Page 109 of Dishonored

Caesar chuckled as he pulled her empty dinner plate away from her. “Something like that—I just thought you might enjoy getting out of that wing for a bit.”

“And the fact your father isn’t home has nothing to do with it, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. It has everything to do with it.”

She laughed.

Caesar shrugged.

As unashamed as ever.

Her amusement died as another thought filtered into her head—one she had been meaning to ask since her encounter with his step-mother the day before.

And where was that vile woman now?

“When did your parents divorce?” she asked.

Caesar stiffened as he lowered his form into the seat next to hers. “They didn’t—Catholics don’t divorce.”

Fair.

“She’s passed, then?”

He nodded. “By means of one of the worst sins, should you ask the Church. The priest appealed to the bishop, but uh, he wouldn’t bend even a little bit; we couldn’t have her funeral at the church, but they did allow her to be buried in the graveyard.”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant, then.

She knew with those words.

“She killed herself.”

Caesar cleared his throat, and reached for the glass of water in front of him. He didn’t take a drink, but he did distract himself from needing to look at Aria when he spoke by edging the pad of his fingertip around the rim.

“She fell into a bad depression after losing a pregnancy, and that’s what came of it. I was four; Angelo remarried before I turned five.”

“To Martina.”

His jaw clenched.

His finger froze on the glass.

A fire blazed in his gaze.

“Yeah,” he said thickly. “To that thing.”

“You don’t like her.”

“That’s not a good enough word for what I feel regarding her, actually. Even hate isn’t strong enough, but it works just as well.”

“Why?” Aria asked.

Instead of answering her, Caesar asked, “Where’s your mother?”

“An incident between two clans killed her. My father never remarried.”

He nodded. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I didn’t even know her; I have no memories of her, either.”