Episode 60

Naomi

I waited with Gavril in the hallway as we watched the children file out of the rooms, my heart twisted with pain both for him and me. His pain had been raw earlier, the very pain that I still didn’t understand what drove it. I might have only known him for a few months, but I was well aware of his emotions, of his moods.

Gavril was in pain. He had suffered some great loss in his life, and perhaps that was what drove him now.

Either that or he truly liked the violence around him. I knew that he did enjoy parts of it, but given what I had seen today, there was good in Gavril.

There was good in him, begging for release. After all, what sort of pakhan would take a family under his wing and provide for them? I doubted he was going to ask anything of the girls or their mother.

If he did, I would be disappointed yet again.

Alyona came out first, running to us with a wide smile on her face. My eyes snuck up to Gavril’s face, watching the transformation in him that seemed to happen immed