Letting him see the monster men whispered about, the one they prayed they’d never meet in a dark alley.
Vanya stared up, small and fearless, as if daring me to prove him wrong.
I swallowed the roar clawing up my throat.
“I’ll take you back to your mother. And next time—” my jaw tightened “—you do not enter my private rooms unannounced.”
I reached down to lift him.
He shot his hands out—tiny palms, firm as iron.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
I froze.
The way men freeze when a grenade pin hits the floor.
Finally, I straightened.
Took three slow steps back.
Sat down, controlled, composed, dismantled.
I exhaled. “You’re... five years old, right?”
“Five years and four months.”
My heartbeat stuttered—an ugly, painful convulsion.
Five years and four months.
The exact age my son would be. The exact number I had calculated every night like a curse.
“Who is your father?” It came out hoarse.
He shrugged, calm as a whisper. “I don’t have one.”
“You don’t know who your father is?”
He shook his head—small, definitive—curls bouncing like punctuation marks on a sentence that gutted me.
So he had grown up fatherless. No wonder he carried himself with a maturity far beyond his five years. My chest tightened with a pang of something I didn’t want to name. I felt... sorry for him.
“Since we’re getting to know each other better, Vanya,” I said, letting my voice slide into that low, deliberate cadence, “I’ll answer your question. You wanted to know how I make my money, right?”
He nodded, eyes wide.
“Well,” I continued, letting the words drop like stones, “everything I own... was inherited.”
Inherited through blood, fire, assassinations, and a legacy soaked in red. But he didn’t need to hear that yet.
He accepted it with a small, dignified nod—far too old of a gesture for a boy still tiny enough for footie pajamas.
Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees exactly the way I do when I’m preparing to end negotiations with a signature or a bullet.
“And about that promise I made earlier...” I swallowed, letting the words rasp out like steel on stone. “I can’t promise I won’t hurt your mom, Vanya. I’m... not a good man.”
I had to tell him.
