Page 73 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“We still need to figure out whosheis.” I walked to the other side of Kirill’s desk.

“He might not have known who she was,” Ivan pointed out. “They never called each other by their real names.”

“True,” I said as I pulled out one of the desk drawers. “But she knew about Andrei and about me. Which means she knew whohewas.”

“If Kirill didn’t know who she was, he was certainly searching into it,” Andrei spoke up. “My brother wouldn’t stand for having someone being able to hold things over his head without the ability to reciprocate.”

“So somewhere, he has a file with his own research on every member,” Kenzi mused. She turned to Andrei. “He’s a paranoid narcissist. Where would he hide his most valuable intel?”

Andrei cringed, casting a disgusted look at his brother’s dead body.

“Not it,” Kenzi shook her head emphatically. “Count me out of that one.”

Ivan chuckled. “I doubt he hid it there.”

Andrei shrugged. “Never know.”

Kenzi grunted, unamused. “Imma say it’s not.”

“Most likely it’s in his safe.” Andrei smiled at Kenzi and winked. “Where could it be—”

“Got it,” Kenzi sing-songed from the other side of the room. Ivan shook his head, bewildered.

“How do you move that fast?”

Kenzi shrugged. “Superpowers.” She winked.

Of course the man would hide his safe behind his own self portrait.

Narcissist.

Kenzi hummed while she fiddled with the dial, her eyes closed as it spun on its axis. It took a few tries, but several moments later, locks clicked into place, and the door swung open.

“Voilà.” Kenzi dipped a dramatic, flourishing bow, her arm swinging out in a grand gesture.

We all chuckled. “Very well done,” I praised her. She beamed up at me like a kid who’d just received her favorite toy on Christmas. Fuck. I forgot how little love the Ward women had grown up with. Ava had told me that there was no doubt in her mind that Kendra loved her daughters. But it wasn’t a mother’s love. Not the love she received growing up from her own mother prior to her death.

Kendra’s love was obsession. Obsession with perfection. Her daughters were a chance for her to relive everything she no longer could be. Young, with pure, untainted beauty. Hope for the future. Now one was dead, and the other was slowly working her way to becoming the next Harley Quinn. When I’d spoken to Vas last, he’d confirmed my suspicion that the twins weren’t Ward’s biological daughters. They belonged to his brother, Dante.

It explained how Elias so easily gave up one daughter and Christian so callously had the other killed.

“Well,” Ivan held up the large, unorganized file that was overflowing with handwritten notes and crumpled papers, “this might take you a while.”

“We have one thing going for us, though.” Taking the file from him, I flipped through it, giving the contents a cursory glance. “The woman who calls herself Caesar is in Seattle, and whoever this Sulla is, they have to have people they know in common.”

“The canes are one way we know how to identify them,” Dima said. He’d joined us in the office after he’d secured the perimeter. “However, that style of cane is popular.”

“What is with these names?” Andrei asked. “Caesar? Sulla? Are they cosplaying as Romans?”

“Two points to grandpa for knowing what cosplay is,” Kenzi cackled.

Andrei shot her a glare, which just made her crack up more.

“We think they’re code names.” Ivan rolled his eyes. “So far, they seem to all be Roman generals. Caesar appears to be the one pulling the strings.”

“Who we know is a woman.”

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