"Where did you hear that?" I ask. My voice is very quiet.
"People talk," O’Malley shrugs. "Nurses talk. Maids talk. It’s hard to keep secrets when you turn your penthouse into a maternity ward."
He leans back, spinning the knife on the table.
"A baby changes a man," he muses. "Makes him soft. Makes him cautious. You can't run a war when you’re worried about changing diapers."
He laughs. A few of the men behind him—his Irish enforcers—chuckle nervously.
I look around the table.
Chen is watching me, his face impassive. King is studying his hands. Diego is looking at O’Malley with a mixture of fear and curiosity.
They are testing me.
They smell blood. They think fatherhood is a weakness. They think that because I have created life, I have forgotten how to take it.
I unbutton my suit jacket.
I walk slowly down the length of the table.
The chuckling stops.
O’Malley watches me come. He stops spinning the knife. He grips the handle.
"You think I’m soft, O’Malley?" I ask, stopping behind his chair.
"I’m just saying," O’Malley says, his voice losing some of its bravado. "The streets need a wolf. Not a dad."
"A wolf," I repeat.
I reach out.
I grab the back of his head.
I slam his face into the mahogany table.
CRACK.
It sounds like a gunshot. Wood splinters. O’Malley screams, a garbled, wet sound.
I don't let go. I hold his head down.
I pick up the switchblade he was playing with.
"You’re right," I whisper into his ear. "A father has a lot to lose. Which means..."
I stab the knife into the back of his hand, pinning it to the table.
O’Malley shrieks.
"...which means a father has to be twice as vicious as a man with nothing."
I lean my weight onto his head, grinding his broken nose into the wood.
"You think a child makes me weak?" I roar, addressing the room.
No one moves. No one breathes.
