Page 13 of Dishonored

She played it well.

“Well?” Aria asked.

Nico—the only man who had stayed entirely silent during her meeting with the others—sighed as he stepped closer to her vanity. “They’re gone. Not pleased, mind you, but gone.”

Aria went back to her reflection, and twisted one stray curl back into place. “I don’t care about their happiness, Nico, I care that they listen.”

“And what if one starts to question you, Aria? What if one decides to find a way to your father despite all the loopholes and barricades you’ve put up to keep him sheltered from them? What then?”

Oh, that seemed simple enough.

“Then, we kill them.”

Nico sighed again.

She almost smiled.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “we’re one step closer.”

One step closer to having it all.

To controlling Philly.

To gaining back her life.

“Real talk,” Nico muttered, “about Jac. What did he have to say?”

Aria met his gaze in the mirror. Nico stood behind her patient, silent, and waiting like he always did. Her most trusted companion, and the one man who had never hurt her. She’d known him since she was just a girl—young enough to still enjoy tales like gold at the end of the rainbow, and when puddle jumping was fun.

She was not young anymore.

Neither was he.

“Peace—my father wants me to make peace.”

Nico smirked a bit. “Not going to happen any time soon.”

“He doesn’t know that, though. Now, what do you have for me?” she asked.

“Information on the Accardos.”

“I love information.”

Nico laughed. “I know.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

She worked on fixing a couple of stray strands of her hair as Nico went in to details about the latest information he had gathered on the family they had been provoking for a while. Tonight would be one step closer to getting in on their inner circle.

Really in if it all worked out.

“The latest little spat we had with them worked, it seems,” Nico said.

By spat, he meant a drive by shooting of one of their restaurants. Closed, of course. Aria didn’t need innocents getting mixed up in all of this. Still, she knew a couple of the Accardo men held regular nightly meetings at the business.

One had died.

Shame.