Page 87 of Dishonored

Aria blinked. “Raffe, you know I’ve been here with Nico, and—”

“And he sleeps in a separate room. Undress.”

Aria’s head tilted a bit to the side; not to look at Caesar, but simply to stare blankly at the wall as she undid the buttons at the front of her dress, and began the work of removing her clothes. It wasn’t very long before she was standing naked.

Well, except for her heels and the scarf around her throat.

“Turn,” her husband demanded. “Show me what I want to see, donna.”

Aria let out a quiet breath, but did as she was told. She turned when her husband demanded it, and came closer to the screen when she was told to. She did it all like a little doll on a turntable being forced to move, and not because she wanted to. Her husband took his time looking her over, or as much as he could through the screen.

You look untouched, he said.

Good girl, he praised her.

Caesar swore with every word, Aria’s jaw tightened more, but her eyes remained dead. Entirely cold, and unseeing. Unfeeling, even. It was … baffling.

This was not what he expected …

Not what he thought.

“Remove the scarf,” he heard Raffe order.

For the first time since the lightbulb mention, Aria’s gaze lifted past the screen to find Caesar’s prone form on the other side of the room. She didn’t give Raffe the chance to order her again to remove the item; instead she reached up and tugged the silk away from her throat with slightly shaking fingers before she dropped it to the floor.

Caesar froze.

He blinked.

Bruises dotted her throat—varying in shades of yellow, blue, and brown. Her golden skin marred with fingerprints all over the delicate column of skin and muscle. Like she was regularly grabbed around her throat, and with some force to leave marks like those behind.

Caesar had held her throat.

Choked her, even.

But not—

“You can’t keep wearing scarves,” Raffe muttered. “Someone is going to notice.”

“They already do, Raffe. You could always try listening when I say—”

“Who are you?”

Aria straightened in her heels, seemingly unbothered by the scene happening or the fact she was entirely naked but for her red heels. “Aria De Rose.”

“You’ll change that last name one day—mark my words.”

“Daddy let me keep it for a reason.”

“And now he’s gone. Point is—who do you belong to?”

Aria’s heart had to be racing; Caesar could see her pulse in her throat from all the way across the room. Rage, he thought, not her nerves. It had to be rage because that deadness in her eyes was gone, and had been replaced by something else entirely.

And oh, he knew that look well.

He knew those feelings too well.

Hatred.