Chapter Text
Alberu carefully slid the door open and crept toward the corner. Just one more door to go through, and then he could maneuver around the alams. There would be a ten second window as the sensors would shut down, and in that time the painting had to be cut free and rolled into the bag. After that, alarms would probably sound, so he would have to carefully make it out through the planned route. The police probably wouldn’t be able to barricade all the exits in time, so he would just barely manage to slip out through one of the cracks.
Alberu fiddled with the box at his waist. ‘How much did this cost again?’ The black market was such a rip off.
He carefully closed the last door of the big hall behind him, avoiding the sensors, and slipped inside. The door locked with a soft click. The cameras had already been disabled several minutes ago.
‘Good. All the doors are sealed except for the staff entrances. That should at least slow down any police.’ Alberu smiled faintly and pulled the black mask tighter over his face.
If anyone saw his features, he would be done for.
Alberu checked the layout of the building in his memory. The entire museum complex was shaped like an H, with a large round room in the center of the building. That room also had the painting he needed to steal.
It wasn’t like he wanted to be a thief, but there were extenuating circumstances.
Alberu carefully stepped forward and emerged into the largest room in the museum. The soft light of the moon streamed down from a large domed glass skylight far above. The atmospheric paintings, interspersed with tapestries, surrounded the walls. A large classical sculpture of some kind stood in the center. The painting he wanted to steal was to his immediate left. There was only one problem.
Between the glittering curtains of light and shadow of the moonlight, a man dressed entirely in black hung from several cables stretching up towards an open panel in the skylight.
‘What.’
Alberu froze and stared.
‘The.’
The man stared back, evidently just as shocked as him.
‘F—’
Alberu’s plan had been to disable the sensors in front of the display and quickly steal the painting. The thief currently hanging from the ceiling probably had the idea to bypass the sensors altogether by going in from the top.
‘Which quite frankly is ridiculous,’ Alberu thought. ‘How would you get yourself back up? Or even down there in the first place?’
Cale, hanging from the complex system of pulleys stared at the masked thief in front of him. ‘How the hell did he get in past the front sensors? The only way in is from the top, and I had to have Ron and Basen help me out with the rig…’ All that lying he had to do to convince his butler and little brother that no, really, this was for a school project… ‘And I’m still not sure if Ron bit the bait. Scratch that, I’m sure he knows.’ Cale shivered.
The two thieves stared at each other in silence. They each gradually came to the exact same conclusion.
‘Well, shit.’
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! An excessively loud siren echoed in the large room.
Alberu swore. ‘Dammit, I have to go hide. Where’s a good place—’ He looked around frantically. Out of the corner of his eye, the trapeze artist thief was doing the same thing.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Alberu could hear the sound of footsteps.
‘Shit—’
Good places to hide, good places—WHY DIDN’T AN ART MUSEUM HAVE ANY FREAKING HIDING PLACES—
The footsteps were getting closer, along with loud shouting. Lots of shouting.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Alberu allowed himself a brief glance at the suspended thief. He had apparently decided ‘damn the security systems’ and cut himself free from the ridiculous wired rig. It dangled conspicuously in the air.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
“NEXT ROOM! KEEP SEARCHING!”
“IT’S IN THE CENTRAL HALL! LET’S GO, KEEP IT UP, KEEP MOVING—”
‘Dammit, I really don’t have time for this—’ Alberu desperately spun around. Art piece, glass case, art piece, art piece—
Broom closet.
Alberu froze for a millisecond.
It was not ideal.
Definitely not.
It also had way too much irony for his liking, as the secretly gay first child of the homophobic head of the Roan Corporation.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Alberu sprinted towards the broom closet. He yanked open one of the thinly concealed doors of the utilitarian closet. The other door was yanked open at the same time.
Alberu turned his head to see a very awkward thief holding open the second door. He and his unwanted acquaintance had apparently gotten the exact same idea.
And, once again, the two looked at each other in silence, with the exact same thoughts running through their heads.
‘Well, shit.’
BANG! BANG! A loud collision resounded against the doors. The rhythmic sound mixed with the continued ear-splitting beeps. Alberu had locked the doors for convenience. And now that decision was apparently saving both of their asses. But not for much longer.
“F— this,” Alberu hissed. He shoved the other man inside and quickly swung the door shut. ‘Being stuck in a broom closet with this bastard for an hour is better than being stuck in jail with this bastard for several years.’ Bless the underpaid museum staff, the hinges were well-oiled. They shut with a small click.
The doors burst open. Shouts quickly filled the small room.
“LOOK AROUND, CAREFULLY—”
“They could still be here—”
“Don’t miss a single thing—”
A thin sliver of light filtered through the slit between the doors. It wasn’t enough to see the room, only light and shadow, and hear the voices of the police searching the building. The shouts continued.
The beeping stopped. The police were in the same room.
“Hey, check this out—”
“What the hell—”
They had apparently spotted the second thief’s impromptu wired rig.
“They must still be here. Keep looking!”
‘Wow, thanks for leaving that in the open like a freaking beacon.’ Alberu grit his teeth. He held his breath, straining his ears.
The footsteps were getting closer.
‘Shit—’ Alberu jerked back. His elbow hit against something soft. The trapeze thief let out a sharp hiss of pain.
The footsteps paused. Alberu froze.
First son of the Roan Corporation or not, at this precise moment all he wanted to do was let out a dictionary’s worth of choice swear words.
Step. Step.
He stiffened. A shadow moved in front of the closet doors. Alberu couldn’t tell whether or not he was facing the wall. If he was, everything would be lost. He could feel the thief beside him tensing up as well. One open door, and it would be all over. His inheritance, his family, the plans he strove towards for the last three years. The scheming against his brothers. The joy he felt doing something good for the company, making people’s lives better and making a profit. The relationships he cultivated. The goodwill he cultivated with his stepmother, that he needed to deepen with this stolen painting. His life, his future, his relationships, would all vanish in one single moment.
Step. Step—
“Let’s move on to the next room!” A man’s voice echoed out into the room.
The footsteps stopped.
“Roger that.” Another man’s voice sounded, very close by. Too close by. Much too close.
Alberu could barely breathe. His racing heartbeat, his acquaintance’s shallow breaths next to him, everything sounded as loud as a foghorn in the stifling closet.
The man moved away.
Alberu still didn’t let himself breathe.
Step, step, step. The sounds moved away from them. The thief next to Alberu shifted uncomfortably. Alberu immediately snapped a hand against his mouth, over the man’s mask. ‘What if they come back? What if—’
A large hand was slapped over Alberu’s own mouth, over his mask. Alberu blinked. ‘Dammit, I was breathing too heavily.’ He glared at the other man, as if to tell him to mind his own business. The man rolled his eyes at him.
With the weak nighttime light filtered in through the crack in the door, Alberu could see that the man’s eyes were reddish brown. They were quite pretty. Glittering with intelligence and a hefty dose of sass. Alberu’s type. This only made him even more incensed. ‘If you hadn’t come here, you stupid circus clown on a trapeze, then neither of us would have gotten caught.’ Alberu glared at him.
The bastard’s eyes crinkled. He was clearly smirking.
Oh how Alberu really, really wanted to punch him.
How long were they stuck in that closet? Alberu guessed it had been several hours before they cautiously emerged into the large room, moonlight drifting down from the large spotlight above. The rig wires were gone, likely taken in for analyzing before the museum opened again the next day. Alberu rubbed his forehead.
His eyes landed on the painting, still proudly displayed on the wall.
‘Dammit.’ Alberu stiffened. He slowly, ever so slowly, turned to face the red-brown-eyed thief.
The thief stared straight back at him.
‘Who’s going to get the painting?’
It really was ridiculous just how similar his thoughts were to an absolute stranger.
‘Stall for time.’ Alberu observed the man. The Trapeze Clown, as Alberu was determined to name him, stood relaxedly, as if simply taking a stroll in the park, not infiltrating a high-security museum filled with priceless art. He was quite thin, though Alberu couldn’t quite tell the other features of his identity through his head-to-toe black garb, including an old-style black facemask. It looked extremely ridiculous.
Alberu once again determined that he really, really wanted to punch this bastard.
Behind the stupid face mask, the man’s mouth opened. “Never thought I’d see the Shining Sun Thief here.”
Scratch that, Alberu wanted to punch him, strangle him, and then leave him for the police to find, evidence or not.
Alberu had garnered the nickname Shining Sun one time when he needed to use a flash bomb to escape from a particularly sticky heist. The papers had equated the brilliance of the rather exaggerated glare from the blast to a sun, and the name stuck.
Alberu hated it.
His face unconsciously twisted into a bright smile. The instinct had developed from his years at the company; whenever he felt particularly irritated, he would simply send the annoying pest in front of him a gentle, disarming smile, and watch in bliss as the assailant’s face twisted into confusion and frustration. “Likewise, Hero of the Silver Shield,” he happily spat back.
Stupid, old-fashioned, black thief facemask, paired with ridiculous wire setups, winches, clips, and aerial maneuvering? It could only be the thief known as Silver Shield, who had once stolen an antique shield made entirely of silver from a certain museum, and escaped on a zipline off of the roof. It had been an incredibly daring escape, and a particularly visible one as the black-clothed man flew through the city skies carrying a giant silver shield, hence the moniker.
And it clearly annoyed the man just as much as Alberu’s did. The firstborn son of the Roan Corporation watched in schadenfreude as the Trapeze Clown’s face twitched, and he muttered a swear word under his breath.
‘Ah, yes, this is truly the second best option after punching.’ Alberu was feeling very accomplished. Neither of them could physically hurt the other, lest it escalate into a full blown fight. The police who were still hanging around would come running back and find the heir apparent to Roan Incorporated brawling in full thief's garb with a strange burglar in a restricted area in the middle of the night. He could take a guess as to how well that would blow over for his inheritance.
Which, unfortunately, brought him back to the current predicament: who would take the painting?
The thieves looked at each other in silence once more.
‘I really need this.’ Alberu’s mind was racing. If he could give this painting to his stepmother, he could finally get her to stop impeding his plans to take his inheritance. If his brother’s mother was no longer blocking his way, Alberu had full faith that he could climb his way to the top of the Roan Corporation. His abilities far surpassed those of his brothers. Not to mention, he actually cared about the Corporation and the people it affected. If Robbit took over—Alberu squeezed his eyes shut. ‘I really, really, need this.’ This entire heist was only as a last resort. Everything hung on a thin line. He grit his teeth and whispered. “I need—”
Tap.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Alberu jolted his eyes open, cutting off in the middle of his sentence. The Silver Shield Hero’s gaze met his. The man slowly gestured to the painting, and lifted his hand, rubbing his fingers together.
The universally recognized sign for money. Alberu wanted to hug the man in relief. Then he noticed the bastard was smirking. That desire immediately turned into one of physical violence.
‘Keep it in Alberu.’ He glared at the Trapeze Clown. ‘Hero my ass.’
“Full price of the painting.” The man’s calm, smiling voice came out in a whisper.
‘F— you.’ Alberu frowned. “Half.”
“Two-thirds, and that’s as far as I’ll go. You ruined my rig, I’m not even asking for compensation for that.” The man smirked.
“Fine.” Alberu hissed. He had ruined the rig, sure, but the Trapeze Clown had also ruined Alberu’s own heist attempt. But he needed to book it, and quickly. The police could pop back in at any moment.
The red-brown-eyed man pulled out a pen and small notepad from a small pocket, and scribbled a couple words. The notepad looked like cheap paper, the pen was an inexpensive ballpoint. No clues to be gained about his identity.
He folded the piece of paper, shoved it into Alberu’s hand, and took out a gun-shaped contraption. He pressed a button and a thin wire shot out. He pressed another button and began a leisurely ascent up towards the roof.
‘Is that… a grappling hook? Seriously?’ Alberu’s mouth dropped open.
The thief gave a dramatic floating bow. “Bye, our dear Shining Sun in the night!”
Unfortunately, by now the man was too high up for Alberu to punch him.
By the time Alberu had safely made it outside, avoiding the security systems, cameras, and sensors, the morning sun had begun to peek through the tips of the manicured trees. He pulled out his phone and quickly punched in a couple words.
Alberu: fine arts museum, staff exit 1
Tasha: be there in 5
“Thank goodness…” He slumped against the tree. He lifted the crumpled paper in his left hand and carefully opened it.
‘P.O. Box 403. You owe me 100 000. ^^’
“This bastard.” Alberu just barely restrained himself from crushing the tiny piece of paper.