Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,184

you tricksy bastard?”

“I knew you wouldn’t let me walk away this time.”

“No,” Rollins conceded. “When you came to me looking for money, I should have gutted you and your friends and saved myself a lot of hassle. That was foolish of me.” Rollins began to shrug off his jacket. “I can admit I didn’t show you the proper respect, lad, but now you’ve got it. Congratulations. You’re worth the time it’s going to take me to beat you to death with that stick of yours.” Inej drew her knives. “No, no, little girl,” Rollins said warningly. “This is between me and this skivstain upstart.”

Kaz nodded to Inej. “He’s right. We’re long overdue for a chat.”

Rollins laughed, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. “The time for talk is over, lad. You’re young, but I’ve been brawling since long before you were born.”

Kaz didn’t move; he kept his hands resting on his cane. “I don’t need to fight you, Rollins. I’m going to offer you a trade.”

“Ah, a fair exchange in the Church of Barter. You cost me a lot of money and earned me a lot of trouble with your scheming. I don’t see what you could possibly have to offer that would satisfy me as much as killing you with my bare hands.”

“It’s about the Kaelish Prince.”

“Three stories of paradise, the finest gambling den on East Stave. You plant a bomb there or something?”

“No, I mean the little Kaelish prince.” Rollins stilled. “Fond of sweets, red hair like his father. Doesn’t take very good care of his toys.”

Kaz reached into his coat and drew out a small crocheted lion. It was a faded yellow, its yarn mane tangled—and stained by dark soil. Kaz let it drop to the floor.

Rollins stared at it. “What is that?” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. Then, as if coming back to himself, he shouted, “What is that? ”

“You know what it is, Rollins. And weren’t you the one who told me how much alike you and Van Eck are? Men of industry, building something to leave behind. Both of you so concerned with your legacy. What good is all that if there’s no one to leave it to? So I found myself asking, just who is he building for?”

Rollins clenched his fists, the meaty muscles of his forearms flexing, his jowls quivering. “I will kill you, Brekker. I will kill everything you love.”

Now Kaz laughed. “The trick is not to love anything, Rollins. You can threaten me all you like. You can gut me where I stand. But there’s no way you’ll find your son in time to save him. Shall I have him sent to your door with his throat cut and dressed in his best suit?”

“You trifling piece of Barrel trash,” Rollins snarled. “What the hell do you want from me?”

Kaz felt his humor slide away, felt that dark door open inside of him.

“I want you to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Seven years ago you ran a con on two boys from the south. Farm boys too stupid to know any better. You took us in, made us trust you, fed us hutspot with your fake wife and your fake daughter. You took our trust and then you took our money and then you took everything.” He could see Rollins’ mind working. “Can’t quite recall? There were so many, weren’t there? How many swindles that year? How many unlucky pigeons have you conned in the time since?”

“You have no right—” Pekka said angrily, his chest rising and falling in ragged bursts, his eyes drawn again and again to the toy lion.

“Don’t worry. Your boy isn’t dead. Yet.” Kaz watched Pekka’s face closely. “Here, I’ll help. You used the name Jakob Hertzoon. You made my brother a runner for you. You operated out of a coffeehouse.”

“Across from the park,” Pekka said quickly. “The one with the cherry trees.”

“That’s it.”

“It was a long time ago, boy.”

“You duped us out of everything. We ended up on the streets and then we died. Both of us in our own way. But only one of us was reborn.”

“Is that what this has been about all this time? Why you look at me with murder in those shark’s eyes of yours?” Pekka shook his head. “You were two pigeons, and I happened to be the one who plucked you. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else.”

That dark door opened wider. Kaz wanted to walk through it. He would never be whole. Jordie