Olivia's Son

The city at night was a grid of glass and phosphor. From my office on the top floor, I could see it all, sprawling before me. My office was designed for intimidation: black lacquered mahogany desk wide as a coffin lid, windows running floor-to-ceiling with the eastward glare of the river and the lesser towers, antique gunmetal lamps and a curation of corporate awards on glass shelves. The room always felt at least ten degrees colder than the rest of the building, even in summer, the chill locked in by the silent hum of the climate control. Visitors never lingered.

I sat with my back to the view, suit tailored close to my ribs and throat, a faint slick of the dry cleaner’s starch still clinging to the arms. My hair was pulled back, severe enough to make my eyes seem wider and more colorless. The paper in front of me was Marcus’s 90-day review, already annotated in a precise, looping hand. His numbers were abysmal. Not just below expectation, but a near-farcical plummet: late, unfocused, amateurish in the ways that counted. Nepotism is an accusation only if one’s blood actually delivers results.

The door opened at precisely six in the evening, after everyone else had gone home. Marcus entered, astute enough to remain silent as he crossed the room. He had grown tall, built from a version of my genes that had skipped all the grace and gone straight to mass. Shoulders hunched to minimize his frame, he hovered at the threshold with the self-awareness of an animal awaiting slaughter. I gestured, and he drifted across the rug, hands clutching at the battered briefcase he’d carried since his internship. He had dressed up: suit jacket with a faint shine at the elbows, white shirt over-bleached to a pinkish cast, tie too tight. His hair was flattened against his skull, as if he’d tried to sweat out the entire confrontation before arrival. He stopped a regulation three feet from the desk. I let him wait. The clock on the wall was analog, ticking.

“Sit.” He slid into the leather chair. It dwarfed him, as always. His knees splayed awkwardly, and I made a note of his posture for later correction. I tapped the folder once. “You know why you’re here.”

He nodded. Voice tight: “Yes.”

I let the silence expand, a technique older than either of us. He watched my hands, not my face. “You’re failing,” I said, turning the folder so he could see my notes. “On every metric. If you were anyone else, I’d have let security walk you out by now.”

His cheeks went a dull red. “I can do better,” he started, but I raised a finger.

“I’m not interested in your projections.” My voice was thin and even, a line of ice. “You are a reflection of me, Marcus. You do not get to be substandard. You do not get to embarrass this family, this company, or this office.” Each noun struck him, his chest rising and falling faster. “But I am going to make you useful. If I have to break you open and re-assemble you myself.”

I stood. The air in the room shifted with the sound of the chair scraping back. Marcus’s eyes tracked my movement automatically, a dog waiting for the leash. “Stand up.”

He did, hands now clutching the back of the chair. I circled the desk, my heels loud on the stone tile. When I stood in front of him, I could feel his breath hitch. He was taller by three inches, but you’d never know it by the way he cowered.

“Strip.”

His eyes flicked to the door, then back to my face. “What—?”

I held his gaze. “You heard me.”

My son hesitated, a genetic flaw he must have inherited from his father. The flush in his cheeks deepened, and a tremor began at the corner of his mouth. For a moment I thought he might refuse, the last vestige of pride that I hadn’t cauterized. But the silence worked on him, as it always had, and his hands came to the top button of his shirt.

He fumbled it. The button slipped, the thread caught. His fingers trembled as he worked his way down, revealing a sallow chest mottled with sweat. He shrugged the shirt off, letting it puddle at his feet. His tie, unknotted, was balled and dropped onto the chair. The undershirt went next, revealing a patch of faded tattoo near his shoulder: my design, sharp and minimalist, inked on his sixteenth birthday ...