Silas sat in his room after work one night. Thoughts had been going through his head as he worked. For weeks he'd been under the Penguin's special payroll, running errands for the crime lord. He'd handled tons of weapons, and even more piles of cash. If he had to guess, he'd probably handled millions of dollars in cash and goods.
'It's insane,' he thought to himself as he sat on his bed, 'I knew this job would be a good payday, but holy shit. How the hell do people not just take that shit? I mean sure, he'd probably find people that tried, but come on. So much cash, and so many guns? How do they not?'
He stood up, walking over to his apartment's restroom and turning on the shower. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and letting his imagination run.
'...you know, maybe if someone figured it out the right way, they could get away with it…'
The next night, Silas found himself in the interrogation room he'd began his life of crime in. His job on this night was simple: find out what happened to a cache of weapons Cobblepot was meant to act as an intermediary delivery service for. It had been intercepted before Cobblepot was able to take possession of it, and it fell on Silas to get what he could out of the man tied to the chair.
Truth be told, this wasn't Silas' favorite job. He'd quickly found a love for the adrenaline-pumping tasks. Gun running? He was practically the first to the car. Idiots trying to make a mess of the Lounge? All in, baby!
Babysitting some asshole while he cried about what Silas was doing with him? He'd rather have been filing End of Shift reports.
"Come on," he said, letting his voice drag a bit as he did the same with the knife in his hand. The blade was sharp enough that he didn't need to press it in hard as he slid it down the bound man's leg, yet as it was dragged along, it cut into the flesh and let out a stream of blood. The man let out panicked screams of pain, which Silas flinched at since the small room amplified the sounds.
"Shit."
The man screamed for a moment, which forced the young man to get out of his chair and walk around a bit. The relatively small room, with no real soundproofing to it, caused the man's shrieks of pain to bounce off the walls and painfully into Silas' ears. Before long, he returned to the man, striking him with a hard backfist to interrupt the man.
Once he fell silent, Silas took his seat again.
"Alright, you done acting like an idiot?"
The man whimpered for a moment, looking away as he tried to reel in his pain. A few seconds passed before turned to look at Silas, giving him a fearful nod.
"Good. Now, I'm gonna ask again. Where did your crew take our delivery? And you don't want to lie. Things'll only get worse for you if you do," As he spoke, he once again pressed the blade of the knife against the captive's leg.
The man let out panicked breaths, eyes darting between the knife and Silas.
"Okay, okay! Two-Face has it locked away in a warehouse in the Industrial District! He's sitting on it until two days from now, when he's gonna sell it off!"
Silas smirked. "See, that wasn't so bad. Now, who's he gonna sell it to?"
The man gulped. "He-he's gonna sell it to Penguin. Gonna finesse him for, like, double or some shit like that. I dunno man! I wasn't told much! That's what I heard!"
Silas' grin grew as the man finished speaking.
"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" He then stood up, taking a moment to stretch a bit, "Now, you hang out here for a little while, and I'll see about getting you outta here. Sound good?"
The man he'd been interrogating didn't reply. He simply sat in the chair, letting the shock of what was happening sink in. Silas took a step toward the door, as if he was walking out, before quickly spinning back around and getting in the man's face. The man barely had time to register the younger man being so close before a new pain flooded his brain. He looked down to see the knife Silas had been using to draw information from him now plunged hilt-deep into his chest. He let out a few choked gasps before slumping in his seat.
SIlas, for his part, stopped grinning the moment he'd turned back to the Two-Faced. As much fun as he had getting into fights, he found no enjoyment in this part. This was all business, and that's all he could see it as.
Once he was sure the man was dead, Silas then left the room, leaving his knife in the man as he did. Upon exiting the room, he found his boss sitting at his desk, an expectant look on his face.
"Well, Mr. Morgan," Cobblepot said, fingers steepled in front of his face, "Did you get any useful information from him?"
"Yes sir," Silas said, nodding, "Got as much as I could from him. Got a general location, but we're gonna need to a little looking around to *really* find it."
"I see. In any case, consider this a job well done, Mr. Morgan. I'll have the mess cleaned up. Here is your bonus," Cobblepot then held up an envelope, which Silas took. He dared not open it in front of Oswald, though. He made that mistake before, and that resulted in his next bonus being considerably smaller, "Take your day off. When you come back, I'll have a plan ready for you. Get some rest."
"Thanks, Mr. Cobblepot," Silas said, smirking. With that, he offered the Iceberg Lounge proprietor a small salute before making his way out of the office and the Lounge as a whole. On his way home, he let the man's words run in his head.
'Double or triple, huh? That would make for some good money. That…would be 'fuck you' money…'
The next two days were largely uneventful for Silas. As the Penguin had instructed, Silas took the next day off, which he used to get in extra workouts at his gym. The workouts had been more intense after he'd been hired at the Iceberg, by Silas' request. He'd asked his kickboxing instructor to ramp things up, and indeed he had. It'd become fairly commonplace for the two to fill the air of the gym he trained in with the sounds of shouting and pops of leather on leather.
The day after that was a normal day for him as well. He'd had another shift in the Lounge, which passed by almost uneventfully. That was, until another scuffle broke out. This time, two men from different parties had gotten into an argument. Silas had just made his way over to find out what was happening when one of the customers lunged at the other. He'd moved in quickly, along with another security guard, to separate the two. Unfortunately for Silas, the small scrum wasn't anything to worry about. He'd grabbed the man who'd instigated the fight, an older man shouting about how the other guy had insulted his partner's appearance.
Dragging and throwing him out was an easy enough task for Silas, which meant he'd gotten his adrenaline up for nothing. That was the worst feeling for him; there were several times where fights that had broken out in the Lounge resulted in extra pay for his efforts.
This wasn't going to be one of those times.
He'd spent the rest of his time off, when he wasn't sleeping, figuring things out for himself. The Penguin treated him well. Paid him weill for his efforts, and even gave him and some of the crew members time off for the more strenuous jobs.
But the one thing that Silas' mind kept coming back to since his last interrogation were the numbers. The Two-Face crew member caught his attention in a huge way.
"...double or some shit…"
The words repeated in his head over and over again as the night went on, even as he sat down in the main office for the small meeting that had been called during the shift. Once the unruly men and the partners had left, Silas had gotten a text from Penguin. He'd thought of it as weird at first, wondering what it was that Penguin wanted to talk about. He figured it couldn't have been what happened with those guys. As far as Silas and the other guy were concerned, it went down pretty well. Probably one of the cleanest kick-outs they'd done since the young man was hired.
Then the interesting bit came along.
Silas sat at the table, taking note of the fact that the only ones to join him were the Birds. All three women shared the same expression: confused, but interested. That added to his own feelings, allowing the four of them to trade the same looks. Luckily for the four of them, they didn't have to wait long for answers to come. Shortly after they entered, Oswald followed suit from his own door.
"Some of the less-experienced crew members have found the goods," Cobblepot said as the people that had been called in settled themselves into place, "Luckily for us, the rabble that confiscated the delivery are the reason Dent is lower on the food chain in this city than we are. The warehouse in question has minimal security to it, but the layout is somewhat different from what one would normally see."
With that, the monitor at the head of the meeting table lit up, showing the blueprints for the warehouse in question. Silas' eyes ran over the image in front of him, immediately catching what Cobblepot was getting at.
"How is this a warehouse when there's an actual second floor to it? Who thought that was a good idea?"
"Who knows," Cobblepot said, "but that is where we believe the weapons to be held. Be ready, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know when they plan on moving the weapons, but I don't intend to give them that chance. Try not to expend too much energy in your duties tomorrow night. After closing, you four will be going to get my inventory back."
The four of them nodded, and made their way out of the room. Once the door closed behind Jay, the last one to leave the room, Raven spoke up.
"Well, kiddos, you heard the man. Let's hope nothing major happens tomorrow. Don't wanna go warehouse raiding when you're tired."
"Yeah," Lark said, "That'd be a huge problem. Especially if there're a lot of guards there."
"Which reminds me," Silas chimed in, drawing the eyes of the three women, "you guys find it weird that Cobblepot's always just sending the three of us?"
"Nah, not really," Jay said, waving him off, "He's seen that, between the four of us, we can handle pretty much every job without extra baggage."
Raven nodded at that. "She's right. How many times have the other guys on the security team gotten in your way when you're handling assholes in the Lounge?"
Silas thought for a moment. "...good point. Why me, though?"
"Because," Jay answered, "Unlike most of the muscle-headed goons on the team, you actually know how to fight."
"Yeah," Lark continued, "makes getting these jobs done a lot easier when you know you've got an extra set of hands to help out."
That got Silas to grin. "Heh. I guess."
"Alright then," Raven said, "Like I said, let's get some rest. One way or another, tomorrow night's gonna be a long one."
That night, Silas sat on his bed, letting thoughts run through his mind.
'Double? Triple? More? If I had a haul like that, I could pocket all of that cash for myself…I could be making serious bank!'
'...but then again, I don't know if I want the whole Penguin crew after my ass. He'd know if I did anything. I'd either have to be really stupid or really know what I'm doing to try something like that…'
As he thought, his eyes danced around the room, not focusing on anything in particular. Eventually, however, his eyes fell on the knife he'd used in that interrogation. The weapon was a gift from Cobblepot, and it did its job incredibly well.
So well, in fact, that as he looked at it, sitting on his bedside table in its sheath, he began to grin. He picked up the knife, drawing it from its sheath and eyeing the blade.
"...Penguin did send me a copy of the warehouse blueprint. 'Long night', huh Raven? If I do things right, then you've got no idea…"
