Chapter 15 - Kirsten
It’s been three days since I watched Menlow choke a man nearly to death in his office, and I still can’t close my eyes without seeing it.
The purple face. The bulging eyes. The way Viktor’s feet kicked against the wall as he struggled for breath.
The way Menlow looked while he did it. Cold. Focused. Like squeezing the life out of another human being was just another task on his to-do list.
I’ve been avoiding him. It’s not hard, considering he’s barely been home. That first night after the incident, he didn’t come back at all. I lay awake until three in the morning, listening for the sound of the front door, before finally giving up and falling into a fitful sleep.
The second night was the same. And the third.
During the day, I go through the motions at work.
I answer emails. I attend meetings. I smile at colleagues who have no idea that my so-called husband nearly committed murder less than seventy-two hours ago.
The normalcy of it all feels absurd. Like I’m living two separate lives that don’t belong in the same universe.
Derek from analytics asks me if I’m feeling okay. I tell him I’m just tired. He offers to grab me a coffee, and I almost burst into tears at the simple kindness. What is wrong with me?
At night, I pace the penthouse like a caged animal. I make dinner, but I don’t eat. I run baths I don’t take. I stare at my phone, willing it to light up with a message, then hating myself for wanting one.
Now I’m sitting on the couch in the living room, pretending to read a book I haven’t absorbed a single word of, and I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. Fear? Anger? Worry?
All three, maybe. Tangled together until I can’t separate them.
I keep telling myself I should be relieved. He’s giving me space. He’s not forcing conversations or explanations. He’s letting me process what I saw on my own terms.
But another part of me—a part I don’t want to acknowledge—keeps wondering where he is, what he’s doing, and whether he’s okay.
What if the man from his office had friends? What if they came after Menlow in retaliation? What if he’s lying in some warehouse somewhere, bleeding out, and I’m just sitting here reading the same paragraph for the fifteenth time?
It’s ridiculous. The man is a killer. Or almost a killer, at the very least. Does the distinction even matter?
I saw what he’s capable of. I should be grateful he’s staying away.
So why do I keep checking my phone for messages that never come?
The front door opens, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
Menlow walks in, still wearing his suit from the office, though his tie is loosened and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows.
He looks exhausted. Dark circles ring his eyes, stubble shadows his jaw, and his shoulders slump in a way I’ve never seen before.
He moves like a man carrying something heavy. Something invisible.
He stops when he sees me on the couch. For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“You’re home,” I finally say. My voice comes out harsher than I intended.
“I am.”
“That’s new.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The gesture is so weary, so human, that something in my chest twists. I ignore it.
“Kirsten—”
“Three days.” I set my book aside and stand up. “Three days, Menlow. You disappear without a word, don’t answer my texts, don’t tell me where you are or if you’re even alive, and now you just walk in like nothing happened?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me.”
“That’s not—” I stop myself, take a breath. “That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is that I live here. With you. In this bizarre arrangement that you forced me into.” I cross my arms over my chest. “The least you could do is let me know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Something moves across his face. Surprise, maybe. Like he didn’t expect me to care whether he lived or died.
Good. Let him be surprised. I’m surprised too.
“I’m sorry,” he states quietly. “I should have communicated better.”
“Yes. You should have.”
“I didn’t realize you’d be worried.”
“I wasn’t worried.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. “I was… inconvenienced. There’s a difference.”
He doesn’t call me out on it. Just nods slowly and moves toward the kitchen. I follow without thinking, padding my bare feet against the cold hardwood.
He pulls a glass from the cabinet and fills it with water before drinking half of it in one long swallow. I watch his throat work as he swallows, watch the way his hand trembles just a bit as he sets the glass down.
His knuckles are bruised, I notice. Fresh bruises, purple and swollen, and the skin is split in places. Whatever he’s been doing for the past three days, it wasn’t sitting behind a desk.
“Where were you?” I demand.
“Working.”
“Bullshit,” I snap. “You owe me more than that. After what I saw in your office, after watching you almost kill someone with your bare hands, you owe me an explanation.”
He sets the glass down on the counter and turns to face me, leaning back against the granite. The exhaustion in his eyes is deeper than I realized. This isn’t just physical tiredness. This is something else. Something heavier.
“You’re right,” he admits. “I do owe you an explanation.”
“Then give me one. A real one. Not some vague non-answer about work.”
He’s quiet for a moment, like he’s figuring out where to start. I wait, forcing myself not to fill the silence with more accusations.
“The man in my office,” he begins. “Viktor Sokolov. Do you remember him?”
“Hard to forget someone whose face was turning blue.”
He doesn’t flinch at the bite in my words. “Viktor runs a business. Or he did, until three days ago.”
“What kind of business?”
“The kind that exploits vulnerable women.” He pauses, and I watch him choose his next words with care. “He finds women with secrets. Debt, family problems, past mistakes—anything he can use as leverage. Then he blackmails them into becoming escorts for wealthy clients.”
My stomach turns. “Escorts.”
“High-end prostitution, essentially. The women can’t go to the police because he has enough dirt on them to destroy their lives. The clients won’t talk because they have too much to lose. Everyone stays silent, and Viktor gets rich.”
“That’s… that’s disgusting.”
“Yes. It is.”
“Is that why you attacked him? Because of what he does?”
“Partly.” He pauses, and something dark crosses his features. “He also threatened Anya.”
“Your sister?”
He nods and explains, “He was gathering information on her. Looking for weaknesses, secrets, anything he could exploit. He was going to make her one of his girls.”
The words land like stones in my chest. Anya. Bubbly, outgoing Anya, who welcomed me into the family without question. Who made me feel like I belonged even when I didn’t want to belong. Who showed up at the penthouse with her sister just to help me pick out a dress.
“But you stopped him,” I surmise. “Before he could…”
“I stopped him before he found anything useful, if there even is anything to find. Last week’s raid was supposed to be a message.
A warning to stay away from my family.” He looks down at his bruised knuckles.
“But he didn’t listen. He came to my office and threatened Anya to my face. That’s when I…”
“Lost control.”
“Yes.”
I don’t know what to say. Part of me understands now. If someone threatened my family that way, would I react any differently?
But another part of me can’t forget the violence I witnessed. The ease with which he wrapped his hands around another man’s throat. The look on his face while he did it.
“What happened after I left?” I ask. “Where have you been for three days?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Long enough that I think he might not answer.
“Pavel and I interrogated Viktor,” he finally says. “We needed information. Names, locations, client lists. Everything about his operation.”
“Interrogated,” I repeat the word flatly. “You mean tortured.”
He doesn’t deny it. “We did what was necessary to get the information we needed.”
“And then?”
“Then we tracked down everyone involved. His associates, his employees, his clients. We shut the whole thing down.”
“Shut it down how?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. It matters.”
He meets my eyes, and I see something in his gaze that I haven’t seen before. Not coldness. Not the controlled businessman I’ve come to know. Something more exposed.
“Some of them are dead,” he explains. “The ones who fought back. The ones who refused to cooperate. The rest are… no longer in a position to hurt anyone.”
I should be horrified. I should be running for the door, calling the police, getting as far away from this man as possible.
Instead, I think about those women. The ones Viktor exploited. The ones who had no way out until Menlow gave them one.
“The women,” I begin. “What happened to them?”
“We got them out. Connected them with resources, safe houses, whatever they needed. Most of them had nowhere else to go.”
“Most of them?”
His face changes, and something even darker passes behind his eyes before he looks away from me for the first time since we started talking.
“Some of them were in bad shape,” he replies. “Worse than others.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Viktor’s operation wasn’t just about blackmail and escorting. Some of his clients had… specific tastes. And Viktor was happy to accommodate them, as long as the price was right.”
My stomach lurches. “Are you saying—”
“I’m saying that some of those women were being abused in ways that go far beyond prostitution.
” His voice is steady, but I can hear the strain in it.
“When we found them, some of them couldn’t even look us in the eye.
Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but flinch and cower and wait for the next blow. ”
I feel sick. Physically, actually sick. I grip the edge of the counter to steady myself.
“Menlow…”