Page 61 of Dishonored

“Not particularly. I need to prove a point.”

And this seemed like the best way to do it.

It would really drive it home for Aria.

Caesar was not fucking around.

“That seems petty.” Hudson stubbed the cigarette, slipped it in his pocket, and went still, saying, “But hey, it’s your fucking money.”

He waited a second—then, two.

The shot came out loud, quick, and hopefully precise. Hudson lifted his head from the rifle, and his lips moved silently. Counting, Caesar thought. Or that’s what it looked like.

One, two, three, four, five …

Finally, the man looked back in his scope. “Target hit, and down. Clean shot through the back of the head. Now, move your stupid ass and get off this roof. We have to go.”

EIGHT

MAE’S LAUGHTER FILLED up the table full of people, and Aria couldn’t help but smile. Her young sister-in-law was rarely as happy and carefree as she currently was in her joy—usually Raffe’s presence was more than enough to keep his eighteen-year-old sister quiet and meek.

It bothered Aria like nothing else, but she supposed she understood, too. Her husband had a tendency to keep all the women in his life submissive, and pretty—unmoving dolls on a shelf that he occasionally liked to take down and play with, or show off. It all depended on the day and his need, frankly.

“And it all went well?” Aria asked.

Mae nodded two seats down—with all eyes on her, she didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered. Her light brown skin was flushed with a pink from her happiness, and her corkscrew curls bobbed in her excitement.

“It did, surprisingly,” Mae said. “We didn’t think we could pull it off—somehow, we did. The mural went up, and we were out of there.”

Aria grinned. “Quite a statement.”

“That’s what they wanted.”

“Raffe won’t like that,” came a quiet, nasally voice down the way.

Aria rolled her eyes, and then cut her gaze to the bitch that had thought to speak out of turn at her dinner table. Giovanna Bruno—the wife of a man who regularly tested every bit of patience Aria had—surveyed her nails like she hadn’t spoken at all. Hadn’t the last time she sat at Aria’s table and got a wine glass broken over her head been a good enough lesson to shut the hell up?

Apparently not.

“Doesn’t he think art is a waste of time, Mae?” Giovanna continued. “Not sure he’d appreciate you joining a protest to do a popup mural for them.”

Mae quieted at the statement, and all her happiness bled away. All of eighteen, and people already had to take away this girl’s joy like they had any business doing it. Aria had all she could do not to get up out of her seat—she forced herself not to.

Tonight was supposed to be a good dinner. Peaceful. Just because she wanted to give Mae a moment in the spotlight. So few Camorra women had their moments when they were constantly stifled, or a man was pushing her out of the way to have it shined on him.

Assholes.

“I don’t remember asking you what Raffe would think,” Aria said calmly from the head of the table. “I asked Mae how it went.”

Giovanna smiled sardonically. “Yes, well—”

“Raffe is neither your husband, nor your brother. But he is ours. I think we can handle him, Vanna.”

The older woman—although only older than Aria by a couple of years—narrowed her eyes down the table, but didn’t seem to have anything else to say. Or maybe she was remembering the pieces of glass a doctor removed from her scalp with tweezers because of her last run-in with Aria.

Either way, her silence was best.

For Giovanna.