Lonely Thieves

Prologue

The old man had been retired for years, but a normal civilian passing by him on the street might not have realized this. Despite being well into his middle age, the old man was much too young to have been retired for so long. Furthermore, he was extremely fit for his age; he must have been fifty years old by now, but he looked like he barely broke forty.

This was because his work was quite unusual, even in this bizarre city called Twilight. He was an assassin for the Innocenti family twenty or so years ago, and an exceptionally good one at that. He'd had so many successful jobs that when he approached the boss about quitting, the man had nearly broke into tears.

There was no particular reason for why he decided to retire. He did not have any moral qualms about killing; Twilight had always been a city full of sinners, and the people he killed were always criminals on the same level as the family he worked for. He did not fear for his life, either; his years of grueling training under his military father had given him the skills to survive any combat situation.

Perhaps he was just tired. Yes, that might have been it. He was tired of killing. He did not enjoy it, unlike some of the others who plied his trade. It was just the best way to earn money using the only skills he had. Still, he had grown tired of it. With the Innocenti family solidifying their hold on the underground of Twilight, there had also been less of a need for his services. There was no longer a need for the assassin Kolya Markov.

So he retired. The money that he had earned from his assassinations was substantial, and while he never thought he could live the rest of his life in luxury, he figured he had time to figure out his options. However, life never goes as planned, and the money began to disappear faster than he expected. He would need to find another job.

But as it turned out, there was not much demand for an ex-assassin on the job market nowadays. His other options were not very attractive either. Working in law enforcement was impossible with his background. What about working as a bodyguard? That would mean working for the Overman Foundation, which held a monopoly on all security services. The Foundation insisted on giving all of its security agents cyber-implants. Kolya hated cyber-implants, so that was not an option for him.

In the end, he turned to Night Hunting. Being a Night Hunter was not a reputable occupation by any means, and only a fool would brag about being one. Still, it had its advantages. For one, clients didn't care who did the job as long as it was done. Secondly, Night Hunts often paid a lot all at once. You had to deal with the possibility of doing a job that someone else was already doing, but that was a relatively minor risk.

In the apartment room he had rented out, Kolya scanned the available jobs on a tablet using an encrypted connection. The pickings so far seemed less fruitful than he expected, but there were a lot of jobs to look through. He continued to scroll until he found a job with a satisfactory payout. A request to steal an emerald necklace from the Hayasaka family. That was the home of the CEO of the Hayasaka Zaibatsu, the conglomerate that owned 77% of businesses in the Pacific Union. Trying to steal something from that family? If he got caught, there wouldn't be enough mercy in the world to save him.

Still, Kolya had faith in his infiltration skills, and if even if he did get caught, he could easily escape whatever security the Hayasakas would have. He turned off the tablet and got out of bed. There would need to be a lot of preparation before taking on this job.

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There was no justice in this godforsaken city.

That was the lesson that Norah Albert had learned when she was booted from the Twilight Police investigative division. You would think that after six years of loyal work that she would be treated better than this, but it turns out that loyalty gets you nothing these days.