Dmitri’s jaw tightened. ‘Anna died five years later, in the private nursing home I had been forced to place her in just days after she was returned to me. She is buried in the churchyard nearby. Her mind had gone, you see, so that she no longer knew me. She had retreated to a place neither I nor anyone else could reach her, for ever broken from what those animals did to her in the week they held her captive.’
‘Don’t, Papa!’ Nina choked emotionally, reaching out to him with her other hand, aware of the cracking of the ice that had encased her heart since she had learnt the truth two days ago.
That ice now broke wide open, shattered completely, before melting away as she saw the agony of that shocking past in her father’s pained green eyes.
It had been too much for Nina to take in on Saturday night, for her to be able to fully comprehend what his having kept that secret all these years had done to her father, emotionally. All she had heard then, all that had mattered, was that her mother had been alive for five years more after Nina had believed her to be dead.
But she realised, as she looked at her father now, how alone he must have been in his grieving for the wife who had never completely come back to him. Of the five years he had suffered, visiting Anna once a week at the nursing home where she had lived out the rest of her short life, so lost in the safety of the world she had created for herself that she hadn’t even known who Dmitri was, let alone that she had a young daughter who loved her too.
And Nina realised now that he had done that for her. So that she might grow up with only the happy memories of her mother.
‘It was wrong of me.’
‘Don’t put yourself through having to say it all again, Papa!’ Nina pleaded emotionally. ‘It isn’t. I was the one who was wrong on Saturday evening, for not understanding.’ She released Rafe’s hand so that she could stand up to go to her father, her arms moving about him protectively as the tears now trailed down his weathered cheeks.
‘I’m so sorry, Papa. So very sorry that I walked out on you on Saturday night. For putting you through yet more pain by disappearing for two days.’
‘I would forgive you anything, maya doch, you know that.’ He spoke gruffly. ‘Anything, as long as you are safe.’
Nina began to cry in earnest now, no longer able to shut out the thought of all the years her father had suffered, unable to share or express his grief for the wife who still lived but no longer had any knowledge of him or their young daughter.
‘There’s more, isn’t there?’
Nina kept her arms protectively about her father as she turned to look across at Rafe.
‘Not that this isn’t already enough.’ Rafe stood up abruptly, too restless to continue sitting any longer.
His hands were clenched at his sides as he resisted the impulse he had to take Nina in his own arms, knowing that this was a time of understanding, of healing, for Nina and Dmitri. A time when Rafe’s own emotions had to be kept firmly in check. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t feel them.
He gave a shake of his head. ‘I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am that this happened to all of you. It’s incomprehensible. Too huge to take in completely.’ He ran a hand through the shaggy thickness of his hair as he gave a shake of his head, wondering how Dmitri had ever managed to live with the pain.
Rafe had grown up in the security of the deep love his own parents had for each other, and he knew, without a doubt, without needing to ask, that his own father would have acted in exactly the same way Dmitri had in these same circumstances. That having lost his wife, Giorgio would have done everything in his considerable power to care for his wife, and ensure his three sons were protected from the truth.
Rafe also knew that Gabriel, so in love with Bryn, would tear the world apart looking for anyone who dared to hurt her.
Just as Rafe knew, if that had ever happened to him, that once the initial shock had receded he would be filled with that same rage. That he would want to find the men responsible, to destroy them, to tear them apart with his bare hands, for what they had done to the woman he loved, and to make sure they were never able to hurt another woman, to destroy another family in the way that they had.
He drew in a hissing breath. ‘Your car accident wasn’t an accident, was it?’
‘No,’ the older man confirmed as he drew himself up stiffly while retaining a tight hold of Nina’s hand. ‘It took time, but I hunted the three kidnappers down until I found them, and then I arranged to meet with them.’ He drew in a controlling breath. ‘It was my intention to kill them that night, at a secluded spot far from the city, to make them suffer, as my Anna had suffered—’ He broke off as Nina gave a pained cry. ‘I did not succeed, maya doch,’ he assured her huskily.