Lincoln stepped out of Leni's bedroom, closing the door behind him. He felt lighter than air, having the emotional burden dominating his thoughts these last two days lifted off his shoulders. However, even though he felt the issue had now been resolved, there was still something else on his mind.

He had Leni's word that she would stop, yet that still revealed an utterly undeniable truth. His sweet, dimwitted if not well-meaning, big hearted sister moonlighted as a killer for hire. The reality of the situation hadn't really set in. At least he hoped it hadn't. He knocked softly on Lisa's door, a few of his siblings having already retired to their rooms for the evening.

Tiny footsteps pattered their way to the door and opened it. Lisa was already in her pajamas, but more than willing to hear the results of his and Leni's chat.

Lisa smiled at her older brother. "Good to see you're still among the living," she said, opening the door to allow him entry. "So? How did it go?"

He hesitated at first. Could he truly say it went well?

"She... she admitted everything," He muttered, the weight of his words revealing themselves as they left his lips.

"I see..." Lisa replied, reading her brother's expression expertly. "And she has agreed to cease and desist?"

Lincoln angled his eyes toward the ground. "Yeah..."

"Splendid."

Lincoln looked up. "Splendid? I'm pretty sure our sister being a murder is far from splendid!"

Lily stirred in her crib.

"Will you keep your voice down?" Lisa admonished him.

"But... what does this mean about her? About our family?" Lincoln asked, following Lisa to Lily's crib to make sure she was still sleeping peacefully.

"Lincoln, every family has secrets. This is going to be one of ours. Except I won't be able to bury this one in the back yard in the middle of the night."

Lincoln filed the second part of her sentence in the back of his mind for further investigation. His only focus now was on the Leni situation. "I guess... I feel like us confirming this should be more... I don't know... meaningful?"

Lisa turned from Lily's crib with her arms folded. "Look Lincoln, what Leni's been doing is wrong, we both know it. But involving anyone other than those who already know would just cause more trouble. The best we can do now that the situation has resolved itself, it move on with our lives."

Lincoln could hardly believe his ears. "We're just supposed to... ignore it?"

"In layman's terms..." Lisa began. "Yes."

Lisa sighed. She could already see the wheels turning in her brother's head. "Lincoln, your moral compass is an asset. Don't let one magnetic variation make you think it's malfunctioning."

It was getting late. The talk with Leni, and now Lisa had worn him out emotionally. He figured perhaps a night's sleep might give him a different perspective on the situation. He left Lisa's room and cast another glance down the hallway. The light was off in Leni's room. He took the short walk to his room and readied himself for bed.

As he laid in his bed, the moonlight streaming through his curtains illuminated his copy of Ace Savvy number one. It had quickly become his most prized possession, but now with the truth of Leni's side job revealed, he began to look at it in a different light.

It was purchased with what was undeniably blood money, and therefore was stained by it. Lincoln rolled over and faced the ceiling. What about what his sister's gifts? Would he have to tell them they were tainted? He supposed not, since the idea was to keep Leni's secret between the three of them. He shut his eyes and prayed for rest without any more dreams of him being killed by his sister.

However, fate would only grant part of his wish.

Lincoln was startled out of bed by gunfire coming from the hallway. He sat up, terrified, but unsure of what he's heard as he listened again. Another burst rattled off from downstairs as Lincoln fell to the floor. He opened his door to find his sisters behind stacked sandbags, all peeking out from behind cover and taking shots at an unseen enemy downstairs.

Lucy popped out from behind her bunker and fired a few shots from her AK-74. Lincoln couldn't believe his eyes. Lynn, Luan, Lori, and of course Leni were all busy firing and dodging bullets.

He low-crawled behind one of the barriers towards Lynn. With a ringing in his ears, he shouted to his sister.

"Lynn! What the heck is going on?"

"They found her!" she shouted back, popping back over the inexplicable sandbag barrier and firing a burst down towards the enemy. "Reloading!" she shouted, pulling a magazine out of her body armor he hadn't noticed her wearing before.

"Who found her?" He shouted back.

"Leni's boss!"

"Frag out!" Luan shouted from her end of the sandbag wall. She pulled the pin and launched the small sphere down the stairs. The other sisters covered their heads as an explosion rocked the house. "That was a blast!" Luan continued, before popping up and firing on the wounded enemies below, her smile never disappearing.

"They found out she wasn't gonna work for them anymore, and they weren't happy!"

A grenade sailed over the sandbag barrier and landed between Lynn and Lincoln. He was too stunned to move away before it went off.

He shot up in bed. He was certainly getting tired of his dreams being this stressful. But, thankfully it was morning, and his stomach growled loudly. With no war being waged in the hallway, he decided to get breakfast and try and move on with his life, just as Lisa intructed.

Leni reached into her nightstand and grabbed her other phone. It was a text message. It always was.

It was just a jumble of letters and numbers to the untrained eye, but luckily Leni had the key to translate it.

Using the key, she read the message.

'Standby for tasking... Another job is coming down the pipe. I'll be in touch.'

Leni didn't reply, but she never needed to. The agency seemed to be getting busy. She remembered her promise to lincoln, but at the same time, she wasn't sure what her employers were truly capable of. She had turned down contracts before, but only due to unavailability, not because she had a moral change of heart.

She didn't know anything about the agency, and they kept it that way on purpose. Insulated actors were far less likely to jeopardize their operations if ever caught. But would they let her leave with what she knew? What if they sent a 'Leni' after her? Leni clutched her pillow and tried to get some sleep. She would have to meet with Ken eventually, and give him her two week notice.

She only hoped he would accept it.

Days passed after Lincoln and Leni's heart to heart. He tried his best to continue on with life as normal, and for the most part, it didn't seem as impossible as he first guessed. Unfortunately, every time one of his sisters mentioned or played with the gifts Leni had gotten them from any of her previous trips, he was reminded. He hardly even looked at his comic once he'd figured out what had paid for it. Even though he hadn't really had too many deep discussions with Leni before, the more he thought about what she'd done, the more curious he became. What was it like to kill? Did she regret doing it? Did it change her?

Everytime he was alone with her, he wanted to ask, but he knew that continuing to talk about it wasn't helping him or her get on with their lives. Lisa seemed perfectly capable of acting as though nothing had happened. Although, considering what she had revealed to him about her experiments in the past, this was probably one of the least traumatic things she had dealt with.

He tried to spend his precious summer days as he normally would, and with Clyde and Ronnie Anne's help, he was able to take his mind off his troubles for a few hours at a time.

Leni, like Lisa, was also able to go about her day to day without anyone being the wiser. She was still the same old forgetful, sometimes dimwitted but well meaning sister she had always been. However, every night before bed she would check her other phone with her heart in her throat. Would tonight be the night she gets the job specifics? The night where she explained her retirement? Would they even let her retire? What if they blackmailed her with her job history in order to force her to stay? What if they stopped paying her and she became their assassin slave?

Ordinarily, Leni could separate rational outcomes from wild fantasies, but because she knew so little about who she worked for, she had no idea what kind of action they'd take. She banished those thoughts from her head as she read a copy of Teen People on the living room sofa. Her sisters had all found something away from the house to do on this particularly beautiful summer evening. It was rarely this quiet in the Loud house. Unfortunately that silence was shattered by the telephone in the kitchen ringing. Leni remained on the couch as she heard her mother's footsteps heading toward the phone.

"Hello? Hey hun— wait, what? Lynn, slow down. Honey, just calm down and tell me—Honey, stop crying! You're a grown man!"

Leni peered over the top of her magazine as her mother whispered harshly into the phone. "I'm coming, just calm down, we'll make this right when I get to the police station. I love you, goodbye."

Leni's full attention was now in the kitchen as she watched her mother scramble to find her purse and the keys to her car.

"Mom?" she asked nervously, sitting up from the couch.

"Stay here and wait for your brother and sisters, sweetheart, Mom's gotta go take care of something."

In the blink of an eye, her mother had started the car and screeched the tires down the road. Leni watched her drive away from the living room window. She found herself alone in the house. Leni hadn't really had a good opportunity to take a cab to the docks to put away her gear from her last job, and it looked like this would be the final time she'd ever have to do it.

She produced her phone and called for a cab before heading upstairs to grab her money and weapon. She sat on the steps of their porch, floral print duffle bag and guitar case resting beside her. To an untrained observer she was just a teenage musician waiting for a ride to her next gig, not a deadly assassin waiting for a lift to her stash house.

She just hoped that the cab would arrive before...

"Dang it..." she muttered to herself as Lincoln came riding his bike down the sidewalk.

He pulled up to the garage and took off his helmet.

"Hey Leni!" he said walking up to her when he noticed the guitar case and recalling what was in it. "What... uhm... is that—"

"Yeah," she said somberly.

He stared at her bags and swallowed nervously. "You aren't, uhm, going on another—"

"No, I'm like, going to put them away for good," she replied as the cab pulled up by the curb.

Maybe he wasn't convinced she was giving up. Maybe he wanted to catch a glimpse into this side of her life. Perhaps he was darkly fascinated with her side work. Whatever the reason, he found himself speaking regardless.

"Can I come with you?"

Leni thought for a moment. He already knew just about as much as she did, and the only thing in her container was the rest of her money, a few mannequins and rifle parts. She supposed there was no harm in it. Leni stood up and grabbed her bags, her brother still anxiously awaiting her reply.

"Yeah, but you have to like, keep it a secret."

He was well aware of that, but nodded all the same. Lincoln silently followed his sister into the cab as Leni loaded her bags into the trunk. Leni slid in the seat next to him and instructed the driver where to go.

"The docks?" Lincoln asked.

Leni nodded as she stared blankly out of the window. This was more than just a quick trip to ditch her gear. This was a funeral precession for a part of her life that helped her feel like she was helping her family. All at the behest of the little boy sitting beside her. She idly watched the scenery pass her by when she felt her brother's hand take hers.

She looked to him and he smiled at her. "You're doing the right thing, Leni."

Leni knew he was right. This was for the best, and not many in her field retire with a perfect record. So she at least had that going for her.

"I know, but like... how am I supposed to help our family out now?"

"You can get a regular job, or maybe an actual fashion internship," he suggested hopefully.

Leni sighed. "I guess so..."

The ride continued on as they sat in silence, Lincoln holding Leni's hand as the car pulled into the entrance to the pier. They climbed out of the car as Leni took her bags and Lincoln waited on her as the cab pulled away. Wordlessly, Lincoln followed his sister in between the rows of shipping containers as Leni kept a soft count of the ones they passed.

"So, Leni?" Lincoln began as they walked. A question had been eating at him ever since Lisa proposed that their sister was a successful assassin. "What... what's it like to uh... you know..." Lincoln made a gun with his fingers and pretended to pull the trigger.

Leni knew what he meant.

"The first time was kinda hard, cause I don't really like blood or any of that yucky stuff," she replied as they continued to walk. "But with this," Leni said, raising the guitar case "I don't really have to get too close. And I read all about the guys. They're bad guys Lincoln, they hurt people, kidnap kids and take what isn't theirs."

Lincoln tried to absorb everything she'd said, but he simply couldn't wrap his mind around Leni actually lining up another person in a rifle scope and ending their life, even though they hadn't done anything to her. He had plenty of video games centered around that very concept, but to actually do it in real life? For Money?

He simply couldn't understand it. He knew Leni's only intent was to help the family, but at what price?

Before he could contemplate her words further, she gasped, stopping in her tracks. In between two shipping containers was a gap where Lincoln supposed one used to be.

"No... oh no!" Leni said, panic rising in her voice as she looked down the row and recounted, just in case she had lost count while talking to Lincoln. "Thirteen, fourteen... it's supposed to be right here!"

Lincoln was a bit concerned by her reaction as she counted again.

"What's supposed to be right here?" Lincoln asked.

"My steel house!"

Lincoln glanced around at the identical containers. "You mean a shipping container?"

"Yeah, what the heck could have happened to it?" she asked in full on panic mode.

"Well..." Lincoln began. "Maybe someone shipped it somewhere?"

"That's what happens to shipping containers?"