Tom glanced carefully around the visitation hall, then leaned close to the handset and lowered his voice to just above a whisper.
"Maya... I have an illegitimate daughter."
"...What?" Maya stared. Her lips parted slightly. "That — how — you're in prison, how did you—"
Wait. Did he — with another man? Did he mutate? Is he a mutant? Or did Tom unlock a power like Matt Murdock?
Maya's imagination was already running wild. What if the government thought Tom's genes were worth preserving and used him as some kind of... breeding experiment?
Tom had no idea that in the span of five seconds, his daughter had mentally constructed at least a dozen increasingly dramatic scenarios for how this might have happened. He checked his surroundings again and continued, conspiratorially. "No, no — not in here. She was born before I went in. She's... nine years old by now. You understand?"
Maya exhaled. "How do you know? Are you sure?"
"I'm not sure!" Tom said, cheerfully unconcerned — and nearly giving Maya a heart attack.
The vein above her eye twitched. Maya enunciated carefully, one word at a time. "So then. What exactly are you trying to tell me?"
"I want you to go check on her."
"Alright. Tell me who her parents are."
Tom's voice dropped so low it was barely audible — if not for Maya's heightened senses, she'd have missed it entirely. "Frank Gardes's wife. Lillian Walker. She sent me a letter recently — says Frank has started to suspect that their daughter Mary isn't actually his."
Maya went very still.
"You — Tom — Frank Gardes is your old boss. You — Tom, do you have any idea how—"
"Shh! Keep it down!" Tom hissed, urgently pressing his palm flat against the glass in a downward motion.
Maya had to give him a reluctant measure of respect. Frank Gardes was a genuine Hell's Kitchen crime lord — not just locally, but known all along the East Coast. The name "Bloody Rose" In the underworld, everyone knew the name Frank. And they all said the same thing: a vicious, cold-blooded killer.
Hell's Kitchen had always been a neighborhood that produced its share of crime bosses. Frank Gardes was the top boss of his generation. To put it in terms Maya understood from another life: Frank was essentially two of the biggest fictional crime lords rolled into one. And Tom — Tom was a nobody so far beneath Frank's notice that Frank had probably never learned his name. Tom's old-neighborhood status was below even a low-level grunt who'd just gotten initiated.
Try to picture this: a newly-recruited lackey who'd been sleeping with the wives of not one but two kingpins at the same time.
Maya decided that image was too much.
"Tom. Are you sure Mary is yours? Could you be wrong about this?"
Tom scratched the back of his head. His tone was matter-of-fact. "Lillian sent me the letter. She says Frank noticed that Mary's hair color doesn't match his — and it's a bit off from Lillian's blonde too. Frank's been looking at Mary more and more closely and has started to think she doesn't look like him. Now he's investigating. Lillian wrote to warn me to watch my back. I'm not certain — that's why I want you to go look."
Nine years in, and he only just noticed the hair, Maya thought. Frank's a bit slow on the uptake.
But she believed it was probably true. As the child's mother, Lillian was the one who knew what had actually happened. The fact that she'd taken the risk of writing to Tom at all suggested the Tom she remembered was still the young, fresh-faced version — before all the weight gain. If she ever actually came to visit him in person, there was a decent chance she'd take one look at the bloated middle-aged man on the other side of the glass and decide she had no obligation to anyone.
Which meant the real problem wasn't confirming whether Mary was Tom's daughter. The real problem was keeping Tom alive.
Prison deaths happened. People slipped, fell, had unfortunate accidents. Tom used to be completely invisible — too small and unimportant for anyone to bother targeting. But now? He'd essentially taken a steaming dump on a New York crime lord's reputation in the most personal way imaginable. Frank might not hold infidelity to quite the same standard as back in China — but to him, Tom was still an insect. An insect that had made him deeply unhappy. And unhappy crime lords swat insects without any particular reason needed. To have unknowingly raised another man's child for nine years, and to have the fact exposed — that was a loss of face he wouldn't let go unanswered.
"So what are you thinking?" Maya asked. "You understand how serious this is."
Tom smiled bitterly. "My thoughts? What do my thoughts matter? If Frank never figures it out for certain, then maybe everything stays quiet. But Lillian — I don't think she can hold up under pressure. Once she breaks and tells Frank that we had history... Frank won't bother verifying a thing. He'll just kill everyone. I just thought — if Mary really is my daughter, and she ends up in an orphanage after everything goes wrong — could you look out for her a little?"
Maya studied him through the glass. He looked calm. Like a man who had already seen the worst version of events clearly and made his peace with it.
She nodded. "Maybe it won't come to that. It's been years. And even if Frank does abandon Mary — I'll keep an eye on her. Don't worry."
A moment later, the guard appeared to tell Maya that visiting hours were over.
Tom walked away, glancing back twice—three times—before the door closed behind him. Maya smiled and raised her left hand to wave goodbye. But her right hand — still holding the telephone handset — had been gripping it so tightly that the plastic had cracked along several seams.
I need to accelerate my training. The Frank situation needs to be resolved, and soon. Tom may be a mess, but he's still my father. No one gets to hurt him. No one.
Maya made her decision in silence, then turned and left the prison.
On the ferry back, she came across the elderly couple again. The old woman was quietly weeping against her husband's shoulder; the old man stroked her back without a word, murmuring softly — it sounded like Russian.
She had no particular desire to strike up a conversation. Maya was introverted by nature, and right now, her own family was in danger. She wasn't in the mood for small talk.
Maya made her way to the bow of the small ferry and gazed out at the open water of the Atlantic. Chakra flowed slowly through her right hand. Gradually, a faint blue orb materialized in her palm.
Maybe it's time to start developing elemental ninjutsu. The question is whether to go Wind first, or Water.
Manhattan was surrounded on three sides by rivers. New York sat right on the Atlantic coast. Geographically, Water Release made more sense — a Mist-style path. But her Influence Points weren't there yet, and the source material didn't go into great detail on Water jutsu techniques.
Wind Release, on the other hand, would let her upgrade the Rasengan into a Wind Release: Rasengan right away — a significant power increase. But it wouldn't do much to solve her immediate problems.
She stared at the sphere in her hand, still thinking.