Page 8 of Dishonored

A pat to his cheek.

Soft, and sweet.

Then, she moved onto her husband, ready to put herself in his path, and in the spotlight for everyone else in the room. So was her way. Typical, and predictable.

Nothing fucking new.

Caesar was still trying to forget the way her hand felt on his shoulder, and how it left a heavy weight behind. He hated when she touched him.

It left dirtiness behind.

Caesar was up out of his seat before anyone even knew what was happening, and had tossed his napkin down to the table. He didn’t bother to turn and see his step-mother drop in his father’s lap, but her giggles were more than enough to send him the hell out of that dining room.

Those feelings her touch invoked still thrummed deep even as he half-jogged down the hallway, and came to the grand entry. They should have left him the moment he was out of the mansion, and calling for a cab. It always went away then, except for this time.

This time, it felt stronger.

It ate at him.

The dirty, awful feelings still lingered long after he reentered the city limits.

Only two things could fix it.

Pain.

Or sex.

He chose the latter when he told the cab driver, “Lucifer’s Den—the club downtown. Take me there.”

TWO

LIFE AND HAPPINESS were fleeting.

Those were the two details that had taught Aria De Rose the most about being alive in her twenty-six years. Fleeting because anything could happen that took away one’s simple happiness, and when a person’s joy was gone, their life was effectively over.

Her life had been over for a year.

“De Rose!”

Aria glanced up to find the guard behind the Plexiglas window was gesturing at her. All of the prison guards knew her well enough by face alone to pull the file on her visits to this godforsaken place. A few of them even felt like they knew her well enough to use her first name in greeting as though she cared to greet them back.

Although, she did greet them.

Politely, of course.

She had to for no other reason than the man behind bars here—her behavior to those that kept him safe while he was in this hellish place might make all the difference for him. She certainly couldn’t afford for him to think something she had done or said to one of the guards made a target on his back.

Standing from her seat, Aria fixed her dress with one hand, and kept a firm grasp on her diamond studded clutch in the other. She might have been visiting a prison, but she sure as hell didn’t need to look like it, too.

Her father—a long-standing Camorra boss—wouldn’t appreciate seeing her in anything less than her finest, anyway. So was the life of a Camorra woman, and Aria was proudly one of those.

Constantly sheltered.

Revered.

Harshly judged.

More dangerous than a man.