Lonely Thieves

Act III, Part XIII

Kolya's Side (April 12, 5:00 pm)

Kolya had spent the last twelve hours poring through all of the data and footage that Alvarez and his mysterious sponsor had given him. He was in one of his safehouses in the Sunshine district, an empty mobile home parked on an empty lot. He was using a laptop with an encrypted connection, and he was currently slowly watching the footage of the robbery, using a hacked program designed for him to watch multiple video feeds at once.

Despite having multiple angles to look through, it was actually pretty hard to catch a glimpse of the thief on screen. Whoever he was, he was incredibly skilled. Though he was surely equipped with an obscuring implant, he still made sure to avoid being on camera for too long, likely because of software like Kolya's that could remove most methods of obscuring. He seemed to be able to leap into the blind spot of every camera in the mansion, taking care to never be on screen for more than a second. Still, as skilled as he was, he wasn't superhuman. There were moments where he was clearly visible on the screen, as scant as they were.

Kolya was currently digging through the footage looking for a particular image of the thief that would allow him to analyze his face. That was a fairly cumbersome task for reasons already mentioned, but Kolya persisted anyhow. To that end, he had been cooped up in his safehouse for half a day already.

Another hour passed before Kolya finally found a section of the footage that seemed to have a clear image of the thief. Kolya paused the footage and zoomed in on the figure, trying his best to make out his face amongst the blurriness. After adjusting the zoom several times, Kolya finally managed to get a fairly clean image of the thief's face.

The face was that of a man with long black hair. His facial features were a bit blurry, but Kolya could recognize a black mask covering the top half of his face. He smirked. He may not have been able to see his face, but he knew exactly who this was.

It was a fairly common story in the underworld. On a mission to assassinate a business rival for the Innocenti more than a decade ago, Kolya encountered a similarly masked man who was operating as a bodyguard for his target. The two clashed in a battle of subterfuge and deception, and while Kolya won out in the end, he had given him more than a run for his money. Some time after, he would learn the man's name: Raven. He called himself a Night Hunter, someone who would do anything for the right place, no strings attached.

For Kolya, who had been in the game for almost twenty years at that point, it was probably the most exciting part of his career as an Innocenti assassin. He had never had to deal with such an exhilirating opponent before, and in comparison, the life of an assassin had become tiresome for him. In a way, Raven might have indirectly inspired Kolya to become the Night Hunter that he was today.

Kolya put aside the footage for now and searched up the news on his phone. He had remembered news of Raven being sighted in the Morning Star district, with the Twilight Police Department stepping up patrols in order to catch him. He doubted that they would actually manage to catch him, but he worried about the lockdown the Police Department were considering. Should he head over while they were still open? He had no guarantee that Raven would even bother to answer his questions, and it'd be tough to get out of the lockdown even for him.

As he wondered what to do, he suddenly received a call from Alvarez. Kolya immediately picked up, hoping that Alvarez would have more information on his anonymous benefactor.

"Go ahead."

"Can't you even give me a proper greeting?" Alvarez quipped wryly.

"I'm not exactly taking it easy here."

"All right, all right." Alvarez sighed. "I did some more hacking into the Night Hunter archives, and I found up some more information. The thing is, I don't know what to make of it."

"Well, what did you find?"

"First things first. I think the job placed for the sapphire necklace is a dummy."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, the job exists on the board, but that's all. There's no communication between the client and the person who should have completed the request. There's not even confirmation with an administrator to confirm the job was done."

That was odd. Night Hunters were highly valued for being untraceable, but most jobs were pretty tough to handle without at least a little back and forth between the client and the responder.

"There's something else," Alvarez continued. "I decided to look into the background data of the job to steal the emerald necklace."

"Really? What for?"

"I wanted to see something. This job did have communication between the client and the responder, so I uncovered the client's IP and got routed back through several proxy servers – way more than would normally be provided by the Night Hunt boards."

"Sounds like a lot of effort to hide their identity. Did you manage to find out their true identity?"

"I did. You'll never believe who it is, though."

"Who is it?"

"It's Tom Hayasaka."

Kolya was momentarily surprised by the name, but then the pieces started to fall into place. There was no way that Tom Hayasaka could not have known about the theft of the sapphire necklace. After all, it was supposedly one of the keys to his father's will, though that theory was still unconfirmed. The Neumanns may not have revealed the theft to the public, but they couldn't possibly get away with not telling him.

From there, Tom Hayasaka must have figured his necklace was next. In other words, the whole thing was a trap. He made a big show of holding a gala, then posted a job on the Night Hunt boards to get people to steal the emerald necklace. He probably thought he could lure in the thief from last time and catch them while they were in the mansion. Too bad he never even showed up.

Before Kolya could explain his theory to Alvarez, he heard a beeping noise come from his laptop. He took a look and realized that the motion detector he had placed at the entrance to the empty lot his safehouse was located on had gone off. He switched view to the security cameras he had hidden throughout the area and saw that several Innocenti agents were swarming the area, with Amoretto at the head.

"I'll have to call you back, Alvarez."

"Uh, sure. Talk to you later, then." Alvarez didn't ask any questions and hung up. That was one of his better points.

Kolya checked and reloaded his pistols. He was running out of ammo, and while his safehouse was often stocked with some extra ammunition, a lot of it was for weapons he didn't have on him. He checked the security camera again. There were maybe five or six men outside of the building, not counting Amoretto. They were slowly surrounding the mobile home, and Amoretto was indicating his commands using hand gestures. Amoretto was fairly well-versed in the tactics Kolya used to excel in, so he couldn't take him lightly.

The lights were already off, so Kolya did not have to worry about them drawing attention. He pulled out his pistol and waited for the slightest bit of movement. He kept an eye on the front door, but he was fully prepared for them to come through one of the windows instead.

His hunch was correct, as the windows on the opposite side of the door were destroyed by two Innocenti grunts jumping into the home. The two grunts brandished their guns as quickly as they could, but they were still too slow for Kolya, who had already leapt into the air and struck them both in the head with a single kick.

At the same time, the door burst open, and another grunt came in with a submachine gun in hand. Kolya spun out instantaneously and fired a shot, hitting him square in the head. As the grunt went down, he fell onto his comrades, who fell off the steps leading to the mobile and knocked themselves out on the hard ground.

Kolya ran out to see who else was left, but to his surprise, no one else was around. He whirled around with confusion before Amoretto burst out of the mobile home's doorway and struck him in the chest with a kick. Kolya bowled over in surprise, but managed to keep himself from falling over. So Amoretto was with the men who came from behind. Kolya cursed himself for not thinking things out a bit more.

Amoretto smirked as he aimed another kick at Kolya's face. Kolya blocked the kick, returning an attack of his own with the butt of his pistol. Amoretto dodged his attack easily and countered with a roundhouse, sending Kolya back several feet. Kolya groaned as he picked himself up from the ground. He knew he was old, but he didn't think he'd have this much of a disadvantage.

The fight continued as Kolya weathered Amoretto's relentless flurry of attacks. Amoretto raised his knee, causing Kolya to reflexively block low. However, it was a feint, and Amoretto brought down a fist on Kolya's head.

The blow wasn't enough to knock Kolya out, but it was enough to cause him to fall to his knees and drop his pistol. Kolya tried to get up, but he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel against his head and froze. He slowly raised his head to look up at Amoretto, who had a cold smile on his face.

"Getting old sucks, don't it, old-timer? I never thought I'd have the legendary Stalker on his knees in front of me."

"Screw you, Amoretto. You never could just do the deed without gloating, could you?"

"I'd be grateful if I were you, Markov. You can stay alive as long as I'm gloating, after all."

Kolya groaned. Amoretto chuckled, but he kept his gun trained on Kolya's head.

"Can I ask a question?" Kolya asked apprehensively.

"Why not? I've got a little free time."

"Why'd Tom Hayasaka put a job out to steal his own necklace?"

"Oh, you found that out, huh? I told him to do that, actually."

"You did?"

"Yeah. He was desperate to find the sapphire necklace as quickly as possible, but that wasn't happening, so he came to me on the down low. Wanted my advice."

"Your advice?"

"I've got a reputation for getting things done, you know," Amoretto sighed as he lit a cigarette with his free hand. "Tom Hayasaka has an eye for talent."

"How'd you convince him? I doubt he would have gone for such a risky plan just cause you came up with it."

"You're not wrong. He was livid when I brought it up. But I told him that even in the worst case scenario, the necklace would make his way back to him. He'd have to cough up some cash, of course, but surely that was small change compared to the necklace, right?"

Kolya scoffed. Amoretto was a scumbag, but he wasn't wrong. It would have been a good plan if it had all gone accordingly.

"Tell me, Amoretto. Do you know anything about the Matsuoka family?"

"Huh?" Kolya didn't wait for Amoretto to answer. Using as much strength as he could muster, Kolya pushed Amoretto's arm away and stood up in an instant, his right arm rising with him. He struck Amoretto with an uppercut right on his chin, knocking him unconscious before he even hit the ground.

Kolya rubbed his knuckles as he caught his breath, then walked over to Amoretto. The man was unconscious, and not likely to wake up any time soon. Kolya considered killing him right there and now, but ultimately decided against it. Doing that would cause the Innocenti family to kick up their efforts to hunt him down, and he no longer had any time to play around with his former employers anymore.

Kolya walked out of the lot to his car, which was parked a little distance away. He turned on the engine and began navigating a path to the Morning Star district. For now, his main priority was to find Raven as soon as possible. Everything else could wait.