Chapter 5 #2
Vanya’s mouth twisted in disdain. “Regret doesn’t fix it. You can say sorry a million times, but it’s what you do next that matters. If you really want me to call you Dad, you have to be better. Not just... scary and rich. Better.”
The honesty stung like fire on bare skin.
He had no filters, no fear, no hesitation. Just truth. And it cut through the armor I’d built over two decades.
I leaned back in my chair, the smoke of my own fury mingling with something I hadn’t felt in years: shame.
Vanya kept talking, oblivious to the violence simmering just beneath my skin.
Children had no idea what their words did to monsters.
“Why do you want to marry my mom?” He asked brightly.
The real answers rose like ghosts clawing out of a grave:
Because she looks like the woman I buried.
Because every time I look at her face, my mind lies—softly, sweetly—and whispers that Penelope is back.
Because I’ve spent five years rotting from the inside, and she is the first thing that’s made my lungs remember how to breathe.
Because I am selfish enough, broken enough, starved enough to keep the illusion near me... even if the real Penelope is nothing but bones and memory.
Because losing this version—this echo of her—would finally kill whatever is left of me.
But I swallowed all of it.
“Because she looks like someone I lost,” I said instead. “And because I think she needs protecting. Both of you.”
Vanya’s expression cooled, sharpening in a way that mirrored my own when I was about to slit a throat.
“My mom doesn’t need anyone,” he said, chin lifting. “She’s the strongest person in the world. She can beat up guards twice her size.”
A reluctant smile tugged at my mouth. “I believe it.”
He narrowed his eyes, assessing whether that was mockery. When he decided it wasn’t, he slid off the chair and padded closer. He stopped right in front of me, tiny and unflinching, the top of his head just above my ribs.
Then he raised his hand, palm up.
Not a handshake.
Not for him.
A vow.
“If you hurt her,” he said softly—quiet like a storm gathering strength—“I’ll make you sorry. I’m little now. But I’m going to be big one day. And I don’t forget anything.”
Something inside me cracked—not painfully, but with the aching tenderness of remembering what a heartbeat felt like.
I stared at that small, serious hand.
Slowly—carefully, reverently—I took it.
“Deal,” I said, voice rough.
He nodded once, satisfied, and turned.
At the doorway he paused, glancing back over his shoulder like a tiny, ancient king issuing orders.
“Oh, and Mr. Dmitri?”
“Yes?” I murmured.
“The fish in my room are cool,” he said matter-of-factly, “but Mom’s scared of the dark. She pretends she’s not, but she is. There’s a night-light shaped like a moon in the bottom drawer of the white dresser. Can you put it on her side of the curtain tonight? She’ll never ask for it.”
I blinked.
The boy had no idea what those words did to me—how they scraped open old wounds and memories I’d spent years burying.
I hesitated too long, and he seemed to sense it, because his small voice hardened in that blunt, fearless way only a child could manage.
“And you won’t be forcing her to be your wife.”
Something inside me snapped—not loudly, not violently.
Just... cleanly.
“But I’m not giving your mom a choice,” I said quietly.
“She either marries me and becomes my wife... or she receives the tag of mistress by default. She lives in my house. Sleeps under my roof. In this world, that alone brands her.”
I let the words settle like ash.
“It’s her choice. Wife—respected, protected, with rights society can’t ignore. Or mistress—powerless, insulted, whispered about. One path gives her a crown. The other chains her.”
Vanya padded back to where he’d been sitting, calm as a monk.
He climbed onto the long chair again and sat, small hands braced on either side of his thighs.
His legs began to swing—slow, steady, deliberate.
Not restless. Not nervous.
Measured.
As if he wasn’t finished with me.
As if this five-year-old had decided the conversation would not end until I agreed to terms he hadn’t even spoken yet.
He watched me like a tiny judge in a tiny court, waiting for my next move.
He tilted his head, curls falling over one eye. “Do you hurt everyone around you?”
The question hit harder than it should’ve. My lungs locked. My chest went tight.
Because yes—people near me got hurt.
“No. I protect the people I care about.” I said quietly. “And I help people too.”
It was true.
I donated to orphanages.
Built one hundred homes a year in the poorest corners of Italy.
Kept more families safe than the government ever had.
But the boy didn’t blink.
“How do you make your money?” he asked, voice smooth and unguarded, the kind of unfiltered innocence that sliced deeper than any adult threat.
My hand clenched the leather armrest.
The chair creaked.
For decades, no one asked that question and lived long enough to repeat it.
But this child—this small, midnight-eyed judge—stared at me like he had the right.
I leaned forward.
The room tightened.
My voice dropped into the register that made grown men beg for their lives.
“Vanya... I’m not indulging this conversation. Go back to your mom. Now.”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink.
“The butler said you don’t hurt kids,” he said, legs swinging like a pendulum. “So... you won’t hurt me, right?”
He tilted his head, eyes sharp. “Or... do you?”
I stood slowly, letting my shadow fall over him.
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.
He needed to know the truth, So he wouldn’t be disappointed when the darkness in me surfaced.
A breath.
A vow sharpened into bone.
“But I can promise you this: I will protect her with my life. And if anyone else tries to hurt her—anyone at all—I will burn the world down and salt the earth.”
His face shattered.
Not subtle.
It cracked open like glass under pressure, all the bravery and defiance crumbling into something pure and unbearably human: heartbreak.
His lower lip quivered. His shoulders trembled.
Then the tears came—slow at first, one quiet betrayal rolling down his cheek.
Then another.
Then the dam broke.
Small, stuttering sobs shook his whole body.
He tried to swallow them down.
Tried to be strong.
Tried to be older than five years and four months—
But he was only a child who had been running on fear and adrenaline and the desperate hope that someone would finally be honest with him.
I had made grown men sob blood and call it mercy.
But nothing—nothing—had ever gutted me like this.
Before I knew I was moving, I was kneeling in front of him, sinking down slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal too fragile to touch.
“Vanya,” I rasped, reaching out.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t back away. Didn’t throw up those tiny stop-sign hands again.
I took his trembling hands gently, lifting each one into my palm, and used my silk pocket square to wipe the tears from his cheeks. The tears only came harder, hot streaks dripping onto his Iron Man pyjamas.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, failing at control for the first time in years. “I’m sorry, kotyonok. Please don’t cry.”
The old endearment slipped out before I could stop it.
The one I whispered to Penelope under that oak tree.
The instant it left my tongue, Vanya sobbed even harder—shoulders shaking, breath hitching, grief punching out of him in little gasps.
And then he moved.
Suddenly. Violently. Like a wave hitting the shore.
He launched himself at me.
His small body collided with my chest, arms wrapping around my neck with desperate, terrified strength. His face buried into my collar, hot tears soaking into my skin.
I froze—just for a second—because this... this felt like forgiveness I hadn’t earned.
Then I wrapped my arms around him.
Gently. Carefully. Reverently.