave her away off, dismissively, knowing that you don’t intend to involve keeping her out of the matters of your concern Mikka’s mess. “I ought to fuck you just for being such a bitch.”

Another laugh, but it sounds more **** slightly strained. “Are you doing this or what?”