Chapter Four
Istared down at the numbers written in Libby’s journal.
1-3-6
14-3-1
19-1-7-2 (3)
Each number represented a specific part of the book. The page number followed by the paragraph on that page followed by the word in that paragraph. Flipping through the pages at the beginning, I turned to the page labeled as the first. My finger slid gently to the third paragraph and over until it found the sixth worth.
Well.
Easy enough. I repeated the process with the second cipher.
Far.
I could already see where this was going, but wanting to be absolutely sure, I followed the cipher one last time. This one was different. It contained four numbers instead of three and had one in parentheses. So the seventh letter in and two of those three letters made the word, which was ‘ago’. Since “ag” made little sense, I went with “go.”
Well far go.
Didn’t take a genius to know she was talking about the bank. It was simple, and she didn’t attempt to obscure the name or make a riddle out of it. No one other than Kenzi would have known what those numbers referred to. You had to have the book to decipher it, and not just any version of The Hobbit would have gotten the job done. It needed to be this specific edition.
If it was a bank she was leading me to, that meant that the numbers she listed below were a bank account. 1974762095230091. Were the remaining numbers, 091322, the passcode? Or something else? And what did the hastily scrawled name of Demeter mean?
A passphrase?
Ugh. I closed the laptop screen and leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes as I rubbed my temples. Libby could have left clearer instruction. Like what Wells Fargo she was talking, for example. Since there were approximately fifteen in Seattle. If it was just a bank account, then it wouldn’t matter which I chose, but if it was a safe deposit box, it would. Luckily, only a handful of Wells Fargos had safe deposit boxes.
“Everything okay in here?”
Cracking an eye open, I looked at my Sovietnik and shook my head, letting out a rough breath.
“That bad, huh?” he asked, taking a seat in front of me. We were in Matthias’s office. His old office, since it was now mine, but everything in it was still exactly as he’d left it. I couldn’t bring myself to change anything. It still smelled like it. The light scent of tobacco hung in the air, mixing deliciously with the warm spiced aftershave he always wore.
“Libby’s secret code leads to a Wells Fargo bank,” I informed him. “But she doesn’t say which one or whether it’s an account or a lockbox. Nothing. I’ve got the account number, but that’s it.”
“What about the name and the other set of numbers she listed?” Vas questioned. “Any clue what those mean?”
I shook my head. “The six digits could be a passcode.” I sighed. “It couldn’t be a historical date because it’s dated for September of 2022, and it’s February.”
“What if it’s not a date?” he suggested.
“Then it has to be a passcode.”
Vas’s mouth turned up, and his shoulders shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“How very clear of you, Vasily,” I told him dryly. “Please, be as vague as you possibly can. It thrills me.”
Vas grunted his amusement, his eyes shining. “Could it be another cipher?”
“If it is, then it isn’t with this book.” I gestured to the battered copy of The Hobbit on my desk. “There aren’t thirteen paragraphs on page nine, and she wouldn’t have mixed up the cipher.”
The man before me tapped his chin lightly as he contemplated what to say next. “What if it is a date?” he wondered aloud. “What if the numbers are mixed up? Instead of September of 2022, what if it was September of 2013?”
“We’d have to assume that whatever it was took place in Seattle,” I pointed out. “There would be too much data to go through if we included every event that happened that year worldwide.”
Silence fell over us.
One would think that the six digits were a passcode of sorts. Or a password. However, a password for a bank account wouldn’t be simply numbers. It would need to contain letters as well. The passcode theory was applicable, but only if it was for verification. If she had been pointing me to a lockbox, then she would have needed to lead me to a key, not a bank code.
What was Libby up to?
“Here.” Vas’s deep voice interrupted my thoughts. When I looked up from where my eyes were glued to my desk, he was standing in front of it, holding out a whiskey-filled tumbler. Not my favorite, but I would take it.
“Thanks,” I murmured, taking the glass from him. The ice clinking around in the glass sounded heavy in the enclosed space.
“I love how you redecorated,” Vas drawled as he looked around. “It’s really you.” The teasing smile he held at the edge of his lips was infectious. His bright eyes lit up when I smiled at him from behind my glass.
“Couldn’t really bring myself to touch anything,” I admitted. “There’s this…gut feeling I have that says he’ll be back. Stupid, I know, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to change anything.”
“Ava—” Vas began hesitantly.
“Pfft.” I waved him off. “I know it’s stupid. Just humor me, okay? I’ll get around to changing it sooner or later, but right now…right now—” I let out a sigh and shrugged. “I just like how it makes me feel.”
“And how is that?”
“Like at any moment he’ll walk through that door.”
Except he wouldn’t.
He was dead.
Vas sighed. It was deep and sad. Leaning back in his chair, his ankle crossed over his opposite knee, he said, “I know what you mean. I’ve been going through the reports on his laptop and feel like I’m snooping.”
“What reports?” I asked curiously.
“We keep all of our dealings on an encrypted black box that is nestled just inside the laptop,” Vas explained. “Unless someone took the laptop apart piece by piece, no one would ever know it was there. Plus, it’s linked directly into a program. So as long as you insert the right username and passcode, it leads you to the box. Any other combination will take you through the dummy program. It allows the operation to keep everything off paper as well as make sure there isn’t any electronic trace either.”
That had me stunned. It was pretty advanced thinking for the mafia. Not even Hollywood movies had come up with that.
“When you say dealings,” I questioned, leaning forward in my seat. “Do you mean like the Bratva’s black book?” Vas nodded.
Snapping my fingers excitedly, I stood, the chair rolling out from beneath me and hitting the shelves at my back. “That’s it,” I exclaimed, rushing from the room.
“What’s it?” Vas trailed behind me, hot on my tail.
“Libby mentioned snagging a few of Elias’s black books from his office when you took her back for some of her things,” I told him, pushing the door to Libby’s old room open. “I went through her room, and I never found anything.”
“I can sense a but coming.” Vas sighed.
“But—” I kept going, ignoring his snide remark. “If you all managed to think about having everything electronically, so would Libby. She was nothing like Mark, but Libby knew her way around a computer. What if she translated everything electronically and locked it up?”
The lightbulb went off in Vas’s brain. His shoulders straightened, and a feral smile crawled across his face. “Damn, she was smart.”
“No doubt.”
Opening her bedside drawer, I pulled out the sleek black laptop she was given when she first arrived so she could still complete her schoolwork while they hunted down Elias and Christian.
I flipped open the top, and the laptop whirred to life.
“She didn’t have it locked?” Surprise tinted his voice. “Who doesn’t lock their laptop?”
I shrugged. “Someone who has nothing to hide that isn’t already secure?”
It made sense. Libby would have only ever had her schoolwork on the computer, which she completed from the safety of the penthouse after Vas had her switched to online classes. She wouldn’t have needed to lock her laptop. But she would have protected the information she copied over from Elias’s black books.
The question was—where would she put imperative information on her laptop? A subdrive was possible, but I wasn’t seeing anything popping out at me other than her normal school documents. I thought back to what I read in her journal. The hastily scrawled numbers and name. I assumed Demeter was a username I would enter to access a specific file, but there wasn’t anything in her files that didn’t just open. No passwords were needed for any of them.
Where the fuck did she put it?
“What if it isn’t to a file?” Vas asked. “What if it’s to a site or even another account on the laptop?”
“Worth a try.” I logged out of the current account to get to the main screen. Nothing. There wasn’t even an option to log in to another one. “Wait.” The lightbulb clicked. The dawn was rising. It was all coming full circle. “What was Demeter’s daughter’s name in the Greek myth?”
“Um,” Vas thought for a moment before the lightbulb dinged. “Persephone.”
“Persephone’s Web.” We both said aloud. Persephone’s Web was an underground chat room and dark web encryption hosting platform. Unlike most of the dark web, Persephone’s Web was created to help people in need find and store vital information on taking down organizations like Elias’s. Libby and I had learned about it from Mark before I pulled a Houdini and disappeared in the dead of night under Elias’s nose.
Persephone was a legend. Having exposed more sex trafficking rings and shady government officials and deals than any law enforcement agency in the world. It was a safe space for victims or families of victims to find justice without all the expenses.
My fingers moved lightning fast, clicking back into Libby’s primary account. I had missed it. There had been a small black symbol that blended in with the swirling of her wallpaper in the top right corner of the screen. It was Demeter’s symbol in Greek mythology. Flush stalks of grain.
I double clicked.
And waited with bated breath as the rainbow icon of the mouse shifted and turned.
“Yes!” I grinned broadly when a subscreen popped up before my eyes, requesting a password. Entering the digits I saw in her journal, I pressed enter.
Bingo.
“Holy fucking shitballs, Batman,” Vas murmured under his breath as file after file popped open on the screen.
“I really hope she labeled these,” I muttered. There was enough data on the screen that it would take weeks to sift through.
“Well, that’s why there is more than one of us.” Vas winked at me and stood. “Let’s get this back to the compound. We can get the others to help.”
The others.
Maxim and Nikolai had been scarce since I took up the mantle of Pakhan. Dima was apparently out of the country on personal business, and Leon was busy helping build alliances with my Uncle Dante and the Cosa Nostra.
I thought.
Or he was out assassinating them. Vas hadn’t made it super clear.
At this point, I couldn’t care less.
* * *
The drive to the compound took longer than normal thanks to the heavy flow of traffic. I hadn’t been back since the first time Matthias had taken me here, and I missed it. Mark’s smiling face greeted me as I stepped out of the vehicle. Vladmir, my driver and secondary guard, nodded at me as I closed the door to the SUV and led me up the stairs to the underground bunker.
He was tall and muscled. The pristine white dress shirt he wore was stretched tightly over his chest, the seams straining at his broad shoulders. I was waiting in silent anticipation for the buttons to suddenly burst off. His accent was thick and deep, his skin covered in tattoos from the Cyrillic Russian letters on his knuckles to the ink scrawled up his neck.
Vladmir was one intimidating mother fucker, and if he wasn’t on my side, I might have shit my pants when I first met him. No joke.
“I’ll wait here, ma’am.” His W sounded like a soft V.
“Ava,” I corrected him. The big man blushed, the red creeping up his neck.
“Ava.”
Vas shot me a disapproving look, but I simply winked and walked right past him into the somber darkness of the tunnels that ran beneath the compound. A lump of sadness threatened to emerge when my thoughts turned back to the last time I was here with Matthias. We’d been a team then, taking down Elias’s port access and bringing his illicit dealings into the light.
We’d been in a bubble those few weeks that were later shattered by my perceived betrayal.
I wanted him to be here with me. I wanted to rule together, side by side. That was all I had ever wanted from him. What a fairytale that had been. A dream that would never be reached. A goal that could never be achieved.
There was only me to lead, and just the mere thought of that darkened the surrounding colors.
“You doing okay?” Mark questioned hesitantly while we walked. I nodded and turned to face him, a smile on my face that didn’t quite reach far enough. Skepticism burned deeply behind his eyes. He didn’t believe me. “If you ever need anything…” He let the invitation hang in the air between us.
“I know,” I assured him. “Thank you.”
He took a deep breath and nodded, accepting that I wouldn’t be spilling my guts to him anytime soon. Emotions weren’t new to me, but growing up, I had learned to limit them, hide them, secure them away so they couldn’t be used against me.
Show fear, and they made me more afraid. Show pain, and they reveled in increasing it by tenfold. The rage was beaten out of me, the defiance whipped from my body, sadness had been starved, and happiness barely existed enough for them to bother with. Matthias had been the first person I truly opened myself up to emotionally. He took them and shaped them into armor for me. Carved weapons from the very things that had burned me, drowned me, and carved me into pieces.
“There she is.” Nikolai stood from his seat, a toothy grin cracking his normally grumpy exterior. “Welcome back, ma—Ava.” The cold glare I gave him stopped the formalities dead in their tracks.
“Hello, Nikolai.” I beamed back at him and took the chair he offered me. “Maxim.” I nodded at the burly Russian.
“Ava.”
“Let’s get started.” Vas inclined his head to Mark. A moment later, the screens before us were filled with the files Libby had been collecting on Persephone’s Web.
“So,” Mark began. “I’ve been digging through these files for the last two hours, and I have got to say—Libby was a fucking genius. Not only did she use Persephone’s servers as a way to hide the files, but she also encrypted the hell out of them. The NSA and CIA would be proud.”
“I wonder who taught her how to do that,” I mused teasingly.
“Surely you don’t think I would teach her such naughty things.” Mark held his hands up in a gesture of innocence, but the smirk on his face spoke to his guilt.
“Moving on,” Vas grunted. Mark winked at me before turning back to the screen. Cheeky bastard.
“I was able to decrypt a good amount of them, but there are a few my program is still working through due to the amount of data stored within them,” he continued. “From the size of the files, I would favor a guess that they are probably MP4s.” He turned his gaze to Nikolai and Maksim. “For the vintage models in the class, that means they’re videos.”
“Fuck you,” Nikolai growled, throwing his pen as hard as he could at the hacker. Mark laughed and danced out of the way of the flying object. “We’re not that old, you fucker.”
“Could have fooled me,” Vas murmured beneath his breath. I laughed, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes when Nikolai threatened to dismember Vas’s family jewels with a rusted spoon.
“Okay. Okay.” I wiped at my eyes. “What have you got from the ones that have been decrypted?”
Mark’s smile turned feral.
“Well, your instincts about your grandfather are spot on,” he told me. “Seamus McDonough has been a naughty senior citizen, and I am not just talking about him running the Irish in Boston. On top of the usual drug and weapon distribution, he has invested a huge sum of money in ground transportation companies over the last ten years secured by—”
“Knightman Security.”
“Exactly.” He nodded. “Five points to Hufflepuff.”
There went the beer I was about to drink. Right out my nose and onto the polished wooden surface before me.
The room roared with laughter while I struggled to relearn how to breathe. Assholes. The lot of them. My stomach clenched and my chest ached as I joined the raucous strings of hysterics going on around me.
Times were hard, and war was looming on the horizon. We had suffered losses our hearts could barely cope with. Blood would be spilled on both sides going forward, there was no getting out of that, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy life while it lasted.
No one in this room could even begin to guess the outcome of our battle with Christian and the unforeseen puppet master who pulled his strings. We could hope that we came out on top, but there would never be a guarantee.
All we could do was pray to see the sunrise tomorrow as we watched the sunset tonight.
Taking these moments in was vital. Without hope and laughter, we would be nothing more than zombies trudging through life unaware. Broken. Dead. It was the little things that kept up going and kept us fighting. The small smiles and comradery. The chuckles and games and beers. It was knowing we had a family to fight for. To survive for.
We all needed someone or something to live for, and the men at this table were mine. Liam and the twins were mine. The need to see them come out on top of this was greater than my thirst for revenge. I would sacrifice myself before ever sending them to die for me.
My gaze traveled to the lit-up faces of the men who stood by my side, and for the first time since I’d met Matthias, I understood the weight he once carried on his shoulders. These men and the many other men and women who followed him were his responsibility. They had families and friends. They were sons and daughters. Mothers and fathers. Nieces and nephews. They had people to go home to each night.
Now, they were mine to protect.
“Settle down. Settle down.” Nikolai chuckled, tears streaming down his face at the impression of Harry Potter Vas had been trying to mimic. His British accent was horrendous, and the stitch of laughter in my side was worsening.
Still—on to business.
It took at least another ten minutes before the overgrown men-children were ready to start the meeting again. Another round of beer was handed around, and we got back to work. The sudden breakdown was forgotten, like it was a distant memory.
“Most of the files that have been decrypted involve finances,” Mark informed us as he flipped through the screen. “It will take me a few days to sort through the numbers and associate them back to dealers and cargo, but it isn’t an impossible job.”
“Did you find anything on Maleah?” My heart flipped at the thought of finding my best friend. Archer had lied to me when he said he knew who Maleah had been sold to. Christian told me the truth died with Elias, but I refused to trust his words. Even if Archer had lied, Elias would have kept some kind of record of the sale.
I hoped.
Mark’s lips turned down, and he shook his head. “Nothing, I’m afraid.” His tone was grim, his eyes darkening. “If he kept a record of where she went, he didn’t list it outright.”
It was worth a try.
“I did, however, find a reference to your sister.”
My forehead puckered. “Libby?”
“No.” Mark swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath the skin of his throat. “Kenzi.”
“Was it her college tuition bill paid with drug money?” I sneered, not caring even one iota about the sister who’d betrayed me. “Because I couldn’t care less.”
“No,” Mark snapped. My gaze snapped up to meet his. His light eyes were swirling with barely contained irritation. They bored into mine, frigid and cold. “It told me she’d been sold.”
That was news to me.
“Impossible.” My lip turned up in disgust. “Libby talked to Kenzi almost daily.”
“For how long?” Vas turned to me. Not him, too. He couldn’t possibly be thinking that Elias had sold her. Shooting and then blowing up my husband, then taunting me about it didn’t exactly scream captive.
“I don’t know.” I threw up my hands, exasperated. “Five or so minutes. Libby always said she sounded rushed. Said she was busy.”
“And you never found that odd?” Maxim butted in. Fucker was against me, too. “Twin sisters who were hardly ever separated, always had time for each other no matter what, and suddenly one of them can’t find the time? That doesn’t sound odd to you?”
Of course it did. I wasn’t an idiot, but I had chalked it up to Kenzi finally being free. Without Elias or Christian to dictate her every move, she’d found a chance at having a real life, and I wouldn’t have blamed her for not wanting to be dragged into it again.
“If Elias sold her”—the sarcastic air quotes I put around that word should win an Oscar—“then how did she end up becoming the next American Sniper? Did he send her to assassin school?”
They all exchanged a look I didn’t like. It was the kind of look that meant they were holding something back. They knew something about Kenzi, and that pissed me the hell off.
“Someone start telling me what the fuck is going on, or so help me god, I will empty every single bottle of alcohol here and in the penthouse.”
Threatening to lop their heads off wouldn’t have gotten them talking as fast as they were about to. They knew me too well. I didn’t believe in the threat of death or dismemberment as proper motivation, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make their lives miserable, and they knew it.
“Elias made a note in one file under Kenzi’s name,” Mark blurted out, breaking the stagnant surprise of my sudden threat. “I found the file under her social security number.”
“Okay…” Talk about drawing out the punch line.
“Did you ever hear Elias talk about something called the Chameleon Agency?” Nikolai asked from his seat two chairs down. He was dressed casually tonight in a pair of black jeans and a fitted black tee. Then again, it was normally Leon who dressed to the nines, even for something as simple as movie night.
Elias had never mentioned that name. Not in front of me, at least. Who would want to? That name was horrible.
Shaking my head, I waited for him to elaborate.
“From what we’ve been able to gather, the Chameleon Agency is responsible for more than seventy-five percent of trafficked humans in the US and ten percent worldwide.”
Jesus, that was a startling amount.
“We think that, until recently, they’ve been slinking in the shadows.” Maksim leaned forward on his elbows. “Slowly building their empire underground. Most likely, their operation is dissected into multiple parts so that if one sector goes down, it doesn’t affect the entire operation.”
“Like terrorist cells.” That made sense. Many terrorist cells operated on a similar premise so that one cell couldn’t corrupt another. Most terrorist cells had an overseer. One person or a group of people who knew each and every operation. They were the only ones to know the final plans. It was easier to sacrifice pawns that way.
“Exactly like a terrorist cell.” Vas smiled approvingly. “We think each cell has their own agenda. One cell might be tasked with retrieving the cargo. Another cell might be tasked with selling at auction, etc.”
That was both disturbing and disgusting.
“What does this have to do with Kenzi?” It took everything in me to say her name without sounding like a complete bitch.
Vas licked his lips nervously and took a deep, calming breath before speaking. “We believe Elias sold Kenzi to the Chameleon Agency, who then sold her to another operation that buys and trains women and men and even children to assimilate and assassinate.”
What kind of bullshit was this? It was so far-fetched that I could almost believe it.
“This isn’t a fucking Natasha Romanoff movie, Vas.” My voice pitched higher, and I pushed back my chair as I stood. “That is some Red Room bullshit.”
Mark snorted. “Funny, that’s what”—Vas shot him a nasty glare, and Mark coughed uncomfortably—“that’s what I said when I found out.”
“How else do you explain her sniper skills?” Vas pressed, his gaze settling back on me. What the fuck? Was there something they were keeping from me? More fucking secrets. This was ludicrous. Did they honestly believe that my sister was La Femme Nikita or Kill Bill? Kenzi barely stood up for herself, and violence made her sick. “Knowing how to blow up the ambulance? Get past what you knew about her. You haven’t seen her in three years, Ava. That is a lot of time for someone to change.”
Three years.
That was how long it had been? It didn’t seem like that much time had passed since she left for college at sixteen. The nerd graduated before everyone else and bounced her ass out the door to college like there was no tomorrow.
Had she been sold, or was she a willing participant?
Why?
What did Elias think he had to gain?
“Do you know who she was sold to?”
“It’s a place called the Dollhouse.” Mark switched the screen again. The image that appeared was of a stunning woman in her late forties or early fifties with pinched red lips and a sharp face. Her gray hair was swept back in a bun that rested at the nape of her neck, and in her hand was a cane.
A cane with a silver cross.
“A covert underground training facility that no one has ever been able to find. That was all I was told until I found these documents that listed the name of the woman buying up her unwilling recruits. Madam Therese.”
That was a name I did know.
“I know her.” All eyes turned back to me. “I mean,” I hesitated. “I’ve never seen her until now, but Bailey said her name. She said that before she was ushered on the stage, they let that woman backstage to pick from the lineup before they were sold. The only reason she didn’t pick Bailey was because she’d already been sold. Her entire bid was a farce.”
Nikolai leaned forward, his powerful jaw clenching tightly. “What else did she say about what happened?” If there was anyone who hated those who forced others into killing and fighting for a living, it was Nikolai. Matthias once told me that he met Nikolai in an underground fight ring in Moscow. He was a willing participant in the fights. Nikolai was not. If he ended it too quickly and didn’t give a show, he would starve. Drag it out too long? He would be punished. Lose? Losing wasn’t an option. Each fight was to the death.
“Uh,” I thought back to what Bailey told me, “her accent was different. A soft European, but not Russian. Same with the men she was with. She said they sounded almost German, but softer, like they hadn’t been there in a long time and their accents had started to fade.”
“What else?” he prodded.
“Two of her assets went rogue, which was why she was getting the new women from a sex auction,” I recalled. Then it hit me. “And that Ward provided the best assets.”
I was going to be sick.
Elias had sold his daughter into being an assassin, and Christian was taking up that mantle to provide capable women. That meant he wasn’t just grabbing up homeless women and prostitutes like he did for the sex auctions. No, he was grabbing up women from their everyday lives. Elias had sold Kenzi because she was of no use to him. Without the ability to bear children, he couldn’t make an alliance. Which meant that Christian was searching for and taking women just like Kenzi. Barren. Unable to conceive.
Shit.
Then there was Madam Therese’s cane. It was a replica of the cane my grandfather had with him at the gala. I might have chalked it up to being a coincidence—here were plenty of silver cross canes out there in the world to buy—except for one small detail. The tiny emblem that was carved into the wood of the cane just below the knob at the top.
That crest had been on Seamus McDonough’s cane as well. It had also been stamped on the paperwork that listed my mother as being sold. Elias never ran the trafficking rings.
Seamus McDonough did.
My own grandfather possibly had my mother kidnapped and sold.
And he had help because there was one other place I had seen that emblem, and if I was right—I might never be forgiven.