Lonely Thieves

Act I, Part VII

Kolya's Side (April 7, 9:45 pm)

Kolya sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow. That was almost a bad situation. He looked around the small alcove he had made for himself. He was deep inside the mansion's interior, in the power room where most of the mansion's electricity was controlled. On his lap was a tablet which he had used to hack into the security cameras, giving him a complete overview of the mansion.

Using this, he had been able to not only figure out what Hayasaka Security was up to, but also locate the girl who had stolen the necklace. He watched and waited until she was right about to be scanned by the guards when he cut the power. There was still a chance that the girl would have been too stunned to escape, but luckily that didn't seem to be the case. She must have had a partner he wasn't aware of, because someone had pulled her out of the mansion and ran off with her.

He sighed again as he stood up and put away his laptop. What was he doing, helping out the girl who got away with his quarry? But he didn't have much of a choice. Were she to be captured, the Hayasakas would realize that people were after their emerald necklace. There was a possibility that the Hayasakas already had eyes scouring the Night Hunter boards, but the ciphers used were pretty hard to get a handle on. In any case, them not knowing was for the better.

Of course, after tonight, there was no way the Hayasakas would just chalk things up to a bad night and leave it at that. They were sure to scour the entire mansion and figure out why someone tried to sneak in. And they would eventually figure out that the emerald necklace had been stolen.

That also meant that it was not a good idea to stick around. Kolya quickly left the power room and climbed the steps up into the inner building of the mansion. The guards were all gathered to watch the line of exiting guests and staff, so there wasn't anyone back here yet. However, some of the guards would eventually come to check on the power room, so he needed to leave quickly. He still had his guard uniform on, so he continued to walk through the darkened building as if he was merely patrolling.

As he walked into the main foyer, two guards burst in from the courtyard, panting heavily. One of them noticed Kolya walking towards them and pulled out his baton.

"You! State your name and reveal your badge!"

Kolya stiffened up and saluted with his right hand while reaching into his pocket with his left hand. "James Kerrigan, sir!" He pulled out his badge from his pocket and showed it to the security guard. It was a fake one he had made for situations like these, but no one could tell from a quick glance.

The guard seemed to accept the badge at face value and turned back to Kolya. "Someone cut out the power a few minutes ago. Did you see anyone in the area?"

Kolya shook his head. "I only came here a moment ago myself. I took a look in the power room, but nobody was there. Whoever it was, they must have already run. The cables have been cut as well, so we won't be able to restore power any time soon."

"Very well. I'll get the other guards and have them search the area!" The guards turned around and headed towards the rest of the inner building. Kolya let out a sigh of relief and put his badge away, making sure to also shut off the device hidden inside of his pocket. He continued walking calmly out of the building, past the courtyard and into the kitchens. There, he emerged from the side entrance, and once he was sure that no guards were around, he crossed over to the fence and climbed over it. Just like that, he was out of the mansion.

Kolya quickly removed his security uniform and switched it with clothes he had hidden in a bag he had buried in a nearby tree. He then jogged swiftly to his car, which he had parked several blocks away from the mansion. He threw the bag into the back and drove away from the mansion. It didn't look like anyone was following him, so he had made it out scot-free.

As he drove home, his phone rang. The car's system picked up the call, and a familiar woman appeared on the screen.

"Uh, Mr. Kolya? Is that you?"

"Kolya is fine. Are you the woman from earlier?"

"Yes, this is Norah. I thought by now you would have made it out of the mansion, so I thought I'd call you."

"The thief has made it out of the mansion. We won't have to worry about the Hayasakas recovering it."

"That's fine and all, but what are we supposed to do now? Twilight is huge. I can't imagine she'll be easy to find."

"Call in your contacts," Kolya responded. "Tell them to look for an Asian girl with short black hair. She's about five-foot-four, thin yet athletic. In her late teens at the very oldest."

"That's a fair amount of detail, but I can't imagine that narrows things much."

"You should look for someone who has significant prowess in thievery, as well as someone who has implants."

"Implants? She has cyber-implants?"

"She jumped down from a twenty-foot height without injuring herself. She would have to have implants to do that."

"I got it. I'll have a word with some of my shadier contacts. I'll see you soon, I suppose."

Norah hung up, and Kolya was left undisturbed until he finally reached his apartment deep within the residential zone of the Lunar district. With a tired sigh, he climbed out of his car and walked up the twenty-six steps to his door, but stopped before putting his hand on the knob. He noticed with some peculiarity that there was someone inside of his house. He put a ready hand on the pistol kept hidden within his jacket and unlocked the door to get inside.

Inside he found his apartment, a minimalist abode with very little outside of a bed and a table. Sitting at the table as if he was meant to be there was a rough middle-aged man in a suit, drinking a beer as he played with a knife. He turned to Kolya and gave him a cheeky grin as he walked into the room.

"Markov! You call this place an apartment? If you're hurting for money, I could always provide for you, my brother."

"Amoretto." Kolya walked into the room, hand still hovering over his pistol. Amoretto noticed this and gave him a playful shrug.

"Come on now, is that how you treat an old friend? Cool your jets, Markov. I'm here on business."

"I don't work for the Innocenti anymore. A capo like you should know that."

"Have a heart, Kolya. Are you saying you don't have any gratitude for the people who helped make you what you are?"

"Of course I do. But I'm retired. I don't do assassin work anymore."

"It's just a favor, okay? Don't pretend like I haven't done anything for you. I got you those hypnotics you asked for and I kept it all hush-hush, eh?"

Kolya nodded cautiously. It was true that he had asked Amoretto to get him some hypnotics. They were absolutely necessary for him to infiltrate the Hayasaka mansion. The devices emitted a soundwave that went below what human ears could hear, but would hamper the skepticism of anyone in the device's range, making them more susceptible to lies. Anything that was obviously wrong or was counter to common sense, like trying to convince someone that the sky was blue, was impossible, but if the affected person was told something they weren't sure about, the hypnotics would make them believe it instantly.

"I didn't even ask you what they were for, yeah? Because even if you're retired, you're still a member of the family." Amoretto threw an arm over Kolya's shoulder. "You get what I'm saying, right?"

"Fine. What do you want from me?"

"Just a favor. No need to get your panties in a bunch, kay?" Amoretto walked away and sat back down at the table. "The heads, they've been yelling about some job on the Night Hunter boards. You're a Night Hunter now, yeah? You should have access to the boards too."

Kolya nodded silently. The fact that Amoretto was aware that Kolya had become a Night Hunter was concerning, but it was also something that was inevitable. The Innocenti never really let you go even if they said they would, so it was obvious that they would be keeping tabs on him. He just hadn't expected them to find out so quickly.

Sensing Kolya's apprehension, Amoretto gave him a casual shrug. "Don't worry. I'm not going around telling the world, yeah? Anyway, the heads were griping about some job involving stealing a necklace from the Hayasaka mansion. You hear about this?"

"A necklace from the Hayasakas? Why would the heads care about that?"

"Don't ask me. It's not my job to know anyway."

This was concerning. In the first place, a simple job like this with the reward that it offered was clearly suspicious, but at the time, Kolya had nothing more to go on than his own instincts. However, if even the Innocenti heads were interested in the necklace, then there had to be something more to it.

He glanced at Amoretto's face and tried to read his expression. Did he know that he had tried to steal the necklace not even less than an hour ago? Due to the nature of Night Hunting, it should be impossible to identify who was working on which job, but a competent hacker might be able to track visitors to a certain job post. Was that what Amoretto had done? Had he tried to trace down everyone who accessed the post?

Either way, he sensed it was better to play dumb. "In any case, I didn't hear about a job like that. Sounds your basic thief request to me."

"Well, clearly the heads think otherwise," Amoretto said as he continued to play with his knife. "If you don't know anything, then that's fine."

Kolya suppressed a sigh of relief as Amoretto got up to leave. However, before he stepped out of the apartment, he turned back.

"One more thing, Markov. If you see a similar request, you let me know, yeah?"

"Similar request? You want me to tell you every time someone wants to steal something on the boards?"

"Of course not. Just tell me if you see a post about stealing a necklace from the Innocenti or something like that. Focus on the necklace, okay?"

The example bothered Kolya. "Are you saying that the Innocenti family has a necklace too?"

"I was just giving you an idea of what to look for. Don't think too deeply about these things, yeah? I sure won't." Amoretto waved as he shut the door behind him.

Kolya scratched his chin as he fell into deep thought. The possibility that the heads were interested in the job to steal a necklace from the Hayasakas was not out of the ordinary. It was an attack on one of the most influential families in Twilight, and if it was successful, it could make them look weak in front of the other big powers.

Still, why were they worried about a similar job being put out for them? Was it just about reputation? People attempted to steal from the Innocenti family all the time, so a Night Hunt shouldn't change things. There had to be something that the Innocentis didn't want stolen. Something that the Hayasakas also had hidden within their mansion. Something that had to do with the emerald necklace.

Kolya pulled out his tablet and switched it to desktop mode. There was something more to this job than just mere thievery. Right now, that detective called Norah was on the lookout for the thief, so there was no need for him to join the search. Instead, now was a good time to uncover the motivations behind this job request. Kolya stretched his fingers and took a deep breath. It looked like tonight was going to be a long night.