Yelena is focusing on the information provided to her in the knife. Dates, names, places; so much is here. It is if she has been provided with dossiers on targets. She looks carefully, but does not see anything relating to a time table, but feels sure that if there is one, it will be communicated to her. Many of these must be new members of Tsina Molovna's new gang as she does not recognize them, except for two faces: Tsina Molovna and Viktor Jelkovich. These she knew well and just seeing the faces sends her mind back.
That she did not recognize the other faces is not surprising as life in the Vory is anything but safe and most of the people she is looking at are young. Fortunately for organizations like the Vory, there is no shortage of willing recruits. Young men and women who are already put down by the state will do almost anything to get out of whatever sprawl they are living in, and the Vory gives most of them something they have never had before - family. There are poser groups calling themselves Vory, but the real Bratvas are true families, with the leadership filling the roles of parents and uncles, and the soldiers all brothers and sisters to each other. For many, this is the only family they will ever know and it breeds a type of loyalty that other organized crime groups could only wish they had. The Vory codes are tattooed on Yelena's upper arms, scrolling around them and spelling out just what it means to be true Vory. The right arm bears words that translate to "Honor and duty will guide and lead me in every aspect of my life", while the one on the left arm reads, "The Vory is my family and will feed, clothe, and succor me in all my trials. The Vory is everything I have or am." Yelena had believed that with all her heart. All of it. And despite herself, she finds that she still does. Obeying the commands of the Vory had taken her to a very dark part of the shadows, but it only added to the things she had done, the many people she had slaughtered just for being human. Her already dark soul had yearned for what the Vory offered and had leapt at the chance to become part of a family.
And Yelena had been part of two Vory families. Her first was the Bratva in the hell that was Karibor Prison. Officially designated as Gulag 27, the prison was infamous for being the repository of "undesirables", a term that loosely translated to anyone dangerous enough to keep locked up but for whom the Russian state did not want to waste a bullet. And for the most part, the prison did the work for them, culling out the weak and unprepared. Yelena Petrovna had already killed many times, far more than what had been listed in her charging documents, and resolved early on that she would survive. And survive she had, sleeping and killing her way to the most brutal gang in the prison. She had thrived there for ten long and brutal years before a prison riot brought everything to an end. Most of her Vory family had been killed or dispersed in the riot and mass escape. She had made her way to Moscow, and had been allowed to enter one of the five Bratvas that managed crime in the capital city of the Russian state. She had passed the rituals and tests and had been accepted. She can still remember her first day after being fully accepted. A tall woman had approached her, asking if she had time for a drink. Yelena knew that this woman was Tsina Molovna, the mistress of the Bratva boss and arguably the most influential person in the small family. She knew that the smallest desire of this woman must be obeyed or risk the anger of the boss.
Over the course of several shots of good vodka, Tsina had made it clear that no upstart Keeb was going to advance in her family without towing the line. In this case, one facet of towing the line meant pleasing Tsina Molovna sexually. Tsina proved to be a very twisted woman, and her sexual mores and appetite were very much on the kinky side. She was a sadist in every meaning of the word and drug Yelena through every crazed fantasy she could think of. And Yelena was good to her and made an impression on the woman, leading to a huge error in judgment. Once Tsina was satisfied that Yelena knew her way around the bedroom, she invited her to participate in group sex with Boris Yavolovich Vestek, her lover and the Bratva boss. The two used Yelena in every way possible, working out their crazed desires on her body. Yelena, being a survivor over all other considerations, made the best of things. After all, the Vory was still family. Unfortunately for Tsina, Yelena did too good a job. After three years of this life, Boris replaced Tsina with Yelena, explaining that he wanted someone who was not getting older. Tsina had appeared to accept the demotion, especially as her presence was still demanded for group sex sessions.
But the woman harbored a deep hatred for Boris, but even more for Yelena Petrovna. She secretly conspired with rogue criminal elements, some of them Vory, to toss over Boris and create a new Bratva with Tsina as boss. She provided security codes and gave access and weapons to these traitors and staged her coup when a successful mission afforded her the opportunity she was looking for. Boris had declared a huge bonus to be divided up among the Bratva members, even providing an ocean of vodka, a veritable pharmacy of drugs, and several prostitutes for a party. When the festivities were in full swing, Tsina signaled her men and they entered the Bratva safe house. The slaughter was predictable. The family had no real chance with the loyal security drunk or drugged and Tsina moved through the house like an avenging demon. The men of the Bratva that she had coopted were spared, but no one else lived. Yelena, roused from a stupor by some instinct, had managed to arm herself, killing three attackers before being subdued. Tsina had walked up to Boris Yavolovich and injected him with some sort of paralytic drug before slicing him open and leaving him to look at his organs spilling onto the floor as he died. She had Yelena savagely beaten before being dragged to every room of the house, showing her the bodies of her dead family while yelling at her, telling her this was all her fault. That none of this would have happened if Yelena had obeyed the rules and stayed away from Boris. Then Tsina led her to a special room where Yelena saw five of the members of her Bratva badly wounded yet alive. Tsina motioned to a man Yelena recognized as Viktor Jelenkovich Masurovski, one of the Bratva that had been loyal to Boris, but had secretly been seduced by Tsina. She called him traitor and spit at him, but all she got for her efforts was another beating. Helplessly, she watched as Viktor poured fuel oil on the five men before turning to Tsina, who grinned wolfishly as she nodded. Viktor grinned back and tossed a lit cigarette on the men. Yelena would carry that image with her for the rest of her life. To their credit, not one of the doomed men begged for mercy, instead cursing the traitors until the flames forced screams from their mouths.
Yelena expected to be tossed onto the living pyre, but Tsina had a more personal fate planned for her. She had Yelena dragged outside the now burning house and tossed into the trunk of a car. She was taken to the banks of the near frozen Moskva, where Tsina had her men hold the Keeb assassin up as she aimed and shot Yelena three times. Each shot penetrated Yelena's chest in the vicinity of the heart and any one of them should have killed her. Tsina blithely waved a hand and her men dropped Yelena into the river. End of story as Yelena died from the wounds to her heart and the freezing temperature of the water. Yelena should have died , but she did not die. Call it what you will, but something saved her. Yelena is convinced that it was the shadows that reached out to her, healing her and keeping her alive even as she floated under the ice. She surfaced and came to rest on a section of deserted river front, where she was found and taken to a place of safety where she was allowed to heal and rest. Her saviors would never tell her who they were nor would they let her tell them who she was. They seemed to know she was of the shadows and that was enough for them. Dead to the Vory and everyone else, Yelena left Moscow and traveled to Eastern Greater Europe to begin a new life.
Yelena shakes herself back to the present and looks carefully at the two faces she recognizes. There is no punishment great or sadistic enough for these two traitors. They had abandoned every Vory ideal. That they have apparently both survived this long is a testament to their skill, something that should not be discounted as Yelena hunts them. Especially if the likes of Nkiolai Fyodorovich had not caught up to them. But the information is enough to whet her appetite for more. She pores over the what the knife has given up before setting it aside for a moment. She looks up at her Srui, wondering if her blood sister would forgive her past if she knew, or would forgive her for what she was going to do to the people on the list she had been given. Arc deserves the truth and Yelena resolves to provide that to her, but not here and not to a hologram.
She gives Arc an appraising look,, but cannot bring herself to speak just yet. She listens as Arc tells the new kid what is going on. She nods her support of that; after all, these people will be risking their lives and should know what the stakes are. Her right hand is clenched on the haft of the dagger, pressing so hard that her knuckles are white, but she uses her left to give Arc a thumbs up acceptance of her statements to Firefly and Bootstrap.
