Page 143 of Dishonored

“Wrong,” Caesar murmured, “I trusted you to do exactly what you did, Aria. See, you taught me a new trick, donna. You thought I didn’t know what would happen the second you got him alone? I knew. I don’t have to plan my own moves when it comes to you, I only have to plan for what I expect you to do when something happens, and work accordingly. I would thank you for removing my last problem, but I don’t think you want me to.”

She stared at him.

Stunned.

Unsure.

Amazed.

“Well done,” she said.

Caesar nodded. “A bit of a shame, isn’t it, my girl?”

“What is?”

“All we’ve done to one another. Every cut we made. And though I hate you for a lot of things, still, I somehow love you.”

Her heart stopped.

She swore it did.

Spattered with his father’s blood; knowing she lied to him again; manipulating him one last time to get what she wanted.

All those things …

He still said, I love you.

“Why?” she asked. “Why do you love me?”

“Because you’re amazing, and you’re everything I can’t have. After everything we’ve done, it could never work. We’re not healthy. This isn’t that kind of good, Aria.”

She was scared.

That terrified her.

Because what if he was right? What if like everything and everyone else the two of them had touched on their way to the top, they were ruined now, too?

“You should probably go,” Caesar said, “I have a problem to handle, and you don’t want to be here when the shit really hits the fan.”

That was his goodbye.

He couldn’t even say it.

She didn’t want him to.

One week passed.

And then two.

Aria fought tooth and fucking nail to get her life—and the Camorra clan that had been left in utter chaos—back to some semblance of their normal.

And yet, it was everything but.

Her people, still unknowing of everything she had done to get them to the place they were now, wanted action and retribution against the Accardo family.

For Raffe, for her father, and even for her.

Retribution she wouldn’t give.