Chapter Twenty-Two
Dante
Finding Sabrina should have brought our family peace.
For seventeen years, we'd searched for the little girl who'd been stolen from us, convincing ourselves that if we ever found her again, everything else would somehow fall into place. We'd imagined the reunion a thousand different ways. None of us had imagined this.
Sabrina and Dario were living under the same roof as us, eating dinner at the same table and walking the same hallways we'd grown up in. Every morning, I woke knowing my sister was only a few doors away, yet the distance between us still felt greater than the seventeen years we'd spent apart.
Dario, on the other hand, had slipped into our lives as though he'd always belonged there.
He followed Dad around the estate asking endless questions, insisted on helping Mum bake despite creating more mess than progress, and had already decided that watching me clean my guns was the most exciting thing he'd ever seen.
He'd become my little brother without either of us ever having to say the words.
Sabrina wasn't so lucky.
She wanted to trust us. I believed that with every part of me. I saw it in the way she'dlinger on the edge of conversations before quietly walking away and in the guilt that crossed her face whenever Mum instinctively reached out to hug her.
She never rejected us with anger. It was always hesitation, as though every part of her wanted to step forward while another refused to let her.
That was why I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened earlier.
Sean Donovan hadn't hesitated when he'd seen her. He'd crossed the room, wrapped his arms around her and, for the first time since we'd found her, I'd watched every ounce of tension leave my sister's body. She hadn't stepped away or frozen. She'd simply accepted the embrace.
It wasn't the hug that stayed with me.
It was the expression on her face afterwards.
Relief.
The kind that only came when someone finally believed they were safe.
Dad had seen it too.
So had Mum.
That was why the three of us now stood in complete silence inside Sean Donovan's office.
Sean stands behind his desk, and for the first time, I really look at him.
The resemblance to Asher and Mario is obvious once I know what to look for.
His hair is a darker brown, kept short and neat compared to Asher's perpetually messy hair, while his hazel eyes are unmistakably the same shade as both his sons'.
But where Asher's eyes usually carry warmth and Mario's are quieter, Sean's are harder, sharpened by years of experience and everything he's had to survive.
He's tall and broad-shouldered, with a strong jaw and features that have grown more severe with age. There's something commanding about the way he carries himself, but it isn't loud or forced. He doesn't need to raise his voice to make a room listen.
Mum stands beside me, twisting her wedding ring so tightly I think she might pull it free. Dad hasn't taken his eyes off Sean once. None of us needs to explain why we've come.
Sean knows.
“I was wondering when you would show up,” he says, his voice calm but carrying a quiet weight.
I remain standing, every muscle tense. Whatever Sean tells us comes from the one man Sabrina trusted when no one else had. Now it is our turn to listen.
Dad breaks the silence first.
“I want to understand what my daughter went through,” he says, his voice steady despite the strain beneath it. “I want to know everything you can tell us. Whatever helps us understand, I want to hear it.”
Sean regards him for a long moment before his gaze shifts to Mum and finally settles on me, as though weighing whether any of us truly understand what we're asking.
“I figured you'd say that.”
He gestures towards the chairs opposite his desk.
“Sit down. We've got a lot to cover.”
I take the chair beside Dad while Mum sits on my other side. Sean returns to his seat behind the desk, folding his hands together as his expression becomes unreadable.
“You think knowing what happened is going to make this easier,” he says quietly. “It won't.”
Dad holds his gaze without flinching.
“Maybe not. But it'll help us understand our daughter.”
Sean draws a slow breath before leaning back in his chair.
“I can tell you about the young woman I met. I can tell you about the years after I found her. But what happened before that – what Ivan did to her, what she endured while she was in his hands – isn't my story to tell.”
My stomach tightens.
After we'd brought Sabrina home, I'd quietly looked into everything I could find about her life.
It hadn't been difficult to access her records, but they'd only left me with more questions than answers.
There were school reports from before she'd disappeared and scattered records from the years after she'd resurfaced, but between those points there was nothing.
Two years of her life had simply vanished.
No school records. No hospital visits. No police reports.
At the time, I'd convinced myself it was another consequence of Ivan covering his tracks. Listening to Sean now, I realised those missing years weren't just gaps in a file. They were the years Ivan had stolen from my sister, on top of the seventeen years he'd stolen from us.
“Over the years, Sabrina trusted me with pieces of what happened to her, but those pieces belong to her. If she ever decides she's ready to tell you herself, then you listen. Until then, I'm not taking that choice away from her.”
Dad nods.
“I understand.”
Sean's shoulders ease slightly.
“What I can tell you is everything that happened afterwards.”
He pauses.
“The girl who survived Ivan and the woman who eventually came home to you... that's the Sabrina I came to know.”
Sean's expression hardens almost imperceptibly before he continues.
“I found Sabrina alongside my sons, Asher and Mario, and Lillian. When everything was over, I brought them all back to Ireland with me. Lillian accepted my offer to stay without a second thought, but Sabrina...” He shakes his head. “She refused.”
Dad frowns.
“Why?”
“Because of her foster parents.”
Sean leans back slightly.
“Jacqueline and Joseph were expecting a baby. I told Sabrina she never had to go back to that house, that she could start over with us, but she looked me straight in the eye and asked me who was going to protect that child if she left.”
He pauses.
“I remember telling her it wasn't her responsibility, but she just looked at me and said, ‘No one protected me. I'm not letting that happen to him.’”
A lump forms in my throat.
Even after everything she'd survived, my sister had still been thinking about someone else.
“I realised then that I wasn't going to change her mind. So instead of asking Sabrina to come with me, I packed up my life and moved to Los Angeles. If she wasn't ready to leave, I wasn't prepared to leave her there alone.”
I stare at him.
He'd crossed an ocean for her.
Not because he had to.
Because he refused to abandon her.
“I spent months trying to earn her trust,” Sean says. “Not because she hated me, but because she'd stopped believing people stayed. I found therapists, counsellors – anyone I thought might help – but nothing could reach her. She barely slept, and when she did, the nightmares always found her.”
His jaw tightens.
“Eventually, she stopped trying to sleep at all.”
He looks down briefly before continuing.
“Then came the drinking. After that, the drugs. People look at addiction and assume it'sabout chasing a high. It wasn't. She was trying to outrun memories that wouldn't leave her alone. For a few hours, the alcohol and the drugs gave her something she hadn't had in years.”
“Peace.”
“I tried everything I could to pull her out of it. I argued with her. I begged her to let me help. I threw bottles away. I flushed drugs down the sink. Some days she hated me for it. Most days she simply shut me out.”
Sean's expression changes.
“Then one evening, Asher called.”
His jaw tightens.
“I've never heard fear like that in my life.”
My stomach twists.
“He was screaming down the phone, begging me to help her. Sabrina had locked herself in her bedroom. By the time I got there...” His voice falters. “...she'd already overdosed.”
Silence fills the room.
“I honestly thought I'd lost her,” Sean admits quietly. “I carried her to the car myself while Asher, Mario and Lillian followed behind us. None of them stopped crying the entire journey to the hospital.”
He pauses.
“Neither did I.”
“The doctors managed to save her.”
Sean looks down at his hands.
“When she woke up three days later, I expected anger. I expected her to tell me to leave.” A faint, sorrowful smile crosses his face. “Instead, the first thing she did was apologise.”
He takes a breath.
“A week after she came home, she walked into my office and asked me to put her into rehab. She told me she didn't care how long it took or how difficult it would be because there was a baby coming into that house, and she refused to leave him alone with Jacqueline and Joseph.”
I already know the answer.
“That baby was Dario.”
“She spent three months in rehab. I've never seen anyone fight harder. There were days she wanted to leave, days she hated every second of being there, but whenever she thought about giving up, she'd remind herself why she'd walked through those doors in the first place.”
Sean's expression softens.
“She came home just before Dario was born, and from the moment she held him...” He shakes his head gently. “Everything changed.”
He looks between us.
“She didn't stop hurting. She didn't suddenly become whole. But for the first time in a long time, she had something bigger than her pain. Every decision she made after that was for Dario. She raised him, protected him and loved him with everything she had because she was determined he would never grow up the way she had.”
The room falls quiet.
Sean reaches into one of the drawers in his desk and withdraws a small envelope before sliding it across the polished wood towards us.
“I had a feeling you'd come,” he says quietly. “So I had these printed.”
Dad picks up the envelope before handing the photograph to Mum.
She stares at it for a long moment, her hand rising to cover her mouth as tears fill her eyes. Without a word, she passes it to me.
The photograph steals the breath from my lungs.
Sabrina sits on a sofa with a newborn cradled carefully in her arms. Her head is bowed, dark hair falling over one shoulder as she smiles down at the tiny bundle wrapped in a blue blanket.
It isn't the smile I've seen since she's come home.
It's brighter. Lighter.
For the first time, I see something in her expression I've never seen before.
Sean watches us for a moment.
“She loved that little boy from the moment he was born. She promised me he'd never grow up the way she did, and I never doubted her for a second.”
I lower my gaze to the photograph again.
The way Sabrina holds Dario isn't simply protective. It's instinctive, as though she had made a promise long before either of us knew her name.
Dad leans forward, his eyes fixed on the photograph, while Mum quietly wipes away the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“She looks happy,” Mum whispers, her voice breaking.
Sean nods.
“She was.”
He doesn't say anything else.
He doesn't need to.
I carefully slip the photograph back into its envelope before tucking it safely inside my jacket.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
Sean meets my eyes and gives a small nod.
“She was always worth fighting for.”
***
It is almost half past four by the time we arrive back at the estate.
The drive passes in silence. None of us seems able to find the right words after leaving Sean's office, and somehow the quiet says enough.
The house is still asleep when Dad and I cross the foyer. Mum has already gone upstairs, unable to wait another second before seeing Sabrina.
We follow a few moments later.
When we reach Sabrina's bedroom, the door is slightly ajar.
Dad pauses before gently pushing it open.
Moonlight slips through a gap in the curtains, falling softly across the bed.
Sabrina lies curled on her side with Dario tucked securely against her chest, one arm wrapped around him even in sleep. His small hand rests against her shoulder, his face buried beneath her chin.
For a moment, none of us moves.
After everything Sean has told us, seeing them like this is almost unbearable.
Dad walks over first, lowering himself carefully onto the edge of the mattress. Mum sits beside him, tears already shining in her eyes as she reaches out to smooth Sabrina's hair away from her face.
I stay where I am, watching them.
Dario shifts closer to Sabrina in his sleep, instinctively seeking her warmth. She doesn'twake. Her arm simply tightens around him.
Dad rests a gentle hand against Sabrina's head.
For a man whose hands have built an empire through violence, I've never seen him touch anything with such care.
“I've got you now,” he whispers, his voice barely audible. “Both of you.”
There is no promise of revenge or declaration of what he'll do to the people who hurt her.
Only the quiet certainty of a father who intends to spend the rest of his life making up for the years he's lost.
Sabrina stirs beneath his touch.
Her eyes flutter open, unfocused with sleep, settling briefly on Mum before drifting to Dad.
For the first time since she's come home, she doesn't tense or pull away.
She simply looks at them.
Then, with a sleepy sigh, she nestles Dario a little closer and drifts back to sleep.
No one speaks.
No one wants to disturb the peace she's finally found.
I slip my hand into the pocket of my jacket, my fingers brushing against the envelope Sean gave me.
The photograph is still there.
So is the weight of everything it represents.
As I look at the two of them sleeping peacefully together, I finally understand what Sean had been trying to show us.
Sabrina doesn't need us to fix what happened.
She needs us to stay.
And this time, we're not going anywhere.