Chapter Text
It was supposed to be a simple job. Get in, get out, get paid and then lose all of said money playing three man bramble at the gambling dens on east stave. Undoubtedly after another unsuccessful attempt of convincing Wylan to come up with a winning strategy for him, but he should have known it would not be that simple. Things were never that simple when doing a job for Kaz Brekker.
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“Kaz wants us in the crow club in thirty minutes.”
Wylan's voice had startled him out of whatever land his mind had wandered to. Jesper stared down at the cards he held in his hand and immediately any joy he had felt at hearing the younger man's voice had disappeared. Not only did he enjoy the thrill of being sent out to do some dirty work that the boss deemed necessary, by the looks of it he also needed this job. With one last look at his cards Jesper stood and addressed the table.
“Well gentlemen it has been a pleasure” and with a tip of his hat and a dramatic flair of his coat as he turned, Jesper was off dragging Wylan in tow through the back alleys of Ketterdam as yells of frustration erupted behind them.
“Seriously?!” Wylan's voice came from behind him, shaky from the exertion that came with running from people that Jesper owed money too.
“Aw come on, life's no fun without some good old adrenaline darling!” Though his charm had a dampened effect when weaving through hoards of drunkards and tourists who no doubt did not appreciate being shoved out of the way by two people running for their lives.
Jesper swore he could feel Wylan roll his eyes at him.
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They arrived at the crow club in a mess of heaving breaths after finally losing whoever was chasing after them. Fashionably late as Jesper would call it but Wylan did not share that sentiment.
Pushing open the large wooden doors revealed the other crows already sitting around their usual round table in the dimly lit corner of the bar and Kaz’s death glare in their direction for their late arrival.
“Sorry, got held up!” Jesper spoke in his usual cheery tone despite the clearly enraged Kaz in front of him, though that might actually just be his face, Kaz wasn't very expressive.
“Since you so kindly decided to grace us with your presence, here's the plan.” Kaz’s gloved hand gestured to what looked like blueprints sprawled out on the table covering most of its large surface in crisp white paper that still rolled up slightly at the edges. Looking at them closer, Wylan recognised them as the layout of a large abandoned building he had helped Kaz draw up the week prior.
“As you would know if you had been here ten minutes earlier,” Kaz continued, “Inej recently gathered some information on a merchers office building located near west stave”
“Wait wait, isn't that the one that was destroyed recently, you know big fire that burnt up everything inside” Piped up Nina making a grand gesture with her hands to support her point and raising an eyebrow in question. Clearly Kaz had not gone through too much of the plan while they were gone, which Wylan was grateful for.
“Yes, and that's exactly why we need to get in there”
“Why? The dregs run out of ratty furniture to decorate the place with?” Jesper added sarcastically and Wylan couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh at Jesper's dumb joke or hit him for seemingly testing Kaz’s patience every opportunity he got.
Ignoring the remark Kaz continued “We have intel of a safe located on the underground floors of the building which his men have not yet managed to retrieve. We are going to beat him at his own game” Kaz smirked, a telltale sign that he was about to ruin somebody's life and Wylan almost felt bad for the poor Mercher who was unlucky enough to have caught Kaz’s attention.
“So we’re breaking into an abandoned building and what? Hoping that whatever is in that safe hasn’t been burned to a crisp along with the rest of the building” Said Jesper sceptically.
“Not necessarily" Wylan replied, looking up from the blueprints and at Jesper, just now remembering the layout of the building he had drawn recently. “The fire would have started on one of the upper floors and the basement was specifically designed to keep the safe hidden and protected. The safe would also have been designed with steel to resist heat in case of something like this.”
“Right so we just waltz in and Kaz will pick the locks on the safe, done and dusted.” Replied Jesper like it was the simplest thing on earth.
Kaz’s gruff voice spoke up before anyone could be too relieved at how easy Jesper had made the job sound.
“No, it’s far too big for anything I could pick. Wylan, did you get the solution I had asked for?”
After their meeting to draw up the blueprints the other day, Kaz had asked him to make something that could melt through the steel safe, allowing them to get inside and steal the contents. He fumbled with his bag a bit before pulling out two tightly sealed glass vials and handing them to Kaz.
“Concentrated nitric acid, if you pour each vial onto the hinges of the door it should come right off.”
It had taken him three days to get the perfect concentration for what Kaz had wanted, it being around seventy percent, just enough to melt the metal. It would have taken less time if Jesper hadn’t forced him to stop working after he had spilled some hydrogen peroxide on his hand and practically dragged him to Nina to treat the wound.
“Just make sure you don’t inhale the fumes when the reaction takes place.” He quickly added, not wanting anyone to accidentally injure themselves on one of his creations.
“It still begs the question as to why you need all of us going? I mean wouldn’t it be more discreet to go in small numbers?” Jesper asked Kaz who seemed wholly unimpressed with needing to explain himself.
“The basement was designed as a maze to keep thieves like us out. It will be faster if there are more people searching for it, and anything that has been hidden that carefully must be valuable, which is why we are going to take it.”