Lucas DeRoso was a criminal genius, but he didn't look it.
With a fine, expensive suit and silvery, silcked-back hair, he was far more suited to the roll of someone's rich grandfather, or a powerful politician, or maybe a successful inventor. Certainly not a professional thief and the mastermind behind several of the worlds most famous thefts.
In short, he looked out of place in the dimly lit side street off Avenue Nine, black dress shoes snapping unevenly on the cracked, weed-ridden cobblestones. Lucas walked with the slightest of limps, pronounced only without the strait black cane he never went without. The painted wood staff was crowned with a tall, gleaming diamond. DeRoso was a rich man, and he had no qualms about showing it.
There was a soft shuffling sound as a soft pair of boots stepped into a spot of light. Pale eyes gleamed in the same faint light, the mans other features shrouded in shadow.
“You have it?” The voice from the pale-eyed man was soft and light, pixie-like but unmistakably masculine. Lucas would've imagined him a young boy if the outline of a hulking, massive man wasn't visible in the dim, and the eyes not hovering almost a foot and a half above his own.
“My son, when have I ever failed you?” DeRoso said graciously, using the familiar term with a vague wave of his hand. His voice matched that of a smooth-spoken elderly man, used to making elegant business deals alongside long velvet carpets and tall glasses of champagne.
He reached into the deep pocket of his navy suit jacket and pulled out a long, gleaming string of diamonds, the same glistening necklace he had scouted a week ago. The diamonds glinted as they caught the faint, dirty light, the stones reflected in the pale eyes across from him.
“My apologies, good sir. You have never failed before. But this business is getting riskier and riskier. It has lost much of the finesse since you began." Lucas dropped the necklace into his large, pale hand with a good-natured scowl. Pale-eyes examined it before closing his fist. Another small velvet bag followed, pricey odds and ends that DeRoso, being the perfectionist he was, couldn't leave lying in the safe. The man's eyes widened.
"You play this game of thieves as well as ever, DeRoso."
“A pity, for this used to be that of a gentleman.” He answered without missing a beat. The pale eyes lifted from the inside of the velvet bag, which he had been inspecting. The shadowed man twirled an exquisitly cut sapphire between his fingers.
“Ah, but so it will remain," He looked up from the gem and made eye-contact with the richly dressed thief with a clever glint in his eye, like that of a lawyer who has trapped a criminal into something he doesn't wish to say. "as long as you still deign to play.” Lucas nodded his head respectfully towards the pale-eyed man. With what had happened, the drop-off, it seemed to anyone watching that the pale eyed man was in charge of the exchange. It was him, after all, collecting the goods. DeRoso didn't seem to take any payment. But both him, and Lucas DeRoso, knew otherwise.
I live in northern Canada and enjoy reading and playing hockey, as well as painting and writing (of course) I like fantasy and science fiction.