From what I learned from Ava, Kenzi was an outcast in her own home. In the game of chess, she was the first pawn to be sacrificed. How many times had Elias told her she had no worth? No meaning because her womb is barren, and she couldn’t be married off? Even if she could, I doubt that Elias would have fetched a worthy enough alliance with another family when she couldn’t bear an heir.
That would explain why he sold her. With no chance of an alliance, money was the only other use she had.
“Get in,” I murmur, opening the door for her. Kenzi’s gaze flickers to her surroundings before she slides into the running vehicle. Leon is already behind the wheel, waiting.
“Here’s your tablet,” he reaches back to hand Kenzi a small black tablet that had been sitting on the passenger seat. “Mark said he loaded everything for you.”
“Thanks,” Kenzi nods as she takes it and powers it up.
“We’re not done with this,” I warn her. “You’re holding back.”
Kenzi huffs and reaches forward to dial Mark on the small screen attached to the seat in front of her. The seat in front of me has one as well that mirrors hers, so there is no need to lean over and share. “We’ll see.”
I grunt. We are not done with this, and that is a promise. The Dollhouse and the Chameleon Agency present a big problem. I can’t have families selling their children for cash to fund underground assassination agencies or worse, selling them to brothels or pedophiles.
“Kenzi,” Mark’s warm voice greets from over the crisp video feed. He is sitting in the office we gave to him, his guards visible in the background. He needs to earn our trust back after the incident with Archer and he is well on his way to doing so. “Sir.”
I nod my head in greeting and leave the rest to Kenzi. The pair have been working closely the last week to find the information I requested. The pair of them are like the nerd hacker wonder twins.
“Alright,” Kenzi places the tablet in the cradle that sits between us. It allows for me to view the information without having to pass it back and forth. “You gave us quite the task when you asked us to search for this Kirill Kasyanov guy.”
“Shouldn’t have been all that hard,” I drawl. “I even provided a photo.”
Kenzi blows out her lips. “Yeah, the only problem is that Kirill Kasyanov doesn’t exist. At least, not anymore.”
“So, he is dead.” This is what I hoped for but the look on Kenzi and Mark’s faces tells me another story.
“Nope,” Mark shakes his head. “The problem is that Kirill Kasyanov literally doesn’t exist. His surname isn’t Kasyanov, it’s Tkachenko.”
forty-two
That name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. Where have I heard it? Before I have a chance to think too long on it, Leon answers instead.
“Like the Tkachenko bratva?” his voice is laced with suspicion and disbelief. He knows about my father; I’ve told him and the others everything there is to know about Kirill Kasyanov’s pathetic life. Never once have I associated him with the name Tkachenko. “The Bratva of all Bratvas’?”
“Geesh,” Kenzi snorts. “Drama queen much? Yes, that Bratva.”
That doesn’t make any sense. My father was a low-level runner, not Bratva royalty. “You must be mistaken.”
Kenzi purses her lips and shakes her head. “Nope,” she pops the ‘p’ annoyingly. And here I think that was just an annoying trait of Ava’s when she wants to test my patience. “Kirill Kasyanov is an alias. He was born Kirill Malikovich Tkachenko, September of 1965 to a Yelena Morisov and?—”
“Malik Tkachenko,” I snarl.
“Um, yeah…” Mark hesitates briefly, his forehead drawn up. “How do you know that?”
“Russian middle names are patronymic,” I explain. “Meaning that they are drawn from the father’s first name. My middle name is Kirillovich. Vas’s middle name is Avtonomovich. In Russia, it is common to introduce yourself or greet someone else with their first and middle name.”
“From what we could uncover,” Kenzi creeps on, her lips turning up in a sneer at the mention of the Russian patriarchal traditions of introduction. I can’t blame her for that. Her whole life has been controlled by men. “He is illegitimate. Yelena was a maid in Malik’s household he took a shine to. She got pregnant, had the baby, and then mysteriously disappeared.”
“The baby was kept in the household and raised to be an enforcer,” Mark cuts in. “Never legitimized.”
“Malik was a purest,” I spit distastefully. The man was a royalty supremist and believed in not tainting the Tkachenko bloodline. “He saw illegitimate children as cockroaches.”
Mark huffs. “Didn’t stop him from having a host of them. Most of whom died working for the mafia or were purposeful sacrifices.”
“How did Kirill end up in St. Petersburg?” I question. The Tkachenko Bratva is run out of Moscow and even though there is a presence in St. Petersburg, I can’t remember if he worked for them or not. I blocked out much of that time in my life, refusing to dwell on what I can’t change. “And why under a different name?”
“There isn’t a lot of records from that time,” Mark admits sheepishly. “We have to go old school and find the few people who are alive during Malik’s reign. Let me tell you, there aren’t a lot.”
