Page 145 of The Bratva King

He looks at Gabby, the way he always does when he’s deciding whether something is safe. She gives him the small nod I’ve watched her give a hundred times. Permission. Reassurance to go ahead.

He slides off his chair.

Gabby follows without being asked. I expected her to.

I lead them into the east wing and stop outside the old sitting room. I look down at Luke.

“This is yours,” I say. “If you want it.”

I open the door.

Luke steps inside first. He moves slowly, the way he does in a new space. Taking everything in before he decides what to do with it. He catalogs the room, his eyes moving from one object to the next. He stops at the sensory swing. Beside it, a shelf holds all the toys his therapist recommended.

Of course, there are dinosaurs. The T. rex on the wall might scare some kids, but I think Luke will see it as protection.

I watch him cross to the sand table and push his fingers into it. Then, he notices the canopy in the corner and crouches to look inside. A weighted blanket is folded on the small mat inside, beside a few books and one of the fidget tools his therapist suggested.

He crawls in and sits down.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

Gabby makes a small sound beside me and presses her fingers to her mouth. When she looks at me, tears fill her eyes.

I look away. I don’t know what to do with her crying.

We stay for a few more minutes while Luke explores. He sits in the swing with his feet brushing the floor. After a moment, he starts moving, slow and rhythmic. I watch the tension ease out of his small shoulders.

Eventually, Gabby walks in and stoops over in front of him. “I’m going to talk to Nik for a minute, okay?”

“Okay,” Luke says. Still swinging.

Kylie is waiting in the hall. She smiles. “This will be so good for him,” she says.

“Can you sit with him?” Gabby asks.

“Absolutely.”

Gabby walks ahead of me toward my office. I follow.

She goes inside and waits for me to close the door. Then she turns to face me, and I brace myself. I cannot predict this woman.

“You don’t have to keep doing this,” she says.

“I want to.”

“Nikolai.” Her voice is soft, but I can’t tell if she’s happy or sad. “You don’t owe us any of this.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

“He needed it. It will help him.”

“You’re a good man,” she says quietly.

No one has ever called me that. Pasha might think it, but he’d never say it without following it with something cutting. Sergei respects me. Maksim loves me. Neither of them has ever called me good.

My mother called me a good boy. That was different.