His offer knocked the air from her lungs. “Take down Heleen…” The words came out in a whisper, wistful but with a hint of the terror she used to feel. She moved from the windowsill to a chair across the desk from Kaz, moving a leg up so she could rest her head on her knee. She hated how childish she sounded and felt, most mentions of Heleen was enough to make her wince and want to cower. She would hide that, she did it quite well to anyone else, but Kaz had always known her better.
“That will be tricky.” Her voice was shakier than she would have liked it to be. She plucked her knives from her sleeve and rattled off their names in her head, trying to calm herself. “Her private life, anyone that could be important to her, she must keep tightly locked. I’ve tried, I tried before…before you bought my contract.” Inej runs her thumb up and down the hilt of a knife. “Either that, or she simply has nobody close to her. Neither would surprise me very much.”
He usually had a plan. He usually had a better plan than this. More detailed, more precise and he was not a naive kid he once was. He knew this was going to be harder than it looked. Tante Heleen was a valid contributor to the Council, to the blessed economy of Ketterdam. Many pleasure houses earned Ketterdam the reputation it had - a city of pleasure, of prosperity. The taxes, the bribes. Everything came hand in hand. That goddamn city was built on the market scheme. No one could manipulate economy as well as the Kerch merchants.
He understood the doubt in her voice, but it still surprised him. Tricky? Hard? Impossible? He had thought such words were not allowed in his vocabulary, in his presence. His body stiffed. ‘How many times have we won the tricky fights, Inej? How many times have we done impossible? People are not born from thin air. Everyone has their weakness.’ Everyone, even him? Many had tried to find his weak spot, but he was simply way too good in bluffing. Wasn`t he?
