Chapter 20 - Menlow
The second we pull away from the venue, I know something is wrong.
Call it instinct. Call it paranoia. Call it years of surviving in a world where trust gets you killed. But the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up, and my gut is screaming at me to pay attention.
I pull out my phone and dial Pavel.
“Brother,” he answers on the second ring. “How was the gala?”
“We have a problem. Jovan Volkov was there tonight. He approached Kirsten.”
Pavel swears in Russian. “Oleg’s cousin? Are you sure?”
“Gold ring with a crest. Slight accent. Mentioned the Vasiliev acquisition specifically. It was him.”
“That’s not good.”
“No. It’s not.” I glance out the rear window. The street behind us looks empty, but that means nothing. “I’m taking Kirsten home. I need you to pull up the security feeds from the gala and find out how he got in. Check the guest list against known Volkov associates.”
“Already on it.” I hear him typing. “You want me to send backup?”
I consider it. We’re only fifteen minutes from home. The driver is armed. I’m armed. Bringing in more people might cause a scene, draw attention we don’t want.
“No,” I decide. “Just trace my location and keep the line open. If anything happens—”
Headlights flood the back window.
I don’t even have time to shout a warning before the impact. A massive black SUV slams into the rear of our car with enough force to send us spinning. Kirsten screams. I reach for her, trying to brace us both as the world becomes a whirlwind of screeching metal and shattering glass.
“Menlow!” Pavel’s voice is tiny and far away, coming from the phone I’ve lost somewhere in the wreckage. “Menlow, what’s happening?”
The car flips. Once. Twice. We roll like a toy kicked by an angry child, and I lose track of which way is up. My head cracks against the window. Stars explode behind my eyes.
Then everything stops.
For a moment, there’s only silence. The kind that comes after violence, heavy and waiting.
I’m hanging upside down, suspended by my seatbelt. Blood drips from somewhere on my face, pattering against the crumpled ceiling below me. The car is destroyed, the windows are blown out, and the frame has been twisted into something unrecognizable.
“Kirsten.” My voice comes out hoarse, and my throat burns as I add, “Kirsten, answer me.”
Nothing.
I turn my head, and pain lances through my skull. She’s beside me, also hanging from her seatbelt, with her dark hair spilling toward the ground. Her eyes are closed. Blood streaks her temple.
“Kirsten!”
Still nothing.
Footsteps crunch on broken glass outside. Multiple sets. Moving fast.
They planned this. The realization crashes over me like ice water. Jovan approaching her at the gala wasn’t a message. It was bait. They knew I’d get her out of there the moment she told me about him. They knew I’d take her away from the venue and all its security.
I played right into their hands.
The door beside Kirsten wrenches open with a screech of protesting metal. Hands reach in and start cutting through her seatbelt.
“Don’t touch her!” I thrash against my own restraints, but my seatbelt is jammed, and my left arm isn’t responding the way it should. Dislocated, maybe. Or broken. I can’t tell through the adrenaline. “Get your fucking hands off her!”
They ignore me. Two men in dark clothes drag her limp body through the window and into the night.
I scream her name. I scream until my throat tears. But they don’t stop, and I can’t get free, and I have never felt so helpless in my entire life.
A face appears at my window. Jovan.
“Thank you for making this so easy,” he says. “Mr. Volkov sends his regards.”
Then he’s gone, and I hear doors slamming and an engine starting.
No.
No, no, no.
I grab the seatbelt buckle with my good hand and press. Nothing. I press harder, putting all my weight into it, but the mechanism is crushed and won’t release. The knife. I keep a knife in my jacket pocket. If I can just reach it—
My left arm screams in protest when I try to move it. Definitely dislocated, at the very least. The shoulder is sitting wrong, and there’s a visible lump where the bone has popped out of its socket. I grab my own wrist with my right hand, take a breath, and yank.
The shoulder pops back in with a wet crunch. I nearly black out from the agony. Colors swim at the edges of my vision, and my stomach heaves, but I don’t have time to be weak. Not when they have Kirsten.
I reach into my jacket with my newly functional arm and find the knife. Three seconds later, I’m cutting through the seatbelt. I drop to the ceiling with a grunt, then crawl out through the shattered driver’s side window.
The SUV that took Kirsten is already at the end of the block. In ten seconds, it’ll turn the corner and disappear.
But there’s another SUV still here, with the engine running. Three men are standing outside it, probably left behind to make sure I’m dead.
They see me at the same time I see them.
I pull my gun and fire before I’m even fully on my feet. The first man goes down with a bullet in his chest. The second ducks behind the SUV. The third raises his own weapon.
I’m faster. Two shots. Center mass. He crumples.
The one behind the SUV pops up and fires back. The bullet catches me in the side, punching through my suit jacket and burying itself somewhere in my ribs. I stagger but don’t fall. I’ve been shot before. I know how to keep moving.
I fire again. Miss. Fire again. The man drops.
The street falls silent.
I press my hand against my side and feel hot blood seeping through my fingers. Not good, but not fatal either, as long as I get it treated soon.
The SUV with Kirsten is gone. I can’t see it anymore.
I’m too late.
The thought threatens to drag me under. They have her. They have my wife, and I let it happen. I practically handed her to them on a silver platter.
Then I hear the roar of an engine and see another car racing toward me. For one awful second, I think it’s more of Oleg’s men. I raise my gun, ready to die fighting.
But the car that screeches to a halt in front of me is familiar. The door flies open, and Pavel jumps out.
“Brother!” He takes in my bloody face, my ruined suit, and the bodies on the ground. “What the hell happened?”
“They took her,” I scream. “They took Kirsten.”
Pavel’s face goes hard. “Which way?”
“North. Black SUV. Maybe thirty seconds ago.”
He doesn’t waste time asking questions. He just grabs my arm and hauls me toward his car. “Get in. I’ve got a tracker on her phone.”
“You can find her?”
“Already on it.” Pavel shoves me into the passenger seat and sprints around to the driver’s side. His phone is mounted on the dashboard, and on it is a blinking red dot moving across a digital map. “They’re heading toward the industrial district. Probably have a safehouse there.”
“Then drive faster.”
Pavel floors it. The car lurches forward with enough force to pin me against the seat, and the wound in my side screams in protest. I ignore it. I’ll deal with it later. After I get her back.
We weave through traffic, running red lights and narrowly missing other vehicles. Pavel drives like a man possessed, taking corners so fast the tires squeal in protest.
“How bad?” he asks without taking his eyes off the road.
“I’ll live.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Gunshot wound to the right side. Through and through, I think. Dislocated shoulder. Possible concussion.” I list my injuries like I’m reading a grocery list. “Nothing that matters right now.”
The leather on the steering wheel squeaks under Pavel’s grip. “We’re going to get her back. Those bastards are going to pay for this.”
The red dot on the screen stops moving. An abandoned warehouse, according to the map. Classic Bratva move. Find somewhere isolated and use it until it gets too hot, then burn it down and move on.
Pavel parks three blocks away, and we approach on foot. Every step sends a fresh wave of agony through my side, but I grit my teeth and keep moving. I’ve survived worse. I’ll survive this.
The warehouse is a hulking structure of rusted metal and broken windows. Two men stand guard at the main entrance, smoking cigarettes and looking bored. They clearly don’t expect anyone to follow this quickly.
That’s their first mistake.
Pavel and I split up without a word as years of training take over. He circles around to the back while I stay low and approach from the side. My dress shoes aren’t ideal for stealth, but I’ve learned to move quietly in worse conditions. The guards never see me coming.
I take the first one out with a knife to the throat, quick and silent. The second one turns at the sound of his partner’s body hitting the ground, and I put a bullet between his eyes before he can raise his weapon.
Pavel appears at my side a moment later with blood spatters his sleeve. Not his own.
“Rear entrance is clear. Two more guards down.”
“How many inside?”
“Unknown. But we don’t have time for recon.”
He’s right. Every second we waste is another second they have to hurt her.
We breach the front entrance together. The interior is a maze of shipping containers and industrial equipment, lit by flickering fluorescent lights.
The place smells like rust and motor oil.
Voices echo from somewhere deeper inside, but they’re speaking too fast for me to make out what they’re saying.
We move fast and quietly. The first two guards we encounter are playing cards at a folding table. They die before the deck hits the ground. Another three wait at a checkpoint near the center of the warehouse with assault rifles slung across their chests.
Pavel takes the left. I take the right. We fire in unison.
Two drop immediately. The third manages to get off a shot that goes wide before my second bullet finds his chest. He falls backward and crashes into a stack of empty pallets.
The gunfire echoes through the warehouse. No more element of surprise.
Men start pouring out from behind containers, shouting, and suddenly, we’re in a full-on firefight. Muzzle flashes strobe in the darkness. Bullets ping off metal. Someone screams.
I duck behind a forklift as rounds pepper the space where I was standing. My side is on fire, and my vision keeps trying to double, but I force myself to focus. Breathe. Aim. Fire.
A man rounds the corner of a shipping container. I put two rounds in his chest before he can level his weapon. Another appears behind him, and I drop him with a headshot.
Pavel is somewhere to my right, judging by the gunfire. He’s holding his own.
I push forward, using the containers for cover. A bullet grazes my arm, tearing through the fabric of my jacket and leaving a burning stripe across my bicep. I barely feel it. Another round whistles past my ear so close I feel the heat.
Three more men emerge from a doorway ahead. I fire until my magazine runs dry, then drop behind cover to reload. My fingers are slick with blood, making the motion clumsy. I nearly drop the fresh magazine twice before slamming it home.
When I pop back up, two of the three are down. The third is running.
I let him go. He’s running away from where Kirsten’s tracker shows her location. He doesn’t matter.
Then I hear her.
“Menlow!”
Kirsten’s voice, high and frightened, coming from somewhere to my left. I abandon all caution and run toward it, leaving Pavel to cover my back. My ribs protest with every stride. Blood drips steadily from my side, leaving a trail on the concrete floor.
I round a corner and find them.
Two men are dragging her toward a back exit. Her feet barely touch the ground as she struggles against their grip. Her dress is torn. Blood mats her hair. One eye is swelling shut. But she’s fighting them. Kicking. Scratching. Refusing to go quietly.
That’s my girl.
The rage that fills me is absolute. It consumes everything else—pain, fear, reason—and leaves only the need to destroy anyone who dared to touch her.
I raise my gun and fire. The first man’s head snaps back. The second barely has time to turn before my second bullet finds him, too.
Kirsten collapses when they release her. I’m at her side in an instant, gathering her into my arms, checking her for injuries while simultaneously scanning for more threats.
“Menlow.” She reaches up and touches my face with trembling fingers. Her palm comes away bloody. Mine, not hers. “You found me.”
I pull her closer, ignoring the agony in my side, the blood soaking through my shirt. “I will always find you.”
Pavel catches up to us, breathing hard but uninjured. His gun is still raised, covering the exits. He takes one look at Kirsten and his face goes pale.
“How bad?”
“I don’t know yet.” I turn back to her, brushing the blood-matted hair from her face. “Kirsten, where are you hurt? Talk to me.”
Her eyes flutter. She’s fading, consciousness slipping away despite her efforts to hold on. I can see her fighting it, trying to stay present, but her body has taken too much damage.
“Head hurts,” she mumbles. “Everything hurts.”
“I know, baby. I know.” I press my forehead to hers. “Just stay with me. Keep your eyes open.”
“Tired.”
“I know you’re tired. But you can’t sleep yet. Not yet.”
Pavel is already on his phone. “Alexei, we need a medical team at my location. Warehouse on Fifth and Harbor. Multiple casualties, including Kirsten. She’s alive but injured.” A pause. “No, we can’t take her to a regular hospital. Too many questions.” Another pause. “Good. We’ll be ready.”
He ends the call and kneels beside us.
“Alexei’s contact is ten minutes out. They’re sending a private ambulance. They’ll take her to the safe clinic.”
I nod without looking up. All my attention is on Kirsten. On the shallow rise and fall of her chest. On the flutter of her pulse beneath my fingertips.
“Stay with me,” I beg her as I scoop her up and carry her toward the exit. She’s too light in my arms. Too still. “Kirsten, please. Stay with me.”