A Coin Has Two Sides || Kaz Brekker x OC

24. No Deal

Kaz had spent the next two weeks with a strange feeling inside him.

He kept going back and forth between two emotions : regret and relief.

Some days he cursed himself for telling Winnie about his aversion to touch.

Some days he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, he had no reason to be worried. He trusted her.

During all the confusion, he had made the decision to avoid her. If there was an emergency, she would come to him.

Winnie wasn't stupid, she would know he was distancing himself and would be coming up with her own reasons as to why.

Kaz was waiting for the right moment to invite her back into the Dregs, but he had noticed how happy she had been over the past couple of weeks.

The smile she would have on her face when she won another round of cards. The laugh she would give out when her and Jesper were talking at the bar. The contentment in her eyes when she would hug Inej as she entered the Crow Club, ready to go off for one of their girls' nights.

He didn't want to disturb her happiness. She had experienced so little of it since being in Ketterdam, and Kaz could only assume in her whole life.

It made him angry. She deserved better.

That's another reason for his hesitation to invite her back to work for him.

He knew how it worked out the last time, and he couldn't ever let that happen again, so giving her the opportunity to leave stopped it at the starting hurdle.

But she hadn't left.

He was glad she hadn't, and he didn't want her to.

And the only way to keep her here was to keep her in the Dreg's. And this time he would do better, treat her better.

__________<>__________

"Everything running smoothly on the exchange?" he asked as Winnie entered his office.

She was wearing her newly bought coat that Kaz knew only accompanied her when she went up to the exchange roof to watch the stars.

"Smooth as always", she replied before removing the medium-length black coat and draping it over a chair before taking a seat by the window.

"Don't you get tired of looking up at the nights sky? Whenever I look it always stares back at me with the same expression", he questioned, knowing the reason for her occupation by the window.

"That's because you don't look hard enough, Brekker. If you did you would be able to see that each one shines at a different brightness. Some don't decide to show themselves one night and reappear the next. They each have a different story to tell. A different reason for their existence, and I like to decipher each one."

Kaz could listen to her talk about the stars for days on end and never get bored, but he had something more important to discuss with the shadow summoner.

"Not everyone can have your deluded sense of what needs deciphering or not."

"Clearly", she said in a flat tone.

"So, tell me. What does need deciphering?", she asked.

"The matter of your business here", he replied as he got up from his desk and walked around to the front before leaning against it and crossing his arms.

"What about it?"

"We never properly reinstated you as a member of the Dregs. Your deal with me is still severed from before, and I would like to fix that."