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Truthfully Roman never planned on having children; never understood this...innate need that others had for a successor to carry on their family name—as far as he was concerned he was the only legacy the Sionis name would ever need, he had no desire for some little brat to one day outshine him, or worse, to run his hard earned empire into the ground.
So, it should go without saying that knocking up some woman who he could barely put a face to the name of was definitely not something he’d ever planned on happening.
It comes as a shock at first when he receives the phone call, and at first he’s willing to chalk it up to some broad brave (and stupid) enough to try and con him, so, with a vulgar threat not to call again, he hangs up, and expects that to be the end of things.
But it isn’t.
The woman calls again right after, insistent that they ‘need to talk’ and can they ‘meet somewhere private’ and ‘please, Roman, five minutes, just— just give me five god damned minutes, you owe me that much, you bastard ’, she’s persistent, tenacious even, to the point that he might actually be impressed were he not so damn irritated.
He’s not sure why he finally agrees, but he does, arranging a meeting down by the pier. He’s on high alert as he waits (the fact that he’s freezing his ass off helps), still half expecting (or maybe just hoping ) for this whole thing to be some sort of set up.
A full hour has passed before he decides he’s waited long enough, and heads back to the warmth of his car, furiously cursing the woman the whole way, ‘first the bitch thinks she can scam me, then she thinks she can stand me up?!’
Fifteen minutes en route back to his penthouse his phone rings, and Roman is, for the second time that day, completely blindsided when he answers.
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The words replay in his head as he stands outside the door, ‘an accident’ and ‘mother killed on impact’ and ‘the boy is alive, but in critical condition’, and ‘alerted his next of kin ’— that’s him, apparently.
He’s the only living person this kid has left in the world; and apparently he’s responsible for him now. Annoyance takes root at that, he never wanted any of this, never wanted a fucking kid in the first place.
But when the hell had the universe ever cared what Roman fucking Sionis wanted. It certainly hadn’t when he was a boy.
So here he is, saddled with a fucking kid that he never wanted, with absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to do about it. He knows what he would have done if the woman had come to him 6 years sooner (paid her off to get rid of it and bumped her off if she’d refused), but now? What the hell is he supposed to do now?
He inhales through his nose, clenching his jaw at the same time he wrenches the door open and makes his way inside the room, then he just...stops. His eyes bounce from the monitors to the tubes, to the kid himself and...
Jesus Christ, he’s fucking small, it’s a miracle he’s even still alive, that he wasn’t killed on impact with his mother. A fighter, Roman supposes, (like him ).
Roman moves closer to the bed, staring down at the kid. Probably wouldn’t take much to...his gaze darts to the pillow the boy’s head rests on. It would be a kindness, probably, he reasons to himself. Kid should be dead anyway, would only be finishing what was already started...
Should be dead, but here he is, still alive, still fighting, and ain’t that something...
Maybe...
No. No. Roman doesn’t want to be a father. Can’t be. Doesn’t know how. That’s not who he is, not someone he can be. And even if he could, this kid deserves better than Roman knows he could ever give him.
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He can’t be the boy’s father, Sionis men don’t have it in them to be good fathers, he’s certain enough of that much through personal experience. But that doesn’t mean he won’t do what he can, where he can.
So he pays for the kid’s medical expenses, makes sure he receives the very best treatment that money can buy. The boy will live, the doctors said, but he’ll need around the clock care. Roman ensures that he’ll get it.
He sets up a sizable trust fund in the kid’s name; he’ll never inherit Roman’s empire, but he won’t need to, as long as Roman has any say in the matter (even if it’s from the shadows) the boy will want for nothing.
He has the boy’s mother buried somewhere nice; not because he cared for her (at the end of the day, he can still barely remember her, thinks maybe he sort of can, if he wracks his brain hard enough, but even then it’s vague, fuzzy), but still it feels like the least he could do.
Finally, he pays someone to fudge the birth records, burying all ties that could be traced back to him; doesn’t need the kid trying to track him down someday, better for the both of them that the boy’s parentage remain a secret. To everyone.
He thinks it better not to risk someone finding out about the kid’s connection to him and using him against him; feels an unfamiliar tightness in his chest at the thought of any harm befalling him (and it’s then, for the first time ever in his life, Roman thinks that he gets it, that he finally understands what it feels like to love someone) .