stint with The Organization and they’d established new identities. I soon realized that would never come to pass.”
Like all the boys The Organization took, he’d realized after the first hellish weeks that he was a slave they had no intention of letting go, one they’d turn into a mercenary and lethal weapon.
At first he’d refused to be of any use to them no matter how much they tortured him, hoping they’d let him go. They’d only been too glad to escalate their abuse.
He exchanged a look with Antonio, filled with all the memories of their similar ordeals. “At one point I felt my mind and spirit breaking. I contemplated ending my life...and then you approached me.”
Antonio had been a year younger, had introduced himself as Bones, as they’d been forbidden to use anything but the code names The Organization had given them. Antonio had already been selected for medicine because of his aptitudes—he’d been there since he was four. His friend had imparted on him the wisdom of his years with The Organization, convincing him to play along, so he’d become valued and be given privileges.
Then Antonio had offered him a lifeline. He’d asked him to join the brotherhood he belonged to. It was a group of boys selected and led by Numair, The Organization’s top recruit, the older boy who’d been only known as Phantom then. Their secret brotherhood had become seven members when a year later their youngest member, Rafael, or Numbers, had joined them. The other three had been Raiden, or Lightning, Jakob, or Brainiac...and Cypher. None of them knew what he called himself now.
But when they’d been together, he’d taken their same vow: to become as skilled and knowledgeable as possible, so they’d one day escape, become powerful and wealthy enough to rule their own empires and bring down The Organization.
But meanwhile, they’d been The Organization’s slaves and mercenaries, hired out to the highest bidder to execute any level of atrocities that no one else could: assassinations, sabotages, even starting revolutions, coups and wars.
It had taken over fifteen years to enact their escape plan. After they’d disappeared to build new personas, they’d surfaced to take the business world by storm and built Black Castle Enterprises, each presiding over his own segment of the global empire. Ivan ruled the cyber development world in ways that made his rivals call him Ivan the Terrible.
After they’d become established, and had begun untraceably dismantling The Organization, most of his Black Castle brothers had made finding their families or heritage a priority. Since most had come to The Organization too young to remember much, tracing their roots had been a lifelong endeavor. Ivan, though, knew his family and his brothers and had been certain that with his cyber reach, it would be the easiest thing in the world to find them once again.
But to his brothers’ surprise he’d elected not to contact them. And he’d never told anyone, even Antonio, why.
He told him now. “I never told you this, but joining the brotherhood, and having your friendship, was what saved my sanity. Saved my life. You gave me a reason to live after my family’s desertion made me want to give up.”
A sharp breath expanded Antonio’s chest. “You think...?”
“I know. The people I would have gladly laid my life down for, traded my life for theirs.”
Antonio’s eyes filled with the empathy of the profound connection they’d shared from that first day. “That’s even worse than what my family did to me.”
Antonio’s aristocratic Italian family had thrown him away at birth, discarding their daughter’s illegitimate child from a nobody. The Organization had taken him from the orphanage he’d ended up in. It seemed he considered abandoning a newborn to an unknown fate a lesser crime than giving up a grown son to a definitely hellish one.
Ivan exhaled. “Not that I can’t excuse my parents. We could have all been killed, or worse, and I was their only bargaining chip. They were forced to make a choice between two evils. Sacrificing me was the lesser one. But knowing that rationally and accepting it emotionally was—is—worlds apart.”
“Of course it is. If anyone should exact vengeance, it’s you.” Antonio sat forward, his frown ominous. “I want in on it.”
Ivan waved away Antonio’s aggression. “I don’t want vengeance. Never did. All I wanted was to come to terms. I placed them under surveillance, learned everything about them since they abandoned me. The Organization followed through and set them up in the States with new identities. They’ve since changed those twice more. They’ve managed to completely hide from the Russian mafia, the former soviets and their benefactors at The Organization.”
“But no one can hide from you,” Antonio said, an edge of vicious satisfaction and pride in his voice.
That was indeed Ivan’s specialty. He’d always hunted down the most elusive of quarries.
He nodded. “Since then their lives have been running smoothly and uneventfully. My three younger sisters and brother, who came to America very young, integrated totally. They have successful careers and stable personal lives. My parents, now John and Glenda Evans, have lives that are as respectable, comfortable and secure. It’s as if I never existed to any of them. I live trying to forget them, too.”
“You shouldn’t.” Antonio shredded the words through gritted teeth. “For parents to toss their firstborn to the sharks, to live a prosperous life at the price of his life... No, Ivan, this shouldn’t go unpunished.”
He shook his head. “But it will, Tonio. I don’t have the thirst for retribution like you did.”
Antonio’s fists bunched as he visibly struggled to bring his outrage under control. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
Ivan nodded, his throat tightening at his best friend’s solidarity.
Antonio sat back, the gears of his formidable mind clearly changing. “But what does all this have to do with Anastasia and her brother?”
Ivan sipped his cooling coffee before putting his cup down, buying himself time to rein in the memories of his family and the devastation of their betrayal.
“They come in seven years ago,” he finally said. “After five years out of The Organization’s prison, with only you and our brothers as my sole human connections, I’d resigned myself I’d never have anyone outside of you. Then one day, during the first conference I sponsored, I met a blast from my past. A man I recognized at once as my pre-Organization childhood best friend.
“Alexei Mikhailov left Russia with his parents just days before I was sent to The Organization. It was one of the reasons I was so eager to leave. His parents, prominent scientists in soviet Russia, defected to the States and changed identities, too, becoming the Shepherds. The father, Sergei, became Michael, the mother Ludmila, Grace, and Alexei, who’d followed in his father’s footsteps in the same branch of science in the States, became Alexander, or Alex. But because I’d changed too much...” They’d all made sure they did, so they’d be beyond recognition to their former captors even after they’d erased all evidence of their existence from their databases. “...Alex didn’t recognize me. And I intended he never would. But I was still compelled to get closer. To my delight, even without knowing me, we hit it off all over again, resuming our former rapport as if the intervening years hadn’t happened.”
He paused, savoring the agony of the sweet memories. Then he went on. “Later that same night, I met Anastasia,
