THESE BROKEN VOWS (Kazbrekker x Fem!reader) [ book version]

CHAPTER 1

-🗡️INEJ P.O.V🗡️-

Kaz Brekker didn't need a reason.

Those were the words whispered on
the streets of Ketterdam, in the taverns and coffeehouses, in the dark and
bleeding alleys of the pleasure district known as the Barrel.

The boy they called Dirtyhands didn't need a reason any more than he needed
permission - to break a leg, sever an alliance, or change a man's fortunes
with the turn of a card.

Of course they were wrong, Inej considered as she and her sister crossed the bridge over the black waters of the Beurscanal to the deserted main square that fronted the Exchange.

He had one reason.

A certain E/c -ed Healer girl with Y/s/c skin and a heart of gold.

Only the Ghafa girls saw the way he looked at her.

No one else knew.

No one else cared to know.

Romance was a myth in the Barrel.

Gore, Murder, violent delights was the language of the broken figures who reside in the slum.

Desperate, having crawled out of worse places than that, found sanctuary in the scraps which they called a city. The canals, the slums, the clubs, the reek of alcohol in the air, that was home to them.

They had nowhere else to go. No one else who cared.

The Ghafa sisters were one of the few people in the barrel with family.

They were eachothers family, eachothers soul.

They were sisters. By blood. They shared actual family.

Birthed by the same woman, on the same day, they were twins.

Forever eachothers.

And ofcourse, the Dregs were there.

The gang of thugs and bandits, thieves and whores had risen to the the few gangs amoung the high rank in the barrel, thanks to a few gloved hands.

Kaz Brekker is the reason. Bhagya would say.

He is the reason the Dregs are what the are today. He's the reason we are who we are today, even if he is an insufferable git.

She would say to Inej while sharpening her knives at their room in the Slat, when they were alone.

He built this empire from ruins and made it a rising power among the swampy Barrel lands.

Every act of violence was deliberate, and every favour came with enough strings attached to stage a puppet show.

Kaz always had his reasons.

Inej could just never be sure they were good ones.

Especially tonight.

Inej checked her knives, silently reciting their names as she always did when she thought there might be trouble.

It was a practical habit, but a comfort, too.