Turo
Rehab has a smell. Bleach. Overcooked vegetables. Carpet that has absorbed too many apologies. Men trying to sweat poison out of their blood and call it redemption.
Court-mandated facility, private wing. Trees around it like a lie. Distance like a promise.
I come every week. Not because I enjoy it. Because he is my son.
Enzo comes with me. He sits beside me in the car like this is just another meeting. Tablet in hand. Calm face. Controlled breathing. The kind of composure that makes other men relax without knowing why.
“You’ve been here daily?” I ask. “Is that what you just said?”
Enzo doesn’t look up. “Almost. As much as I can. He needs consistency.”
“Or you do,” I murmur.
He glances over, just a flicker. “I’m mentoring him.”
Mentoring. A word men use when they’re shaping something that will outlast them.
We pull into the lot. Gravel crunching under tires. Two facility guards at the entrance. Their nod is polite, not deferential. Here, my name has edges.
Inside, the lights are too bright. Fluorescent. Sterile. Designed to make everyone look worse than they are so they’ll accept the version of themselves the counselors sell.
The waiting room is plastic chairs and soft music. A woman wringing her hands into knots. A man staring at a wall like it owes him answers.
Enzo signs us in. The receptionist smiles like routine can sanitize anything.
A counselor walks us back. Hallways. Locked doors. Posters with slogans.
One day at a time.
Choose change.
People love simple sentences. They make the mess feel manageable.
The visitation room is small. Neutral. A couch bolted to the floor like trust is something that has to be anchored. A box of tissues in the center of the table like a pre-approved weakness.
Marco is already there. He stands when I enter. That’s new. He looks… clearer. Not good. Not safe. But less bloated. Less wild. Eyes that are not completely black. His hair cut. Hands steadier. A man who has been forced to sit still long enough to hear himself.
“Dad,” he says. The word lands without venom.
I study him the way I study a room before violence. Exit points. Weak spots. The angle of his shoulders. The tension in his jaw.
“How are you?” I say.
He huffs a laugh. Not cruel. Not even bitter. Just tired. “I’m in rehab.”
The first honest thing he’s said in years.
Enzo takes the chair in the corner like it belongs to him. Supportive. Observant. Quiet power placed where no one can accuse it of being loud.
Marco sits again, posture unsure. He doesn’t know how to be a man without performing dominance.
“I’ve been going to groups,” he says. “Therapy, too.”
I don’t praise him. Praise is sugar. Marco has lived on sugar and rage and attention. It rotted him.
“And?” I prompt.
He looks down at his hands. Turns a palm up like he’s surprised it isn’t holding something.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Thinking is dangerous for him. Thinking is where paranoia breeds. But his voice doesn’t sound sharp. It sounds… cautious. Like he’s afraid of what he might find if he looks too closely.
“I don’t want to keep being…” He gestures vaguely, as if naming the problem is too much.
A liability.
A stain.
A son I can’t trust with anything that matters.
“You can change,” I say, because sometimes you offer a rope before you decide whether someone deserves it. “If you want it.”
Marco’s jaw tightens. He swallows.
“I do,” he says. Then, quieter: “I’m taking responsibility.”
The words should come as a relief. They are such small, fragile things. Matches in a windstorm.
And then he adds, like he’s waited to see if I’ll flinch: “I have a kid.”
Silence.
“You have a child, Marco?” I demand.
Marco nods. “A son.”
A son.
In my world, that word is never innocent.
I swallow hard. “You’ve never mentioned this.”
His eyes flash with defensiveness, then he reins it in with visible effort. “I didn’t know,” he says. “Not for sure.”
I wait. Pressure without raising my voice. My father’s best trick. I learned it young.
Marco exhales hard. “It was… before. A while ago. My ex disappeared. Left. I didn’t find out until later.”
“You expect me to believe a woman had your child and you did nothing about it,” I say flatly.
“I tried,” he snaps. Then catches himself. Breathes. Replaces anger with a calmer mask. “I tried to find her.”
A mask. But masks are still something. They mean he’s aware of being watched. Awareness is the first step toward control.
“And now?”
Marco leans forward slightly, eager in a way that makes my instincts prickle. “I found her.”
Enzo shifts almost imperceptibly in the corner.
“You found her,” I repeat.
Marco nods. “I got a lead. Through people. Quiet.”
He says quiet like it’s proof he’s changed. It’s not proof. It’s strategy.
“And you’re sure the boy is yours?”
Marco’s mouth tightens. “DNA will prove it.”
“Will,” I echo. “So you haven’t done it yet.”
He hesitates. A fraction too long. “Not yet. But I will.” And then he says it, like it’s the part meant to impress me. “I want custody.”
Custody. The word tastes like headlines. Like courtrooms. Like cameras. Like blood in water.
“You want custody,” I say slowly, “of a child you have not confirmed is yours.”
Marco’s eyes burn. “I want to do right by him.”
Do right. A phrase from therapy. A phrase meant to sound like growth. But there’s something underneath it. A possessive edge he can’t fully sand down.
“Why now?”
He swallows. “Because I’m getting better. Because I don’t want to be who I was.” A beat. “And because he’s mine.”
Mine. Not I love him. Not I want to know him.
Mine. Bloodline language. Ownership language.
My chest flips with something I don’t like. Hope.
Hope is the most expensive drug in my family.
Enzo clears his throat softly, like he’s asking permission to enter the moment. “I brought the paperwork,” he says.
Marco’s gaze flicks to him, then back to me. Enzo slides a folder onto the table. Too ready. Too smooth.
He knew?
This has been assembled. Planned. Fed to Marco like a narrative he can hold in his hands.
Marco flips it open, scans quickly. He looks up at me with the pen already in his fingers.
“I just need to sign,” he says. “Start the process. Then the test.”
I should ask the mother’s name. I should ask where she is. I should ask how he found her, what he promised, what he threatened, what he offered.
I don’t.
Because if this is real, and I crush it with interrogation, Marco will do what he always does when cornered. Lash out, run, burn the bridge just to prove he can.
And because there is a part of me that wants this to be true. A child could anchor him. A child could force him to become someone else. A child could quiet the council. A child could turn the Mancini future into something other than knives.
I keep my face smooth. “You will have counsel.”
Marco rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t explode. Progress.
Enzo speaks like silk. “I’ve arranged it. Discreet.”
Of course he has.
I look at Marco. “If this becomes public, it will be handled properly. Quietly.”
“I want it quiet,” Marco says, too fast.
Sure.
“Sign,” I say.
Marco exhales like he’s been waiting for permission his whole life. He scribbles his name across the pages with an urgency that looks like relief.
A signature is easy. The consequences are not.
He sets the pen down and looks at me like he expects praise. “I’m doing the right thing,” he says.
I hold his gaze. “You’re doing a thing,” I correct. “Whether it’s right depends on what you do next.”
His jaw works. He nods once.
We stand to leave. Marco hesitates, then grips my forearm. It’s not a hug. Not affection. A gesture men like us use when we don’t know how to be soft.
“Thanks,” he says roughly. “For not giving up.”
My heart tightens behind my ribs, and I pull free gently. “Don’t make me regret it.”
He almost smiles. Almost. “I won’t.”
We walk out. The hallway feels longer on the way back. Posters watching. Doors clicking. Men moving like shadows.
In the car, Enzo settles into the passenger seat like he’s already won something.
“You think it’s genuine?” I ask.
Enzo’s smile is faint. “I think it’s an opportunity.”
Not an answer. I glance at him. “That wasn’t my question.”
He meets my eyes without flinching. “A child changes a man.”
Sometimes. Sometimes it only gives him a new weapon.
But I don’t say that. Because the truth is, I want to believe it. I want one part of my bloodline not to be poison.
Just one.