Page 50 of Dishonored

“No. I have him handled.”

Her friend lifted a brow.

Aria rolled her eyes.

“Well, I have him as handled as I can for now,” she corrected. “There’s not much I can do on his side of things until he’s back in the country.”

And even then … none of the things she had planned for her husband would be possible if she didn’t get everything else under control first.

“Ah, you mean Caesar,” Nico murmured.

Aria shrugged, and tipped her glass of schnapps up for another drink—her third glass, and she was starting to feel it. Thankfully, Raffe hadn’t noticed on the phone call or she wouldn’t have heard the end of it, and probably would have still been talking to the bastard.

“He needs to be controlled,” she said again. “I need to know that he’s going to do what I need or want for him to do, even if he doesn’t realize that’s what he’s doing. I can’t have him holding the threat of something over my head like that. It’s a game I am not willing to play.”

“You can’t afford to.”

“I don’t need the memo.”

Nico gave her a look.

She returned it with one of her own.

“You shouldn’t play with fire where Caesar is concerned,” Nico said. “I don’t think he’s the kind of man who responds nicely to that sort of thing.”

To say the least.

“He’s dangerous for me,” Aria admitted, “and not in the obvious way, either. Not in the way that might harm my standing, or any of that. I’m not worried about that. I can handle him there.”

It took Nico a second.

And then two.

“You … like him?”

Aria sighed. “I don’t know what I think about him, frankly.”

“You should probably get that figured out.”

Yeah, probably.

“I have to get control of him,” she repeated for a third time.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I don’t think you’ll like how I’m going to do it.”

It was time to turn the tables on Caesar, and to let him have a taste of his own medicine, even if it was only to benefit her.

Sex is my weapon.

His words still lingered.

She was going to use them.

SEVEN

CAESAR UNLOCKED THE door to his penthouse, and balanced the phone between his shoulder and ear at the same time.