“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…”
“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?”
