Page 81 of Dishonored

It was mere months after his mother’s suicide when a new woman walked into his house, and filled the empty spot next to his father’s side. Months … and then years of confusion and shame followed.

Caesar did his best to avoid funerals—all funerals, really—but especially ones where his father invited people into his home after for dinner or whatever the case may be. It always threw him back to his mother’s viewing, and then as a byproduct because it was fucking unavoidable … that death had been the one catalyst … he then had to think about what happened after, too.

So, no, he didn’t want to be here.

He didn’t want to fucking remember at all.

And yet, here he was.

It was almost over, though.

Small blessings.

Caesar tipped his glass of cognac up, and took a sip. At least, if he had a drink in his hand or his mouth was full of liquor, he was less likely to be approached by someone and need to talk. He had been told by his father to be polite, and respectful.

Today wasn’t about him.

His half-brother needed to say goodbye.

Right.

In the corner of the living room, Daniele sat in a chair while he nursed his fifth glass of whiskey. He barely moved, and if he did, it was only to ask someone to get him another drink. For all the hell Caesar had put his half-brother through, and despite how much he thought the man despised his wife after everything that happened … clearly he had been mistaken.

Daniele was grieving.

He hurt.

Maybe it was the mother thing for Caesar again—or just all the fucking terrible reminders keeping his shoulders heavy and his mind dark—but he actually felt bad for his half-brother. He felt some kind of empathy for a man he had only wanted to hurt time and time again before today, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

Beside his half-brother, his step-mother had perched on the arm of the chair and comforted her son with a hand rubbing his back as she said things too low for anyone else in the room to hear. It was only the sight of Martina that really ebbed away whatever care he did muster up for Daniele.

Fuck.

A constantly drunk mother comforting her grieving, drunk son.

How fucking sweet.

Caesar hated that woman—being in her presence was more than enough to bring up every tangible emotion that he fought daily to suppress for two fucking decades. All his anger, confusion, and shame. All the ways he knew how to kill a person and how easily he could do it to her flooded his thoughts, and taunted him.

Because he could.

He could … he could.

Jesus Christ.

He could do it.

She would deserve it.

And yet, the closer he got to her … the nearer she was to him, the more disgusting he felt. The worse his mind became, and the faster his heart beat. An anxious, hard beat that flooded his veins with a torrent of pain. An ache so deep—so fucking embedded into his very being—that it was never coming out now.

He’d lived with it—and her—for far too long.

There was just no way around it.

The departing guests at the mansion gave Caesar the chance to step out, and say goodbye to a couple. At least, it got him out of his step-mother’s direct vicinity. The more distance he put between himself and her, the better he felt.

It was only when the final guests drifted from the Accardo mansion did Caesar’s father finally come and find him sitting on the back deck staring up at the stars. He didn’t even bother to greet his father, or acknowledge Angelo’s presence for that matter.