Page 7 of Dishonored

Names of their wives.

There was maybe three men whose wives Caesar hadn’t gotten to in his special way—it was likely he was going to sit at the table with men who knew very well that he’d at one point or another, got a taste of what was between their women’s thighs.

He enjoyed that.

Compromising them all in that way.

It was his only control.

He needed it.

“Dinner sounds nice; I could eat.”

Angelo cocked a brow, obviously hearing the slyness in Caesar’s tone. “Don’t pull any shit, figlio. You step out of line one more time, and so help me God, I will put you in the grave I should have given you years ago.”

“Promises, promises,” Caesar called over his shoulder as he left his father behind. “You’re always making those, and yet never keeping them.”

Death would be a gift.

His father would never give it to him.

Dinner was a fucking bore.

Caesar could barely open his mouth without his father glaring in his direction—a silent order for him to sit still, and shut the fuck up. His father hadn’t lied, though. Only a handful of men were there to eat and discuss the latest business in the organization, but Caesar was out of the loop in that regard.

Shitty by-product of being gone for so long.

Not that he wanted to talk business.

Caesar was downing his second glass of wine when the high-pitch, nasally voice of his step-mother resounded from the entryway behind him.

“Is the wife not invited to this party of yours, Angelo?” Her laughter felt like nails raking down Caesar’s back—a bloody trail of pain and hate he couldn’t escape. “I’m offended, mio bello.”

At the head of the table, Caesar’s father hid his displeasure at Martina interrupting his dinner with the men. She should have known her place after two decades of marriage to the man, yet she still kept pushing her boundaries.

Angelo let her.

That was part of the problem.

Well, that and the fact she was almost always drunk. And when she wasn’t entirely plastered, then she was pretty fucking close to it. Angelo did a good job of hiding his wife’s alcoholism, but not from his son. Caesar had gotten a taste of this woman’s vile vindictiveness one too many goddamn times.

Martina’s hand brushed Caesar’s shoulder as she passed him by at the table—her silent hello. She never offered very much more when others were around, and he liked it just fine that way. He did absolutely everything he could not to have a conversation alone with the woman, or get stuck in private with her.

She was the woman who replaced his mother.

She was shrill, and horrible.

He hated her.

Always had.

He only learned how to hate her more and in different ways over the years, but no one cared to hear about those details.

No one wanted to know.

“Ma,” Daniele greeted when Martina bent over his shoulder to kiss her son’s cheek.

“My boy.”