I nod and mirror the move.
“You’re trying to trick me,” he says with a grin, squinting at the board. “Right?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe I’m just waiting for you to fall into my trap.”
He leans in, focused, all boyish curiosity and budding confidence. For a moment, he doesn’t look like a legacy.
He just looks like a kid who wants to win.
I nod once. “The best way to set a trap. It’s the best opening move for someone who likes to be underestimated.”
I study him as I sit. His hands are steady. His jaw—Igor’s. His eyes—Ana’s. A blend of two heritages that were never meant to coexist.
We fall into silence, the good kind. The kind Ana and I used to share before the world cracked open.
I let him think he’s outmaneuvering me. Deliberately misplace a bishop, allow a weak pawn structure. He needs to win this game.
“She died when I was born?” Damien asks suddenly. “That’s why nobody talks about her?”
I freeze for half a second too long. Then I nod once. “Yes.”
“Father doesn’t say much. I think he’s sad.”
More like guilty. But I won’t say that. Not to him.
“Some people carry loss like a stone,” I say instead. “Others wear it like armor. And some of us…just bleed from it, quietly.”
Damien’s eyes meet mine. Ana’s eyes. “Which one are you, Uncle Yakov?”
I shift a rook. “Still figuring that out.”
It’s the truth. Or the closest thing to it I can give a boy who looks at me like I’m not already lost.
Damien nods, quiet for a moment, his fingers hovering above a piece. Then, without looking up, he says, “Is that why you did bad things? Because you were sad about Mother?”
The question hits like a blade under the ribs—clean, unexpected, and sharper than it should be coming from a boy his age.
“Who told you I did bad things?” I ask, keeping my voice level.
“No one had to.” He shrugs, moving his knight forward, a clumsy, vulnerable position. “I heard Father and Uncle Nikolai talking. And the guards go quiet when I come in. They think I don’t notice.” His tone isn’t bitter. Just matter-of-fact.
I watch the knight’s poor placement and make no move to exploit it.
“You’re not stupid,” I say.
“No,” he agrees, meeting my eyes. “I’m not.”
We sit there, the board between us, his knight exposed and ignored. He waits, patient in the way only children can be when they know there’s more to the story.
“You didn’t answer,” he says, quieter now. “Were you sad? Is that why?”
“It’s not that simple.” I lean back slightly, my gaze resting on the black king I just moved. “Sometimes adults make choices they think are right…until they realize they weren’t. Or that the cost was more than they could afford.”
He studies me with unnerving focus. “So…were you wrong?”
The board fades from view. What child could know the weight behind that question? The lives ended. The families fractured. The way I carved grief into vengeance and called it justice.
Before I can answer, the soft knock of the door breaks the spell. It opens a moment later, and Mila steps in. Her eyes sweep the room, surprise flickering across her features when she sees us at the board. Me seated. Him smiling.
