REAPER ─ kaz brekker

nineteen; you can hear it in the silence

Nina crossed her arms as she shook her head. "Kaz, as soon as Matthias steps on that stage, half the Fjerdan delegation will recognize him, and you and Onyx are two of the most wanted people in Ketterdam. If you show up at that auction, you'll all be arrested." 

Onyx rolled her neck on her shoulders. "That's such a comforting thought." 

"They can't touch us until after the auction." 

Inej raised her eyebrows. "And then what?"

"There's going to be one hell of a distraction." 

"There has to be another way," Jesper said. "What if we tried making a deal with Rollins?" 

Wylan folded his napkin over in his hands, pleating it into thin, uniform lines. "We don't have anything to offer." 

"No more deals." Kaz shook his head. "I never should have gone to Rollins in the first place." 

Jesper's brows rose in astonishment. "Are you actually admitting you made a mistake?" 

"We needed capital." Kaz's eyes slid in her direction, lingering briefly, before his gaze swiveled back to Jesper. "And I'm not sorry for it, but it wasn't the right move. The trick to beating Rollins is never sit down at the table with him. He's the house. He has the resources to play until your luck runs out." 

Jesper sighed. "All the same. If we're going up against the Kerch government, the gangs of the Barrel, and the Shu--"

"And the Fjerdans," Matthias interjected with a sigh of his own. "And the Zemeni, and the Kaelish, and whoever else shows up when the auction is announced. The embassies are full and we don't know how far the rumors of parem have reached. " 

"We're going to need help," Nina added. 

"I know," Kaz responded, straightening out his sleeves. There was a small piece of thread hanging off the very end of where she'd sewn the hem back into place, pulled too taught with a knife that needed to be sharpened. "That's why I'm going to the Slat." 

Jesper ceased his pacing. Inej shook her head. Onyx stopped fidgeting with her knife. The entire room seemed to have been sucked into a vacuum of silence, of tension, of disbelief because there was no way Kaz was going to risk going to the Slat with the entirety of the Barrel lobbying against him, gunning for his head on a silver platter. It was a death wish. 

"What are you talking about?" Nina asked. "There's a price on your head. Everyone in the Barrel knows it."

"You saw Per Haskell and the Dregs down there. You think you can talk the old man into propping you up when the whole city is about to come down on you like a sack of bricks?" Jesper jumped in, eyebrows raised in disbelief. "You know he doesn't have the stones for that." 

"I know," Kaz responded nonchalantly. "But we need a bigger crew for this job." 

"We won't have a bigger crew for this job if you're dead before you even have a chance to try," Onyx spoke up, once against twisting the knife between her fingers. His gaze snapped to hers again. She tilted her head. Had she never taken this job, there would be stacks and stacks of kruge promised to her name at that very instant, all for the blood of one Kaz Brekker. "It's suicide and you know it." 

"Demjin, this is a not a risk worth taking," Matthias said, cutting in before Onyx could continue. 

"When this is all over, when Van Eck has been put in his place, when Rollins goes running, and the money is paid, these will still be my streets," Kaz said indignantly. "I can't live in a city where I can't hold up my head. "