Family Unit

There were days when Kaz felt so much older than his years. Most of the time it was a feeling of paternal protectiveness. It was hard to believe Jesper was close to his age rather than a toddler some days. Curbing the gunslinger's gambling habit wasn't easy when he ran the Crow Club and Jesper was on the door.

"Here's what I don't get." Jesper for once seemed serious. Usually he was cracking jokes, often at Kaz's expense.

"We're going to be here all night." This was as though Inej could read his mind sometimes. Absentmindingly playing with one of her knives, he still had her full attention.

"Rude." Jesper was only mildly offended when he spotted Inej's amused smile. "Why haven't they tried going under it? Just dig a tunnel." Of course the simple result would be the most obvious to him.

"Tried that." Everyone started with the simple answer and sometimes it worked. "More than a century ago. Something … heard them digging." He had looked into that angle some time ago. It always paid to look into everything when planning for a job.

"So it was made hundreds of years ago by that crazy Grisha…" Jesper wasn't as interested in the little details. Why bother when Kaz always worked on plan B and sometimes C.

"The Black Heretic." Inej also was big on the little details but not for the same reason as Kaz. Kaz liked to be in control of every situation. Inej preferred to know what she was getting into.

"Yeah the one who controls shadows. They've got one in their army now, don't they. General Kirigan?" Jesper had heard the stories. They were almost like fairytales at this point.

"Your point?" Inej sometimes felt like Jesper's mother trying to get him to stop beating around the bush.

"If one of his kind made it, can't he unmake it?" Again Jesper's mind went to the most obvious answer.

"Have you ever put out a fire by adding more fire?" Inej put it in the simplest terms she could think of without insulting her friend's intelligence.

"Then what's the opposite?" Jesper hadn't known anything else so couldn't begin to think what was the opposite of the fold.

"A Sun Summoner." Her mother had told her stories of the Sun Summoner as a child. Although she had never seen one, Inej still believed they existed. She needed to believe there was a light to this darkness.

"Right, then, one of those." Jesper was open to the possibility. Yet he neither believed or didn't believe.

"Doesn't exist." Kaz on the other hand only believed what he had proof of. Not only what he could see and be it with gloved hands, what he could touch.

"Doesn't exist yet." Inej, always the light to Kaz's darkness.

"Dreesen comes into town, doesn't waste a minute. Sends out for a crew to steal something but doesn't specify what." Kaz was over today's history lesson for Jesper. Time to get to the job at hand. "Well is it heavy, large, worth more than a million on the black market? Maybe he doesn't know."

"We can let this one go, Kaz." Inej didn't like the uncertainty with this job. Even if the job would ensure she was closer to getting her freedom back.

"Sounds like a trap, anyway." Jesper enjoyed the adrenaline of the jobs Kaz sent them on. But it was different when you walked into the trap eyes wide open.

"A trap would sound easy. This is something else." He could pay off Inej's indenture with this job. All he needed was the details of what was required to pull the job off.

Boss, Boss. We intercepted a note from Dreesen." Kaz always had someone on the lookout for information. He had someone keeping an eye out for Inej's brother since she had started working for him.

"Did you now?" Kaz had learned at an early age not to look too eager. You had more to bargain with if nobody knew how hungry you were for the prize.

"It's for the owner of the Orchid. Says they require the services of a Heartrender. Tonight." His worker did not appear to have learned the same lesson.

Interesting. "A Heartrender? Why?" He could use this.

"Doesn't say. Just they need it before midnight." If he was waiting for Kaz to pat him on the back, he would be waiting a while.

"You don't bring in a Heartrender unless you need an answer out of some who isn't willing to talk. That's how we get this job before anyone else. Bring Dreesen a Heartrender." If the meeting was at midnight, they had time to find one.

"Boss, just one problem." Now his henchman looked nervous. "Pekka knows." Everyone knew what the mention of that name did to Kaz. The temperature in the room instantly cooled and everyone was on edge.

"Pekka Rollins." Kaz knew what expressions crossed his colleague's faces. They didn't know what Kaz's connection was with Pekka, but they could tell Kaz hated Pekka. But a plan was forming. He was going to beat Pekka to the prize. Pekka was going down brick by brick and this would be the first brick.

There was a lot riding on this job. Inej's freedom, clearing Jesper's gambling debt and the beginning of extracting revenge on Pekka. He may not have any blood relatives left but he was not going to let anything or anyone destroy the family he had built around him. He would destroy anyone who even looked at them the wrong way. Inej and Jesper were the one part of his world he would not bargain away. Ever.