He sets it down with great care. Then he lines the pawns in a neat row.
Of course he does.
We sit on the floor because he chooses the floor, and I follow because this isn’t about my preference. It’s about his comfort. My suit pants crease. I don’t care.
He scowls as he moves the rook forward, exactly like he scowled while lining up cars. His hand lifts to his ear. He scratches once. Then he looks up at me.
The question lands without warning.
“Are you my papa now?”
My lungs forget how to work. For a second, the room tilts, the way it does when a bullet gets too close and your body realizes how fragile you are. My hands go still. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Because every answer feels like a trap.
Yes, and I promise something I don’t know if I can keep.
No, and I cut him open with a rejection he won’t understand.
Maybe, and I become the kind of man who keeps people waiting on his decision like a punishment.
Nico watches me, serious and patient. Like he’s giving me time to do it right.
“Mama said my daddy is far away,” he adds. “But you’re here.”
My throat tightens so hard, it hurts. He’s not asking for biology. He’s asking for presence. For reliability. For the kind of safety children think adults can guarantee.
I can guarantee a lot of things. I can guarantee enemies will die if they touch him. I can guarantee my men will obey. I can guarantee the house will lock down.
But I can’t guarantee I won’t break him the way my father broke me. I can’t guarantee I won’t become the thing I’ve spent my life restraining.
My father used fear to teach obedience. Marco learned fear like it was a language.
And now Nico is here, touching his ear the way I do, scowling the way I do, looking at me like I’m the answer to a question he’s carried in his small chest for three years.
What if it’s genetic?
What if violence is a bloodline?
What if all I can give him is a more refined version of Marco?
My chest compresses. I can’t breathe.
Nico tilts his head slightly, still waiting.
I force air into my lungs. I make myself speak. Not the answer my world expects. Not a claim. Not a demand. A question.
“What do you want me to be?”
The words come out rougher than I mean them to, like they scraped past something raw on the way out.
Nico blinks. Then he looks down at the chessboard again, thinking with the seriousness of a man deciding a treaty. His hand lifts to his ear. He frowns.
“I don’t know yet,” he says finally.
Honest. Unafraid. Not trying to please me.
My throat burns. “That’s fair,” I manage. “Take your time deciding.”
Nico nods once, satisfied, and goes back to moving the rook in a straight line.
As if he didn’t just split me open with a sentence.
As if my entire life didn’t just rearrange itself around that question.
