Page 17 of Dishonored

Certainly not the drugs.

Or the sex.

If a person wanted something, the best place to find it was Lucifer’s Den. It was all provided in the plentiful, and Caesar liked to indulge a hell of a lot more than he probably should. But shit, he was going to die someday regardless, and he was not going out with regrets about things he should have done.

He was going to do it all.

Inside the club, once he had come down one of three glass elevators from the roof that led inside the club, Caesar was bombarded by the familiar sights on the entrance floor. Red velvet couches, and a bar to the right. Dimmed lighting by low hanging chandeliers, and a DJ set up in his booth where no one could get to him while he worked. A few girls moved over the dance floor in their tiny skirts and sky-high heels with large serving trays filled with either drinks, or empty glasses. The dance floor was full, too.

Caesar might dance.

If he found someone’s skirt to hide his hands while he did it …

Passing the main floor, Caesar grabbed a drink from one of the passing waitresses, and she gave him a wink. His face was recognizable, and his tab hadn’t been officially closed in this place since it opened three goddamn years ago. Sure, he paid it off, but the owner still kept it open for him to use again and again—he was a repeat, after all.

It was the barrel-chested man standing in front of red-velvet upholstered double doors keeping Caesar from getting to the place he wanted to be. Or rather, closer to finding a new pair of thighs to get in between for the better portion of his night.

“Good to see you again, Caesar,” the bouncer said.

“And you.”

Kevin, he wanted to say?

He wasn’t really sure of the man’s name.

“I think you alone could make the boss a very rich man with the amount of times you come to this place a week,” the guy said, stepping back just enough to open the double doors for him. “Enjoy your evening.”

Caesar ticked a finger over his shoulder, and then disappeared into the red stream of light filtering between the crack in the doors.

Hell was a sexy sight—black velvet, red lighting, dark hardwood, and cocaine on a glass table. Caesar passed two girls leaning over in their men’s laps to lock onto one another with a kiss, but he had other things on his mind. Cocaine dust powdered one of the girl’s noses, and a similar streak of the drug looked like it had been smudged on one of the man’s collars.

By the end of the night, he bet both of those men were going to be snorting that coke right off those girls’ asses. Lucifer’s Den was predictable in that way. It always ended with the same thing every single time here.

Another section with couches surrounding the same style of black-glass table had a bowl—pink, blue, purple, and white pills filled it like candy. For the people sitting there with their champagne and painted on smiles, he bet it did taste like candy for them.

Black and red sheer curtains hung low from the ceiling, and dipped down to the floor around each of the seating sections. It allowed someone the illusion of privacy if they wanted to pull the curtains a bit to close out the rest of the club, but it was widely known here that everyone could still see whatever you were doing behind it.

Oh, yeah.

This club was what Caesar’s wet dreams were fucking made of.

And sin was always waiting.

He planned to head directly back to his favorite spot in the club—a corner couch section with just enough room for two or three people, should he be interested in that kind of crowd. It gave him the perfect view of the vast majority of the floor, and a good show of whatever was going on around him.

A familiar voice calling out stopped him.

“Caesar, my man!”

His steps faltered as a familiar man straightened from the couple he was talking to a few feet away, and came Caesar’s way with his signature grin. The owner of Lucifer’s Den was a lot of things, and had his hands in too many pots to count, but he had always been good to Caesar. And he was good enough to let the man know never to fuck with him, either. Sometimes that warning was just enough to keep Caesar from pressing … depending on the man it came from.

“Maverick,” Caesar greeted.

The man flashed his white teeth as his hand struck out, and met Caesar’s with a hard smack. Maverick knew Caesar well enough not to draw him into a hug, though. He didn’t care for people touching him unless it was to get him off, frankly.

“Place is busy tonight,” Caesar noted.

Maverick nodded. “That it is. Shit, didn’t I just see you in here two nights ago?”