That was how Natalie and Aleks had met?
"He'd been blessed with a new father, while Maksim and I had been cursed with a monster. I blamed Aleks for all that befell us. Maksim did as well to a lesser extent. Rationally, I knew Aleks wasn't at fault, but the anger wouldn't subside."
"Did he believe you two were okay?"
"Da. And much better off without our father. He couldn't have guessed what happened to us. He only learned of it a few years ago."
He must've felt so guilty. "Will you tell me what happened when Orloff arrived?"
Dmitri hesitated. "In the beginning . . . he was kind to me, doing nothing unusual. When he started to touch me, it was so different from the violence I'd known that I mistook his behavior for genuine affection. He told me all boys my age had a guardian to touch and kiss."
My fists clenched under the cover.
"Maksim sensed something was wrong. He asked me if Orloff hurt me, and I could honestly say he didn't because he never did anything that would cause me pain. Orloff would rather have died than to injure his 'perfect little boy.'" Dmitri gave a shudder of revulsion.
I choked back bile and imagined burning Orloff in a ring of tires.
"Yet then he began firing servants and isolating us even more. At the same time, he pushed me to do things I couldn't reconcile. When I refused, he threatened to kill Maksim. Finally, I saw what Orloff truly was. After that, I was so infuriated and disgusted, I grew detached, my mind and thoughts far from him. Sometimes I would dissociate for long periods."
"How did Maksim find out?"
"My brother sneaked into my room on Christmas Eve to set up toys, but I wasn't there. Maksim discovered me in Orloff's bed."
Oh, God. "That's when Orloff beat him? Because your brother tried to protect you?"
Dmitri nodded. "Orloff flayed his back open repeatedly and locked him in the cellar for months."
I would never have suspected Maksim's traumatic past. Today he was so confident and so at peace with himself, with Lucia. "How did you two escape him? Was Orloff arrested?"
"No, he . . . died. An elderly woman was put in charge of us, but it was Maksim who looked out for me, and I got better. Or so I thought, until my teens." He rubbed a hand down his face. "Whenever I felt sexual pleasure, I'd start to dissociate. I fought with everything in me, but I couldn't stop it. After sex, I couldn't remember what had happened. It ruined the act for me, and each time I drifted, slipping away grew easier."
Now I understood more about our wedding night. He'd feared dissociating with me. "Did you get help?"
His lips drew back from his teeth. "I tried everything. Any kind of therapy you can think of, I tried. For years. I learned what my issues were and how best to cope with them, but the dissociation continued to plague me. Every day I felt robbed; every day I was reminded of wrongs inflicted upon me. I could deal with my past, but my present was providing fresh misery."
I couldn't imagine having a wound that festered--for decades.
"Logically, I knew there would come a day when I would stay gone. I was just twenty-five when I concluded I could never sustain a relationship. Which meant Orloff had left his mark on me, was having the last laugh. That filled me with so much rage. For years, rage was the only emotion I felt. In a way, I was unwillingly being true to him, but I knew how to shuck off that monster's hold forever." He rubbed his scar.
Suicide. The culmination of all that terror and violence and pain.
"After Maksim intervened, he pressured me to go to a facility. A doctor suggested a pill to keep me anchored in reality, one with a notorious side effect. It killed my sex drive. I had a choice. Sane and celibate, or insane and sexual. My protocols of pills and no sex enabled me to concentrate on my work. I spent years like that."
"Before me, when was the last time you were with someone?"
"A while."
I could tell he hoped I would leave it at that. "How long is a while?"
"Years."
"How many years?"
He squared his shoulders. "I was completely celibate for eight."
I masked my astonished reaction. This explained so much of his behavior, starting with our first night together--the wonder in his expression as he'd explored my body in the penthouse bathroom. . . .
Not to mention his family's unnerving enthusiasm at his interest in me.
"I had my work for most of that time," he said, a defensive edge to his tone. "And I wasn't alone in my suffering; Maksim battled his own shadows. His back is covered with scars, and because of what he endured in that cellar, he couldn't stand to be touched."
No wonder Maksim's longest relationship lasted for an hour.
"My brother was as scarred on the outside as I was on the inside. I assumed both of us would be damaged forever, wanting nothing to do with Aleks, the two of us sharing our secret burdens."
"Then he met Lucia," I murmured. Dmitri had told me he'd hated the idea of her. "You felt abandoned again."
He sucked in a breath. "Yes."
I put my hand over his. "That's normal. I would've too. Anyone would have."
"I was so frustrated with him." Beneath my palm, Dmitri's hand clenched into a fist. "He and I used to believe in reason and logic above all else, but he swore he felt a connection to her that defied any rational explanation. My ruthless, cynical brother started talking about something that sounded a lot like fucking soul mates."
Just as Natalie, Lucia, and Jess had said.
"I derided Maksim for that, thinking he'd gone as crazy as I was. But when he risked his life for Lucia, I accepted he did truly believe. I still didn't."
The jaded part of me wanted to scoff as well, but my parents . . .
"For some reason, Maksim loved her touch alone. He could sleep through a night with her beside him. He laughed. He even reconciled with Aleks." Voice gruff, Dmitri admitted, "When Maksim married, I felt more alone than I ever had before."
I pictured Dmitri by himself on that deck, gazing up at the moon. Lucia had said he was a lone-wolf type. Just like the beast from fairy tales, Dmitri didn't want to be.
I took his fist in both of my hands and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "No longer."
His brows drew together. "No longer."
"Please go on. I want to know more about you."
Seeming resigned to sharing, he continued, "Before I hit thirty, I'd made a fortune, but I derived no satisfaction from it. The money was like some grotesque entity, growing faster than I could ever spend it. My wealth mocked me, because the more I had, the more I became aware of what money couldn't buy: sanity, companionship, a family of my own."
And that explained why he was so adamant about spending it.
"Eventually I comprehended I was the only thing getting in the way of Maksim's happiness, and that I would always be a burden to him. A year ago, I made arrangements to check myself into a permanent facility in California, but on the way there, I decided to permanently check myself out. A life avoiding pleasure isn't worth living. I was done."
He'd been suicidal again just a year ago? "What happened?"
"A weather front forced the plane to touch down in Las Vegas. We were grounded until the next day. I figured, why not stay the weekend and drink myself into oblivion one last time?"
"Did you make another suicide attempt?"
He shook his head. "That night I had an epiphany, as if light touched all the darkened corners of my mind. I couldn't stop thinking: What if I might have what Maksim did? It may sound strange, but I wanted to have someone I'd face a loaded gun for."
Crazy, beautiful man.
"Maksim had turned his existence around because he had incentive: Lucia. Aleks too had changed his life because of Natalie. What if my woman was alive and well, only waiting for me to find her? I made a commitment to right my life and become a man worthy of a woman such as yourself."
Oh, Dmitri.
"I stopped taking those pills. They were dangerous and had been recalled in most countries. I improve
d dramatically just from that. I began working out and eating better. I studied sex to compensate for my limited experience."
And his piercing had made him "different" than he'd been--when abused by Orloff. "You had your scar removed."
He nodded. "I would never want to embarrass my woman in public. I organized my business, becoming more efficient, so I would have more time for the enjoyment I hoped would come. I bought this house, all to prepare for a wife and a life I didn't yet have."
He'd prepared himself for me. Well, not for me, necessarily, but for a future wife. "And you offered an olive branch to Aleks."
"Da. I began to comprehend the importance of family. Presenting a unified front is a very powerful thing, no? Then, a few months ago, I swallowed my pride to get his assistance with business matters that were crucial to me. He gladly used all his power and connections to help me. In the course of our dealings, I learned more about his life on the streets before Kovalev found him. Aleks had endured his own trials. We came to an understanding, and he has been helping me ever since."
"It took you a year before you found me?"
"You and I met a year later. Everything Maksim had told me--everything I'd scorned as idiotic--was true. I'd once asked him how I would recognize my woman. Theoretically. He'd said, 'You'll feel as if you've been struck by lightning.' That was an understatement. From the moment I saw you, I knew."