𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 | 𝐒𝐨𝐂

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄.

KAZ BREKKER DIDN'T NEED A REASON.

Not when it came down to her.

No task was too dangerous, too dirty, too downright stupid that he wouldn't do for her. She was his, and he believed that everybody in Ketterdam should know it. 

If Inej Ghafa was Kaz Brekker's spider - Natasha Van Doren was a ghost. 

She had no papers, no name, no identity. Seemingly, she didn't exist. He was Dirtyhands' dirty little secret. And that's how it was to remain.

"I know you're there, darkling," The window latch flicked open with a smooth click.

Kaz Brekker watched Natasha Van Doren climb through the windowsill and sit before him with a mirrored look of annoyance. Her pale silver eyes were sombre yet shone intelligently in the splayed lamplight.

"Rietveld,"

The corners of her full rosy lips twitched into a grimace. The Kaz Brekker before her was one she knew all too well. His inky dark locks were spun into frustrated coils as he ran his gloved fingers through his hair.

"I told you not to call me that," he breathed, bouncing his pen upon his thigh. His darkened eyes were shining, resembling the violent calm after a storm - the wrath of Nyx circled behind his black irises. He sat in a white shirt, black leather gloves stretched across his long fingers.

"And I told you not to call me, Darkling,"

Finally, he looked up at her.

Kaz Brekker hadn't aged a day. His cheekbones sliced through the pallid skin of his face, his eyes alive with macabre intensity. He rested the pen against the desk and leaned back in his chair, drinking in the full sight of her.

"Natasha,"

"Kaz,"

They scowled at each other in silence, daring the other to speak. Kaz's eyes danced across her face. Her eyes sparkled, yet her mouth remained as unsmiling as ever. He hadn't seen her smile in years; he missed it. 

Kaz turned back towards his papers, his knee anxiously bouncing up and down. He expected Natasha to toss open his office door and tantalise his friends with drinks. He expected her to sit at the games table and gamble a few thousand kruge from Jesper. Yet, as always, she stayed. 

The business was declining, and so was Kaz. His usual clothes were caked in mud. The only constant in his fluctuating life was the crow cane he held steadily between his knees. Kaz Brekker was drowning. And his ghost would be the one to save him.

"You need money," Natasha said, her voice soft and teasing, leaning over his shoulder. His handwriting was offensive. It always had been. His majuscules rose in spikes, his letters hardly legible -  the demand for 100,000 kruge was printed neatly in the crinkled document beside him.

"Not from you," He spat.

"I hadn't offered." Natasha hummed. She smiled as if the sun's energy burned within her. Kaz raised his eyebrows but didn't speak a word. There was no use arguing with the ghost. She'd only ever come to haunt him later with his own words.

"How's Inej?" she asked after several long minutes.

"She's downstairs."

"That's not what I asked,"

Natasha's hot breath continued teasing his skin. He could feel her silks against his back, her soft hands so dangerously close to his neck. His gun was only a few fingertips away. A single swift movement and she'd be dead.

A ghost of his past.

"You wouldn't," Natasha whispered, her red lips against his ear. Brekker could sense the devilish smile forming across her lips. Kaz would have savoured that smile for the rest of his life in another lifetime. Just like one day, Kaz would make her suffer for her sins. 

But today was not that day.

Perhaps it would be in this life.