Davian sighed and pushed up away from the edge of the stove, taking Lake with him.
The stove hadn’t been put on yet because he honestly had no fucking clue how to make soup - maybe he should take cooking classes.
"It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. if I ever had a child, I would dissolve my Mafia house or hand it over to someone else and disappear."
Lake listened to Davian words with wide eyes that looked like melted glass, still struggling to understand.
"Y-You don’t want to be a Mafia King anymore?" He summarized.
"It’s more than that," Davian tried to say steadily, his voice betraying him by coming out shaky.
Lake listened intently, not just because this was very important to Davian but because the Alpha also valued his input.
"I don’t want my child and my..." The Alpha trailed off briefly, "Life in the Mafia is dangerous, I don’t want that for the baby."
Lake fell silent, filling in the empty gaps that Davian had left blank. "I don’t think it’s any less dangerous outside of it, Davian." He shook his head, plunged into such a heavy conversation without warning.
"Leaving the Mafia doesn’t make you any less of a Black." He said carefully, trying to find the right words.
Davian’s expression darkened, like he just thought about it for the first time.
Lake thought about what Davian deciding to leave the Mafia entailed for him, and if he let himself be selfish, he didn’t want him to leave.
Maybe it was his unresolved trauma but he didn’t want Davian to give up on the privilege being a Mafia King brought them. He would run the damn Mafia house if he had to.
"I’m the last surviving Black," Davian said bluntly, "My parents were killed by an unaffiliated thug exacting his revenge, he attached a bomb to their car while they were at an event."
Lake felt his heart shrink, the details of the past Mafia King’s death were kept hush-hush. Guilt bloomed next, he really had no say in what Davian decided to do.
"I’ve only ever thought about leaving since then, but I didn’t want my dad’s hard work to go to waste, so I stayed back and worked hard. He would be proud of me. He would want me to do what I wanted..."
Their position had gone from Davian keeping him in place to the Alpha clinging to him, his big body curling in on itself to better fit in Lake’s slender arms.
Lake stayed quiet and let Davian let it all out, regardless of his selfish wants, he would do whatever Davian wanted.
"I wanted to leave after I got a child to protect, but I never planned for that, so ideally, I planned to run myself to the ground, I was a dead man walking..."
Davian’s words struck a nerve, before the event that made their paths cross, the Alpha had felt like a mirage, distant, cold, unreachable. Who could have known that the powerful and forbidding Mafia King was suffering?
"...anything to numb myself, to avoid the truth that my parents’ death had been avoidable-" Davian stopped there, catching himself.
"Sorry," He cleared his throat, stepping back. "I said too much."
Lake felt a lump in his throat at the distance, he wanted to offer comfort to Davian but it didn’t feel like his place to, so he just crossed his arms self-consciously.
"W-Whatever you decide is fine with me," Lake murmured, the moment between them lost.
"You’re right, leaving isn’t going to be any safer." Davian dropped the wooden ladle he had been holding the entire time.
The lights in the kitchen felt a tad brighter and the weight on Lake’s chest eased up a bit.
"How about we make an arrangement that works for the both of us?" He suggested, knowing that that wasn’t a definite answer.
The chance of Davian resigning from his position was still high but Lake didn’t want to give up either.
"An arrangement?" Davian asked with narrowed eyes.
"I’m not taking over the cooking," He smiled softly, tempted to close the distance between them now more than ever.
Davian stubbornly insisting on cooking was so out of character, most Alphas didn’t even like to be in the kitchen.
"But it does have something to do with that," He went on. "You can handle the cooking and whatever else you want to do, and I could help you with more tasks."
Davian paused, mulling over what Lake had just said, and once again, the Omega found himself putting his foot in his mouth.
He had basically just insinuated running the Mafia House alongside him.
"That sounds dangerous," The Alpha said disapprovingly.
Lake had to smile, that had been the least of his worries when he suggested it but of course, Davian would only think about his safety.
"I’ll be with the men or with you, I think I’ll be fine." Lake said lightly, more worried about whether he would be able to pull it off.
Davian’s brows furrowed, still not on board. "Let’s talk about this after you eat."
"Aren’t you eating?" Lake asked with concern as Davian took his apron off.
He didn’t want to eat alone, breakfast had been nice because Davian cooked it but it had been missing something vital.
"I’ve got a backlog of files..."
"That I’ll help you with," Lake completed, taking the apron from Davian and marching over to hang it up.
"Come on," He gestured to the Alpha, "Let’s go eat, I’ll help you order lunch."
The awkward distance between them was gone, and they were back to keeping things light and casual between them.
Lake internally searched for a reason to take back his offer to help Davian out, and found none.
He hadn’t offered because he wanted to keep the Alpha a Mafia King, but because he wanted to do something worthwhile.
Just like when he offered to be Davian’s ’secretary’ before they even had this conversation.
There was no reason for him to be so invested, regardless of what he did or didn’t do, Davian would take care of him and the baby.
But this was his Mafia house, and Davian was his Mafia King.