Chapter 15 - Kirsten #2
“I’ve seen a lot in my life, Kirsten. Violence, death, things that would give most people nightmares.” He stops, swallows hard. “But those women… Watching them, seeing what had been done to them, it reminded me of…”
He trails off, and I wait. He stares at the floor, at the counter, at anything but me. His jaw works like he’s chewing on words he doesn’t want to say.
“Reminded you of what?” I prompt gently.
He doesn’t answer. He just stands there, gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turn white beneath the bruises.
“Menlow.” I take a step toward him. “Reminded you of what?”
“My mother.”
The word comes out barely above a whisper. I almost don’t catch it.
“Your mother?”
He nods once. “The way those women looked. The fear in their eyes. The way they flinched at sudden movements, expected pain at every turn.” His voice cracks, just barely. “I’ve seen that look before. I grew up with it.”
I think back to what he told me in those early days. About his mother. About how she hurt his siblings, beat them, made them feel small and worthless. He gave me the broad strokes back then, enough to explain why he felt compelled to protect me. Enough to justify his actions in his own mind.
But this is different. This isn’t the controlled, matter-of-fact explanation he offered before. This is something deeper. Something that’s been festering beneath the surface for years, and those women ripped the wound wide open.
“Your mother,” I repeat. “You told me about her before. What she did to your siblings.”
He nods once. “I did.”
“But there’s more, isn’t there? More than what you told me.”
He doesn’t answer right away. He just stands there, gripping the edge of the counter, staring at nothing. I watch the muscles in his jaw work, watch his shoulders rise and fall with each measured breath. He’s fighting something. Some internal battle I can only glimpse from the outside.
I remember how clinical he sounded when he first mentioned it. Like he was reciting facts from a case file rather than describing his own childhood. Beat them when she was angry. Screamed at them for things that weren’t their fault. Made them feel small and worthless.
But there were no details. No specifics. No explanation of what it actually looked like, felt like, to grow up in that house. He gave me just enough to make his point and nothing more.
Now I’m seeing the cost of that restraint. The weight he carries every single day, hidden beneath the expensive suits and the boardroom confidence and the iron control.
“Those women,” I think out loud, piecing it together. “When you saw them… it wasn’t just sympathy. It was recognition.”
“Yes.”
“You saw yourself in them. You saw your siblings.”
He finally turns to look at me, and what I see in his eyes makes my breath catch. Not the coldness I’ve grown accustomed to. Not the calculating businessman or the ruthless Bratva boss. Just pain. Old, deep, unhealed pain that he’s been carrying since he was a child.
“I saw Anya,” he admits. “I saw Kristina. I saw every moment I couldn’t protect them, every time I failed to keep them safe. And I saw what could have happened if Viktor had gotten to my sister. What he would have turned her into.”
I don’t know what to say. Part of me wants to reach for him, to offer some kind of comfort. But I don’t know if he’d accept it. I don’t know if I’m ready to give it.
Everything I thought I knew about this man keeps shifting. Every time I think I have him figured out, he reveals another layer. Another wound. Another reason why he is the way he is.
He’s not a monster. I know that now. But he’s not innocent either. He’s something far more complicated—a man shaped by violence, trying desperately to protect others from the same fate.
“Tell me,” I prompt
He blinks. “Tell you what?”
“The rest of it. What really happened when you were growing up.” I take a step toward him, closing some of the distance between us. “You gave me the summary before. The highlights. But I want to understand all of it. I want to know what made you who you are.”
“Why?” he asks, squinting at me as if he’s searching for some ulterior motive.
I consider the question. Why do I want to know? Why does it matter?
Because I can’t keep living in this limbo. I can’t keep swinging between fear and attraction, between anger and something dangerously close to tenderness. Every time I think I have him figured out, he does something that shatters my assumptions.
Because maybe, if I understand where he came from, I can understand where we’re going.
“Because you’re not what I thought you were,” I finally say. “You’re not the villain I’ve been painting you as in my head. But you’re not a hero either. You’re something else, and I need to understand what that is. I need to understand you.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. I watch him wrestle with something internal, some decision I can’t see. His hands flex at his sides. He looks away from me, toward the window, toward the city spread out below us like a glittering carpet.
When he speaks again, his voice is lower. Heavier.
“It’s not a pretty story.”
“I didn’t expect it to be.”
“You might look at me differently after.”
“I already look at you differently. Every day since you tricked me into signing that contract.” I pause, choose my next words with care. “But I’m still here. And I’m asking.”
Another long silence. I can almost see him building up walls, then tearing them down again. Fighting instincts that have kept him protected for decades.
Finally, he pushes off the counter and walks toward the living room. He stops at the couch, turns to face me, and gestures for me to sit.