Page 33 of Dishonored

A tic showed in his jaw.

She almost had him.

“Aria,” came a quiet word from Nico at her right.

She didn’t even turn her head to look at the man. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not. You’ve been down here for at least a minute. You’re supposed to be in the room already. Simone or Jonny could come out to look for you, and you know what they’ll see. You’re in private with a man—where you cannot be.”

Caesar’s gaze narrowed at those words.

Aria didn’t look away from him, but she had to speak now. Get her demands out, and get it over with. Nico had a good point.

“Would your father care to know that you fucked the enemy, Caesar?” she asked, never breaking their gaze. “How would he feel to know while you were put on our tail to clean up our mess, you were actually fraternizing with one of us—and not just any one of us, but the acting boss. Me.”

Caesar didn’t flinch, and even sounded a little too haughty when he replied, “That’s not even close to the worst thing my father knows I have done.”

And even as he said that, she still found a flash of worry in his gaze. Maybe in all his fuck ups, this man was now walking a very thin line.

“Do you want to test that theory?”

He swallowed.

She smiled.

“We want territory—more, you could say. I need it for a bigger purpose, and your family is strong holding it, as they usually do. You’re going to help me in that regard.”

“You have high hopes and big dreams.”

Aria laughed.

Like Nico, this man was wrong, too.

Men usually were.

“Hope is for the weak. I never hope.”

“Aria,” Nico hissed.

She didn’t need to be told again the risk she was taking, but she had said what she said, and now it was time to move. Before Caesar could think to stop her, she slipped out from beneath his arm, and headed for a waiting Nico.

Aria didn’t even look over her shoulder as she came out of the hallway. The two of them walked straight into the private dining area to find the Accardo boss’s men had finally arrived—five of them, it seemed.

That made them a bit outnumbered, all things considered.

Angelo Accardo stood in the middle of the room like the formidable man she had expected him to be. Large, a bit too round, and as tall as his son with dark eyes that glared daggers into the man standing beside Aria.

He barely even looked at her.

“You’re late,” Angelo said, his tone colored with irritation. “And I do not like to be made to wait on anyone, let alone a Camorra boss.”

“My apologies,” Aria said sweetly.

It took a beat of time as Angelo’s gaze swung in her direction, and then a another second or two as he blinked. “I beg your pardon, girl?”

“I prefer Aria—or De Rose, even. Whichever you prefer.”

She bet she was quite a sight in her Versace dress and Valentino heels. Her neck was roped in the diamonds her husband had given her on their wedding night. Right before he bent her over the closest flat surface, and fucked her hard enough to make her bleed—God, Raffe had taken great pleasure in doing that to her, and then trying again the next night. She’d swept her unruly curls back into a messy chignon, but left a few loose strands down, and made sure her face was free to be seen and especially beautiful.