Wylan
He'd been staring blankly at swirled words and empty pieces of paper before Kaz's phone buzzed. He jumped instinctively.
"I thought the Wi-Fi was supposed to be down?" Wylan asked, confused.
Kaz nodded and looked at his screen. He frowned. "We have exactly five minutes. Wylan, I need to you take your phone out and call Jesper."
Bemused, Wylan pulled his phone out and called his boyfriend. In a few seconds, he could hear Jesper's also confused 'Sunshine?' from the other side of the phone.
"Hey Jes," he greeted. "Kaz's orders - I promise calling you comes with a reason."
"Y'know, a perfectly plausible reason would just be to hear the angelic baritone of my voice," Jesper offered, and Wylan made a face as his cheeks began turning their familiar red. "I've been told it's put many a maiden to sleep."
"Can we continue with your godawful flirting when it's not three in the morning or something?" Kaz demanded, glaring at the two of them. "I need a status update."
"In the bushes," Jesper said immediately. "Watching Nina try to be a large, white man. She's already white, so now she's puffing out her chest and trying to look like a dude. It's a bit amusing, actually."
Kaz sighed. "Regardless, I need you to start transitioning servants back into the house now. Start as soon as possible - do you think that's something you can do from where you are right now?"
There was a few seconds pause - probably as Jesper tried to gauge where they were - before Jesper finally answered. "I can already see obvious unrest from my bush vantage point," Jesper said. "Give it a few more minutes - we'll have the guards so riled up, they won't be doing anything. Then we can begin working on the servants around the house."
"Okay," Kaz said. "Hurry. This plan relies on everybody doing their part at the right time."
Jesper made an awful finger-gunning noise. "Wylan?" he asked, a tone of insecurity creeping in.
Wylan immediately responded. "Yeah?"
"Bye, sunshine," he said. "I... "
"I love you," Wylan said quietly to him, despite knowing full well Kaz could hear him. "You don't have to say it back, but know that I love you, and according to Kaz's urgent face, I have to go now. But I love you."
Jesper sucked in his breath, but before he could respond Wylan cut the call and took a deep breath.
He smiled.
"I hate to interrupt young love, but we need to get back to work if we ever want this plan to work."
"Oh shut up Kaz."
Nina
There were a lot of things Nina envisioned she'd have to do for college, but impersonating a large semi-middle aged white man in order to rile up a small army of other large semi-middle aged white men so they wouldn't do their jobs and could therefore be distracted into allowing the managerial staff at the Van Eck manor to return to the manor to save her friend who was being imprisoned and bullied by his corrupt father was not one of them.
And Jesus Christ, was that a mouthful.
"Sir! Er, what did you say your name was again?" a random man asked, and Nina shot her head up, focusing on the situation again. She just had to get them a little angry at each other. She'd spread drama around the high school per Kaz's evil bidding for fun all them time. She could do it here no problem. It would just take a little time.
Unfortunately, according to the ridiculous hand motions Jesper was making, she no longer had nearly as much time as she'd planned for. She would need to ramp this up fast.
"Fork," she said firmly. That sounded vaguely masculine.
He looked confused. "Like a food fork?"
She leered at him, purposely stepping closer and making it a point to puff out her chest as much as possible, while still semi-hiding her breasts. She was ninety percent sure they still showed a little, but hopefully these men were loser-y enough to not have a clue on the general anatomy of women.
"Do you have a problem with my name, son?" Her voice was too light. Damn, she'd need to work to achieve a gravelly Kaz-like tone. That was masculine.
He squeaked out an indeterminate noise before nodding and saluting her. "Yes, Fork!"
She bit back a snicker. It actually did sound a little amusing.
As he walked away from her as fast as possible, she looked around consideringly. They were all walking up and down the garage, pacing and talking amongst themselves. There were obviously weak links - the chap she had just talked to, for example, but she couldn't find another one that might...
"Have you seen Matt's shoes?" she overheard suddenly and bit back a grin. Potential.
"Uh, yeah! They look like somebody dumped them for a dry-cleaning in Hell before giving it back to him. Oh my god, they're, like, so ugly!"
Perfect.
Looking around, she spotted a disgruntled man who had an ear to the conversation, close enough to hear it but not enough to be apart of it. "Assholes aren't they," she said, deepening her voice. She sounded like Matthias. The cat was so in the bag.
"Yeah," he said rolling his eyes. "We so don't get paid enough for this."
"Yeah," she tried mimicking his voice. "Anyways, how dare they insult your shoes, right?"
He looked at her confused. "What are you talking about?"
She looked back at him. "What were you talking about?"
"What were you talking about?" he repeated. "I was talking about Jan Van Eck and the attitude problems of those that live at the top one percent."
Oh. Oops. "Well, I was talking about them too!" she improvised. "I overheard Jan Van Eck insult your shoes to his butler. He was like, 'oh my god, I hate that man's" - she mimed pointing at him and then his shoes - "shoes, they're so three years ago."
He looked offended. "I bought these three weeks ago!" he replied indignantly, which Nina felt missed the point a little, but alright. "That's it - I'm done. We haven't gotten paid, and we've been standing here for a ridiculous amount of time. I'm done; I'm dragging all these other bastards down with me."
Without another word, he ran up to the front of the garage and stepped on a (probably) priceless car to gain leverage on them all. Nina winced instinctively.
"Jan Van Eck insulted my shoes!" he started in a roar, instantly shushing them all. "He's insulted all of us! Called us names, hasn't paid us our due sum, insulted our shoes. Isn't it our time to revolt? Let's face it. We're not getting paid - no sir, Jan Van Eck is going to make us do his dirty work and then leave us in the mud!"
The general discontent of the mercenaries seemed to intensify. Nina pushed her way through the crowd until she too was at the foot of the car. Wincing, she climbed onto it.
"I can attest to that!" she roared, carefully lowering the tone of her voice.
The mercenaries stared at her in confusion.
"I second his statement!" she shouted instead.
They stayed silent.
"What does 'attest' and 'second' mean?" the man next to her asked.
"I yes him?" she tried instead.
A collective roar spread from all the mercenaries, loud and ferocious. Triumphantly, Nina watched as they all dropped their weapons and began stripping from their gear, laying it all on the floor. The man next to her jumped off of the car, and with a shout, out of the garage and into the general wilderness. The small army of mercenaries joined, and pretty soon the garage was just filled with guns and incredibly awful smelling cloth.
"Huh," she said after a moment. "That worked better than I thought it would."
Now they just had to - oh shit.
Where were any of the servants? Nina had been so spiked on general happiness and smug mischief-causing that she'd forgotten about the servants. Panic spread through her. None of them were in the garage, so logically they would be inside the house but...
"Hey Nina," she heard, and Nina turned to see Jesper entering the garage from the door that lead into the house. Distantly, she wondered when he had left his bush.
"Jes, I just realized," she said urgently, "we never tried found out where the servants were. We need to find them before-"
"Actually," he interrupted, holding up a sign to calm her down. "I realized that after I talked to Wylan and Kaz, so I snuck into the house while you were doing your," he paused to gesture wildly. "I explained the situation to them and everything. They asked for a few minutes, but then they'll come to the garage and head back to the Van Eck manor as soon as they're ready."
"Jes," she said slowly. "We're two random strangers out of the middle of nowhere. Why would they trust us?"
Jesper smirked, teeth glinting sharply against the dim light. "I mentioned Wylan. He's talked about it before, remember? The servants were on his side - for the most part - but they were only with his father because he paid them."
"So what made them switch now?" Nina asked warily.
He snorted. "My natural charming charisma. Well, that, and the assurance that as soon as Wylan got his hands on the money he'd pay them without trapping them into a shitty contract."
What the hell. When had Jesper become so responsible?
Maybe being in a relationship really did do miracles.
"Jesper, you are a goddamn angel. Wylan is a lucky man. Boy. Man?"
#
Matthias
Matthias was home. Relieved, he tossed his head back and took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh scent of five twenty-something year olds living together. There were couches on the ground, magazines tossed aside, and old cups of coffee-
"I don't understand why I'm here," a distinctive voice whined.
Matthias suppressed a sigh. "For the eleventh time, Kuweii, shut up."
Kuweii Yul-Bayaar was currently gracing them with his presence by laying on the kitchen countertop (the same countertop, incidentally, that Matthias happened to eat on), arms and legs akimbo. "But why am I here?" he asked. "I thought I was supposed to come along so I could find some evidence of the blackmail."
He sighed. "Fine," he snapped. "Go. Go find the evidence of Jan Van Eck blackmailing Wylan. While you're at it, go through Kaz's room and look for evidence of yourself being blackmailed. Kaz said he had a folder labeled with your name in his room. Get it."
Kuweii paused, halfway through rising from Matthias' countertop. "Wait... I'm not going to get convicted alongside Van Eck, will I?" he asked nervously.
Matthias glared at him. "Go," he ordered, his voice just a touch menacing.
As Sergie, another mafia member that he had never really bothered to learn the name of, and Matthias watched Kuweii pale and then scamper away, Matthias suddenly remembered. "Sergie, can you help me and make sure Kuweii doesn't... do anything else?" he asked alarmed, suddenly remembering exactly how much incriminating evidence was in Kaz's room. Sergie nudged the other mafia member, who saluted him before jogging after Kuweii.
"What are we looking for here?" Sergie asked, after it was just the two of them.
Matthias turned his head and began sweeping the floors for what he needed. Face brightening, he reached down and grabbed a cloth. "I need clothes, toothbrushes, combs - evidence of living somewhere," he explained.
"What?"
Matthias began shoving clothes into a bag haphazardly. Finding a spatula, he considered it for a moment before leaving it where it was.
"Kaz needs us to look innocent," he explained. "The problem is that if Jan Van Eck is suddenly found with all this suspicious evidence after years of looking completely clean, it could easily be blamed on somebody else. Namely, the five children that are at his house."
"Can't you five just leave before the authorities come?" he asked baffled.
Matthias shook his head. "That would leave Wylan alone with Van Eck and the authorities, and depending on which officers arrive, we need to be careful that they won't be bribed. Another possibility is that Wylan's blamed for planting false evidence himself."
Sergie still looked confused. "But wouldn't the officers just choose to mark you as Wylan's friends? You're all almost the same age - and you attend the same university. It wouldn't be an odd explanation."
"Kaz doesn't trust Van Eck not to try and pin something on us," Matthias explained. "As long as we look like we were invited and have been staying for a good amount of time, the police will see that we've been living under Van Eck's rules and as a friend to Wylan. If instead we're seen at the crime scene, casually hanging around a man who was just accused of some incredibly awful charges, it would be very easy to simply start questioning us."
"But why not explain the whole Wylan situation?" Sergie asked.
Matthias paused. This was a question he had as well, but Inej had been adamant that Kaz knew where everything was going. "I was not told why we weren't going to release the details of Wylan's kidnapping," he said instead. "Although Kaz Brekker is already notorious in the eyes of the law, so I assume that plays a part in this as well." Sergie sighed, loosening his muscles as he bent down to pick up a sock. "I do not know where this is going," he said quietly, Reaching up, he carefully placed the single sock into the bag. "But I hope you know what you are doing."
Matthias exhaled, words bitter on his tongue. "I hope so as well."