Page 65 of Dishonored

“Grazie, Nico.”

Aria waited until her friend had drifted back down the aisle of the church before she stood from the pew, and fixed her hat before smoothing her hands over her skirt. She used the east exit of the church that had a pathway leading out to the graveyard. Having already navigated these paths once today as the funeral procession took her father’s casket to his final resting spot, it didn’t take her long to get back to the gravesite.

Aria stood at the edge of the grave, and peered down. At the bottom of the hole, her father’s casket waited to be covered by the mound of dirt still hidden with a tarp to keep it from getting too wet by the drizzling skies. Only a small handful of dirt had been tossed down on the casket by the priest earlier—custom, and nothing more. The black glossy wood still stood out prominently and maybe even with a warning.

She heard it.

This could be you soon.

She didn’t heed it.

Gray clouds hung overhead.

It was appropriate.

Even if her father had betrayed her, she still loved him.

Or, a piece of her did.

Strange how that worked.

Bending down, Aria dragged her fingers through the dirt at the edge of the grave. She tossed it inside, and watched it spatter the top of the black casket. The cold detachment she had been feeling in her heart lifted just enough to let her experience the heaviness left behind.

It didn’t matter.

She’d made her choices.

“Until we meet again, Papy, and then, I hope you’ve forgiven me,” Aria murmured.

Standing straight again, Aria brushed her hands together to rid them of any lingering dirt. She peered up at the gray skies, and let out a little sigh. This was it—time to put her mask back on, and get back to the plan. She had wasted enough time.

Turning to move back down the path and meet up with Nico at the graveyard’s gate, she almost stumbled over her knee-high leather boots at the man who was currently leaning against a ten-foot statue of an angel cradling a child in her arms. His intense blue gaze all but nailed her to the spot, and when his lips quirked up in a half-smirk, Aria sucked in a sharp breath.

Still, she straightened her shoulders, and refused to let him see her shock at him showing up at her father’s grave. And on the day of his funeral, no less.

“Caesar,” Aria greeted as she came closer.

He didn’t push away from the statue, and his arms stayed loosely folded over his broad chest. In a tailored suit, with his black shoes shining against the pathway, he looked entirely cool, confident, and calm.

“You don’t look terribly sad,” Caesar noted as his gaze drifted over her features, and then traveled down her body to linger even longer. Jesus. This man was something else. “I’m not sure whether to be happy about that, or not. I was hoping for …”

Aria quirked a brow high. “What, for me to be a sobbing mess over my father’s grave because you took him from me? Would that have pleased you, Caesar?”

Fast as a blink, his gaze cut back up to hers.

That smirk of his deepened.

“Maybe,” he offered simply.

There was something about this man’s voice that needled at Aria’s insides. In good and bad ways. She tried her hardest to ignore it, but it was becoming all the more difficult with each and every encounter they had.

“Well, surprise,” Aria deadpanned, “I am not the woman who weeps over a man.”

Ever.

Caesar slanted his head to the side, and grinned a bit. “No, I didn’t really expect you to be, honestly. I thought I should show my face, and let you know, though. I couldn’t have you thinking I was hiding away after all of …” He gestured at her father’s grave up the pathway, saying, “… all of this, now could I?”

“That is your modus operandi, isn’t it? You like the glory of it all—you have to let someone know it was you who hurt or took from them.”