He adjusts his glasses, shifting uncomfortably. “Leo shouted, and I’m quoting directly,‘my daddy has a gun and will beat you up if you keep being mean.’”
Ivy’s head whips toward me so fast, I hear the whoosh of her breath. Her eyes narrow into slits, fire simmering just beneath the surface. I sit back slowly, one brow raising as the words echo in my skull, though beneath the bewilderment, another emotion surfaces.
Surprise.
Not from hearing Leo had threatened another one of his peers, but for the simple fact that he’d called me ‘daddy’.
Pride blooms in my chest.
Is that how he sees me? As his father figure? Ishouldn’tbe proud of him assaulting someone, but damn it, I am. Leo stood up for himself. Fiercely, just like I would have taught him to if I had been around this entire time. Like a true heir to my empire.
“Maksim,” Ivy hisses quietly at me.
I glance over at her, realizing I must be failing at suppressing my smile by the way she’s giving me such a heated look. Though honestly, what does she expect? It isn’t as if violence is a foreign concept to me—quite the opposite, in fact.
Plus, I’m happy Leo sees me as something more than the man who dragged him into that mess with Mikhail.
Harris clears his throat. “Mr. Bennett, I need to make it abundantly clear that any mention of weapons or violence, especially on school property, is taken extremely seriously.”
“I’m sure it is,” I reply, tone even. “And I assume the child who provoked him has been reprimanded accordingly?”
Harris clears his throat. “The student in question has been spoken to, yes. But right now, our concern is ensuring Leo understands the seriousness of what he said. And that he has no access to weapons of any kind while he is at home. ”
Ivy turns back to him. “Of course he doesn’t. We’ll talk to him about the fighting… and threatening people. This… isn’t like him. I’m sure he was just overwhelmed.”
The principal gathers his papers, eager to move on. “We’re not suspending Leo. However, we do ask that he stay home tomorrow. Give everyone a day to cool down. And we suggest you speak with him about the implications of making threats, even if he didn’t understand the weight of his words.”
“We will,” Ivy says quickly, standing.
With the meeting over with, the principal stands too, leading us through another door into a small waiting roomwhere Leo is curled in a chair, his legs tucked up under him, his backpack in his lap.
The moment he sees us, his eyes widen with guilt. “Mama!”
Ivy drops to her knees in front of him. “Baby, are you okay?”
Leo nods, but his lip trembles. “I didn’t mean to get in trouble.”
“You’re not in trouble,” she murmurs, pulling him into her arms.
I stand back, watching the two of them, my son’s small arms locking tightly around his mother’s neck. He peeks over her shoulder at me, and his voice is small when he says, “He was mean. He called Mama a bad word. I didn’t like it.”
I go still.
Ivy freezes too.
“What word?” she asks gently, pulling back enough to look him in the eye.
Leo shifts, reluctant. His face crumples before the words even leave his mouth, his lip trembling with the weight of what he’s about to say. “He said… because I have no dad, that means you’re a… a whore. I didn’t know what that meant until he explained it to me.”
Ivy’s breath punches out of her like someone hit her in the chest. I see the tears flash in her eyes just before she drops her head and buries it in Leo’s hair, holding him so tightly that her shoulders begin to shake.
My hands curl into fists at my sides, my nails biting into my palms. The anger is molten, white-hot. Not at Leo. Not evenat the child who parroted something vile to him. No, this fury has a far more deserving target at theparentwho said it in front of their kid. The adult who let that filth drip off their tongue like it was nothing, poisoning their own child like a well gone toxic, only to unleash that poison ontomine.
What kind of parent looks at a woman raising a child on her own and calls her that?
There are many things I’ve done that I’m not proud of—but this? It makes me want to find that parent and show them what true cruelty looks like.
I force myself to breathe before I let my emotions get out of hand, then I crouch beside them, leveling myself with Leo’s small frame in his mother’s arms. He’s still clinging to Ivy, his face pressed against her shoulder, but he turns his head when he feels my presence beside him.
