Chapter 21 - Kirsten
I wake up to the smell of antiseptic and the sound of Menlow breathing beside me.
For a long moment, I don’t move. I just lie there with my eyes closed, taking stock of the aches in my body. My head throbs. My ribs protest every breath. Something pulls at my arm when I try to move it, and I realize there’s an IV attached.
“You’re awake.”
I open my eyes to find Menlow sitting in a chair next to my bed, looking like he hasn’t slept in days. Bruises mottle his face. A bandage wraps around his head. His right arm is in a sling.
“You look terrible,” I croak.
“You should see the other guys.”
“I did see them. You shot them.”
“I did.” He doesn’t sound sorry about it. “How do you feel?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
“SUV, actually.”
I laugh and immediately regret it when pain spikes through my ribs. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Sorry.” He reaches over and takes my hand with his uninjured arm. “The doctor says you have a concussion, three bruised ribs, and about a dozen cuts and scrapes, but nothing permanent.”
“What about you?”
“Gunshot wound to the side. Dislocated shoulder. Minor concussion.” He shrugs with his good shoulder. “I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
We’re in some kind of private medical facility, I realize as I look around. The room is small but well-equipped, with monitors beeping steadily and soft light filtering through curtained windows. Not a hospital. Somewhere off the books.
“Where are we?”
“Just a clinic downtown. Alexei has a contact here. They treat injuries without asking questions.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.”
“It’s necessary in our line of work.” Menlow squeezes my hand. “You scared me.”
“I scared myself.” I close my eyes again, and flashes of the attack play across my memory. The crash. The men dragging me through the window. The warehouse. “How long was I out?”
“About eighteen hours. They gave you something for the pain.”
“Eighteen hours?” I try to sit up and immediately abandon the attempt when my ribs scream in protest. “What happened? Did they catch the people who—”
Menlow presses me gently back against the pillows. “Take it easy. Everything’s being handled. You just need to rest.”
I want to argue. I want answers. But exhaustion is pulling at me, dragging me back under, and Menlow’s hand in mine is an anchor I don’t want to let go of.
“Stay with me?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
“Always.”
The next few days blend together in a haze of sleep and medication and Menlow’s constant presence.
He barely leaves my side. When the doctors come to check on me, he hovers nearby, asking questions and demanding answers. When the pain gets bad, he holds my hand and talks to me about nothing—his sisters, his work, or a book he’s reading—until I can focus on something other than hurting.
At night, he sleeps in the chair beside my bed. I tell him to go home. He refuses. I tell him the chair can’t be comfortable. He says he’s slept in worse places. I stop arguing.
Sweet moments slip between the harder ones. He reads to me when I can’t sleep. He brings me food that isn’t hospital bland and watches me eat every bite. He brushes my hair when I complain about it being tangled, his fingers gentle despite their size.
But something is off.
He’s quieter than usual. Broodier. Sometimes I catch him staring at nothing with a faraway look in his eyes, and when I ask what he’s thinking about, he just shakes his head and changes the subject.
I tell myself it’s just the stress. The aftermath of nearly losing me. The weight of what happened pressing down on him.
But I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he’s not telling me.
On the fourth day, my brain finally starts working again.
I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to piece together the fragments of memory from the attack, when it hits me. The warehouse. The men who took me. The things I overheard while they were holding me.
My photographic memory has always been both a blessing and a curse. I can’t forget anything, even when I want to. Every detail gets burned into my brain, filed away for later retrieval, whether I like it or not.
Right now, it’s useful.
I close my eyes and replay the hours I spent as their captive. Every word I overheard. Every face I saw. The specific locations they mentioned when they thought I wasn’t conscious.
Connections form. Patterns emerge.
When Menlow comes back from wherever he disappeared to, I’m sitting up in bed with a notebook in my lap, scribbling furiously.
“What are you doing?” he asks, frowning at me. “You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I remembered something. Several things, actually.” I flip to a new page. “When they were holding me at the warehouse, they made phone calls. I could only hear one side of the conversation, but they mentioned a location. Somewhere called Meridian Storage. Unit 47.”
Menlow goes still. “Keep talking.”
“One of them said Oleg would be there tomorrow to inspect a shipment. They were nervous about it. Kept talking about making sure everything was perfect before he arrived.” I tap the pen against the paper.
“And I got a partial license plate from the SUV that hit us. First four characters are 7-K-B-3. One of the men had a tattoo on his forearm—a double-headed eagle with a crown. Does that mean anything?”
“The Volkov family crest.” Menlow moves closer, his earlier fatigue forgotten. “What else?”
“They mentioned someone named Yuri. He’s supposed to meet Oleg at the storage facility.
From what I gathered, he’s the one coordinating the shipments.
” I flip to another page. “And there was a name on some paperwork I saw when they dragged me through the office area. Konstantin Holdings. It looked like a shell company.”
“It is. We’ve suspected the Volkovs were using it to move money, but we could never prove the connection.” Menlow is pacing now with his phone already in his hand. “If Oleg is personally inspecting shipments at Meridian Storage, that’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to pinning down his location.”
“Is that enough to find him?”
“More than enough.” He types rapidly. “Pavel can cross-reference the license plate with known Volkov vehicles. The storage facility gives us a target. And if we can catch Oleg there…” He trails off, still typing. “This is exactly what we needed. A way to end this.”
I watch him work, something warm blooming in my chest despite the ache in my ribs. I helped. My weird brain actually helped.
“Thank you,” he says without looking up. “This changes everything.”
“You’re welcome.” I set the notebook aside and lean back against the pillows. “Now will you finally tell me what’s been bothering you?”
He stops pacing. “Nothing’s bothering me.”
“Menlow.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve barely said more than ten words at a time in the last three days. You stare at the wall like it owes you money, and you won’t look me in the eye when you think I’m watching.” I cross my arms, wincing when the movement pulls at my ribs. “Something’s wrong. Tell me what it is.”
For a long moment, he doesn’t answer. Then he sighs and sinks into the chair beside my bed.
“I almost got you killed.”
“No. The Volkovs almost got me killed.”
“Because I took you away from the gala. Because I played right into their trap.” He runs his good hand through his hair. “I should have seen it coming. I should have—”
I reach over and grab his hand. “Stop. You saved my life. You came for me when anyone else would have waited for backup. You fought through an entire warehouse full of men to get to me. That’s not something to feel guilty about.”
“You got hurt because of me.”
“I got hurt because bad people did bad things. You are not responsible for their choices.” I squeeze his fingers. “Do you understand me?”
He doesn’t answer, but some of the darkness in his eyes fades.
A week later, I’m well enough to leave the hospital.
Menlow takes me back to his apartment, and for a few days, things almost feel normal. We settle into a routine. We have breakfast together, work side by side on our laptops, and have dinner on the couch while watching movies neither of us really pays attention to.
But the quiet between us has changed.
When Pavel calls with an update about the operation, Menlow takes it in his office with the door closed. I don’t ask questions. I’m not sure I want to know the answers.
The next morning, I’m making coffee when Menlow walks into the kitchen looking like he hasn’t slept.
“How did it go?” I ask, handing him a mug.
“It’s done. We caught Oleg at the storage facility, just like you said. Yuri flipped on him in exchange for protection.” He takes a sip of coffee without really tasting it. “The Volkovs won’t be a problem anymore.”
“That’s good news.”
“It is.”
He doesn’t sound happy about it.
“Menlow, what’s wrong?”
He sets down his mug and turns to face me. “I need you to pack your things.”
The words don’t register at first. “What?”
“Your things. You should pack them.”
I stare at him, waiting for the punchline. It doesn’t come.
“I don’t understand. Pack my things and go where?”
“I’ve set up an apartment for you. It’s in a good neighborhood.
Safe. Close to your old office, if you want to go back there, or there’s a position waiting for you at McQueery & Associates downtown.
The salary is better than what you were making before.
But I’ve also set up a new bank account for you that’s padded well enough you shouldn’t have to work ever again, if you don’t want to. ”
My stomach drops. “You’re kicking me out.”
“That’s not—”
“The threat is gone,” I interrupt, and I’m proud of how steady my voice sounds even as something cracks inside me. “The Volkovs are handled. So you don’t need me here anymore. Is that it?”
Menlow frowns. “Kirsten—”
“No, it’s fine. I get it.” I set my own mug down before I drop it. My hands are shaking. “You married me for protection. The protection is no longer needed. Therefore, the marriage is no longer needed. Simple math.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.” I turn away so he won’t see my face when a single tear tracks down my cheek. “I’ll start packing.”
“Kirsten, wait—”
“You’ve set up everything, you said. New apartment. New job. New accounts.” I laugh, but it sounds wrong. Hollow. “Very thorough. You’ve thought of everything.”
“I wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”
“Taken care of,” I repeat the words like they’re in a foreign language. “Right. Of course. Because that’s what this has all been about, hasn’t it? Taking care of me. Managing me. Making sure I stay exactly where you put me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” I finally turn to face him, and I can see the confusion on his face.
He genuinely doesn’t understand why I’m upset.
That almost makes it worse. “You forced me into this marriage to protect me. Fine. I accepted that. But now you’re forcing me out after everything, and I’m just supposed to accept that, too? ”
“I’m not forcing you out. I’m giving you a choice.”
“A choice.” I shake my head. “Go live in the apartment you picked. Work at the job you arranged. Spend money from the accounts you set up. That’s not a choice, Menlow. That’s just a different cage.”
He looks like I’ve slapped him. Good. At least he’s feeling something.
“I don’t want your consolation prize,” I tell him, and my voice breaks on the last word despite my best efforts. “I don’t want your guilt money or your new, curated life. If you don’t want me here, just say so. Be honest for once.”
“Kirsten—”
“I’m going to pack.”
I don’t give him a chance to respond. I walk out of the kitchen and into the bedroom and close the door behind me, then lean against it with my palm pressed to my mouth to muffle the sound that wants to escape.
Stupid. I was so stupid. I let myself believe that what we had was real. That the sweet moments and the soft touches and the way he looked at me meant something. But it was all just an obligation. Duty. Protection.
And now that the danger is gone, so is the reason for him to pretend.
I give myself exactly sixty seconds to fall apart. Then I wipe my face, square my shoulders, and start throwing clothes into a bag.
I don’t take much. Just the things I brought with me originally, plus a few items I can’t leave behind. Everything else—the dresses he bought me, the jewelry, the shoes—stays in the closet where it belongs.
When I’m done, I check the hallway. It’s mercifully empty. Menlow is probably still in the kitchen, trying to figure out what went wrong.
I slip out the front door without saying goodbye. I don’t leave a note.
If he wants me gone so badly, he can have his wish.