Chapter 16 - Menlow
I’ve never told anyone the full story before.
Not anyone outside the family who didn’t already live through it. Not even my cousins. The memories are locked away in a vault I built years ago, and I’ve never seen a reason to open it.
Until now.
Kirsten sits on the opposite end of the couch with her legs tucked beneath her, waiting. She doesn’t push. Doesn’t prod. Just watches me with those dark eyes that see far more than I’d like them to.
I take a breath and begin.
“My father was a violent man,” I start. “Not Bratva violent. Just… cruel. He drank too much, worked too little, and took his frustrations out on my mother. I don’t remember a time when he wasn’t hitting her. It was just part of life. Normal, as far as I knew.”
“How old were you?”
“When it started? I don’t know. Young enough that I can’t remember anything different.
” I lean back against the couch, staring at the ceiling.
“My mother used to hide the bruises. Long sleeves in summer. Makeup caked on thick. She told us she was clumsy. That she walked into doors. We believed her, for a while.”
“When did you figure it out?”
“I was maybe seven or eight. I woke up one night to the sound of something breaking. Glass, I think. I snuck out of my room and found them in the kitchen. He had her against the wall with his hand around her throat.”
The memory surfaces unbidden. The flickering fluorescent light. The shattered vodka bottle on the floor. My mother’s feet dangling an inch off the ground.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was seven. What could I do?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I just stood there in the doorway, watching, until he finally let her go. She saw me standing there and told me to go back to bed. So I did.”
Kirsten doesn’t say anything. She just listens.
“That was the first time I understood what was really happening,” I continue. “After that, I couldn’t unsee it. The bruises. The flinching. The way she’d go quiet whenever he came home. I started staying awake at night, listening. Waiting for the sounds that meant he was hurting her again.”
“That’s a lot for a child to carry.”
“It was all I knew,” I reply with a shrug. “But the worst part wasn’t what he did to her. It was what she did to us.”
Kirsten frowns. “She took it out on you?”
“On all of us. Me, Alexei, Pavel, the girls. She couldn’t fight back against him, so she fought back against us instead.
” I close my eyes, letting the memories wash over me.
“She hit us for the smallest things. Leaving a dish in the sink. Tracking mud on the floor. Looking at her the wrong way. And when she wasn’t hitting us, she was screaming.
Telling us we were worthless. That we ruined her life. That she wished we’d never been born.”
“God, Menlow…”
“I was the oldest. It was my job to protect them. To step in when she got too rough, to take the blows meant for the younger ones.” I open my eyes and look at her. “I failed more times than I care to count. But I tried. That’s what I told myself. At least I tried.”
“You were a child,” Kirsten states. “You shouldn’t have had to protect anyone.”
“Maybe not. But someone had to.” I sit forward, bracing my elbows on my knees. “When I was fifteen, she left. Just… disappeared one night. No note. No goodbye. We woke up, and she was gone.”
“Where did she go?”
“We didn’t know. Didn’t care, honestly. We were just relieved. No more screaming. No more beatings. For a few months, things were almost peaceful.”
“What happened after a few months?”
“My father happened.” I scrub a hand over my face. “He blamed us for her leaving. Said we drove her away with our constant demands, our constant needs. He started drinking more. Getting angrier. And eventually, he started hitting us, too.”
Kirsten’s breath catches, but she doesn’t interrupt.
“By then, I was bigger. Strong enough to fight back, at least a little. I took most of it so the others wouldn’t have to.
But I couldn’t be there all the time. I couldn’t protect them from everything.
” I pause, swallowing hard. “When I was nineteen, he found out where she was. She’d been living in another city, started a new life, a new name.
He tracked her down and had her killed.”
“He… what?”
“He had her killed,” I repeat. “Hired someone to do it. Made it look like a robbery gone wrong. I didn’t find out until years later, when one of his old enemies told me the truth.”
“His enemies?”
“My father made a lot of them over the years. Bad business deals. Broken promises. People he cheated or betrayed. About a year after my mother died, one of them caught up with him.” I meet her eyes. “They killed him in his own home. Shot him six times in the chest while we were at school.”
Kirsten stares at me. I can see her processing it all, trying to fit the pieces together.
“After that, I raised my siblings,” I continue. “I was nineteen with four kids to take care of. No parents, no support, nothing but the money my father left behind and a whole lot of anger I didn’t know what to do with.”
“That’s how you ended up in the Bratva.”
“That’s how I ended up in the Bratva,” I confirm. “My cousins—Konstantin and the others—they took us in. Gave us a place to belong. A family that actually functioned. I threw myself into the business because it was the only thing that made sense. The only place where my anger had a purpose.”
Silence settles between us. I watch Kirsten’s face, waiting for the judgment. The disgust. The moment when she realizes exactly what kind of damaged goods she married.
Instead, she stands up and walks toward me.
Before I can react, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me into a hug.
I freeze. I don’t know what to do with this. Physical comfort isn’t something I’m used to receiving. Giving, maybe. But not receiving.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles against my shoulder. “I’m sorry for what you went through. And I’m sorry for judging you the way I did.”
“You had every right to judge me.”
“Maybe. But I should have given you a chance to explain before I decided you were the villain.” She pulls back just enough to look at me. “Bratva equals bad guy. That’s been my default since all of this started. I couldn’t see past it.”
“I am Bratva. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
“I know. But you’re also the man who saved those women.
Who dismantled an entire operation to protect your sister and people you’d never even met.
” She reaches up and touches my face, her fingers gentle against my jaw.
“I grew up thinking the world was divided into good guys and bad guys. Heroes and villains. Black and white.”
“And now?”
“Now I think it’s a whole lot more gray than I ever realized.”
“What made you change your mind?”
She’s quiet for a moment, considering. “I had a pretty normal childhood, all things considered. Two parents who loved each other. Stable home. Enough money to get by. Nothing like what you went through.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“No, it’s not. But it made me naive. I thought people who did bad things were just…
bad. I didn’t consider that maybe they had reasons.
That maybe they were trying to protect someone, or fighting against something worse.
” She drops her hand from my face. “My dad always told me the world was simple. Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. Stay away from the bad ones, and you’ll be fine. ”
“Sounds like solid advice.”
“It is, until you meet someone who doesn’t fit neatly into either category.” She looks at me, really looks at me, and something in her gaze makes my chest ache. “You’re not a good guy, Menlow. But you’re not a bad guy either. You’re just… you. And I’m starting to think that’s enough.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I do the only thing that makes sense.
I kiss her.
She makes a soft sound of surprise, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she leans into me, her hands finding my shoulders, her mouth opening under mine. I cup the back of her head with one hand and pull her closer with the other, deepening the kiss until we’re both breathless.
When I finally break away, my voice comes out rough. “I need more than kisses to feel better.”
She laughs. Actually laughs, full and bright and completely unexpected. The sound catches me off guard and makes something warm bloom in my chest.
“You’re exhausted,” she points out. “You’ve barely slept in three days. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re running on fumes and stubbornness.” She pushes gently at my chest. “You need to rest.”
“I’d rather—”
“I know what you’d rather. But not tonight.” She stands up and holds out her hand. “Come on. Bed. Sleep. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I’m the closest thing you’ve got right now.” She wiggles her fingers impatiently. “Let’s go.”
I stare at her outstretched hand. At the smile playing at the corners of her mouth. At the woman who, just three days ago, looked at me like I was a monster.
“You laughed,” I observe.
She blinks. “What?”
“Just now. You laughed.” I stand up, moving closer to her. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh like that before. Not around me.”
“I’ve laughed around you.”
“Not like that. Not… openly.” I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “It suits you.”
She ducks her head, suddenly shy. “Go to bed, Menlow.”
“Make me.”
“I’m not going to—” She stops, narrows her eyes at me. “You’re trying to make me laugh again.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
But her lips twitch, and I can see her fighting a smile.
“Come on,” I press. “One more laugh. Just a small one.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’ve been called worse.” I lean in conspiratorially. “Did I ever tell you about the time Pavel tried to cook dinner for everyone and nearly burned down the kitchen?”
“No.”
“He was fourteen. Decided he was going to make beef stroganoff because he saw it on a cooking show. Except he didn’t know you had to boil the noodles before adding them to the pan.”
Her lips twitch again. “He didn’t.”
“He did. Set off every smoke alarm in the house. Anya was screaming about her hair smelling like burnt pasta for a week.”
This time, she can’t hold it in. A small laugh escapes, followed by another. She covers her mouth with her hand, but her eyes are bright with amusement.
“There it is. There’s that laugh.”
“Stop.” But she’s still smiling. “Seriously. Go to bed.”
“Only if you come with me.”
She freezes. “What?”
“Not for that,” I quickly clarify. “Just… sleep. I sleep better when you’re there.” The admission feels strange on my tongue, but I’m too tired to pretend anymore. “Stay with me tonight. Please.”
She studies me for a long moment. I can see her weighing the options. Part of me expects her to refuse. To retreat to her own room and her own walls and leave me to face the night alone.
Instead, she takes my hand.
“Fine,” she concedes. “But just sleep. Nothing else.”
“Just sleep,” I agree.
She leads me down the hall to my bedroom, and I follow willingly. We climb into bed together, fully clothed, and she curls up against my side like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I wrap my arm around her and pull her close. Her head rests on my chest, her breathing slow and steady. The weight of her against me is grounding. Real. A reminder that I’m not alone in this.
“Thank you,” I mumble into her hair.
“For what?”
“For listening. For staying. For not running away when you had every reason to.”
She doesn’t answer. Just inches closer and closes her eyes.
Within minutes, her breathing evens out into sleep. I lie there in the darkness, holding her, and for the first time in days, the weight on my chest feels a little lighter.