Biography ] - The Life of Stefan Kaye
Category: Blogging

[ From Birth to Enrollment... ]

Stefan Kaye grew up in a fairly well-off family in Boston, Massachusetts. He lived an easy, stress-free life in a quiet and plain suburban neighborhood and then in the equally peaceful college campus, all the way until graduation. Everyone in his family assumed he was pleased with his life since he never complaint or got into trouble. Only he knew what was in his mind as he wasn't too sociable or very communicative. He enjoyed engaging in conversations but only when he had something to communicate; mostly he preferred to sit, listen and analyze the world around him.

At 22, right after graduating from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology he shocked everyone when he announced that he had enlisted in the US Marine Corps. He only told his family after he had been accepted and signed up to begin training. This, together with the fact that he never requested their financial support (apparently he had saved enough money over time), led them to believe that it was something he had been planning for some time. Stefan however never offered a straight answer, just told them each time that he was doing what he wanted to do.

One of the reasons had been that while a student of psychology he was faced with analyzing the case of a man, former federal agent, who had been given a life sentence after found guilty of the murder of over twenty civilians. The man was transferred to a mental institution, even though doctors had been unable to detect disorders or diseases of any kind. Yet, the man remained true to his beliefs and kept on repeating that he had only done a small sacrifice for the benefit of the greater good. Because the threats the man was speaking of could not be confirmed, he was only seen as a killer, even though his sanity could not be questioned.

This puzzled Stefan and made him give the matter much thought, since on the one hand the man's explanations made sense from a logical point of view but at the same time they contradicted the moral values of society, the same values Stefan had so far accepted and obeyed, thinking that was the right thing to do. Can the murdering of innocent people be seen as righteous when a much larger threat is at stake? Stefan joined the army to find an answer to that question since soldiers were faced with such decisions more than any others. He discovered that such actions were indeed not righteous but necessary and unavoidable on so many occasions.

Another reason for Stefan's radical career change was the fact that he had come to believe that the people he grew up with and the people they associated with were all greedy and hypocritical. Studies show that the majority of the people who join the army either have some unresolved anger issues, usually because of growing up in a dysfunctional family and being abused or mistreated in their youth or they do it for the money since they come from a slightly better but still modest or even poor family.

Stefan was a rare case because his life had been the exact opposite. Money had never been an issue in his family, he always had everything he needed or wanted, there had never been any conflicts in his home, his parents were the ideal parents, their friends and relatives were all nice and joyful almost all the time, there had never been any deaths of a close relative in the family, nothing to mark him or give him something more profound to think about, nor did Stefan experience anything dangerous, frightening or even something genuinely interesting.

What displeased Stefan was that in the environment he grew up in everyone lived so carefree as if life was really that simple and that was the general living standard. He was appalled when he discovered the cruel and depressing truths from which his parents had done their best to shelter him in his younger days. It was almost a shock to find out that over 80 percent of the planet's population lived in such poor and unhealthy conditions, the likes of which he could not have even imagined.

Suddenly he began to call those people normal while the ones he grew up with and others like them were like a strange breed. He wanted to get closer to the normal people, experience life from their point of view and offer them whatever support he could to help them elevate their living conditions.



[ Parents, Younger Brother & Other Relatives... ]

Stefan was never on speaking terms with his parents, ever since he decided to drop everything and join the army. In their eyes, their son had disappointed them. They would have wanted him to study more, have some fancy job, marry, have children, and so on, live a safe and plentiful life, like most people want, but a monotonous and frustrating life from Stefan's point of view. Although he did not enjoy the situation, Stefan found some comfort in the thought that his brother Filipp, younger by ten years, would grow up to be the pride and joy of the family, be like his parents wanted him to be and fill the void that Stefan's leaving had created. If they "lost" one son, at least they had another one which they hoped would choose a more common lifestyle and be closer to them.

However, the younger boy had always looked up to his brother and despite what his parents said he still kept to his ideas. Even before high-school he wanted to join a military school and not even Stefan's intervention stopped him from doing so. At present Filipp is a US Army Ranger currently deployed to Sangala, a democratic West African nation with the capital at Mali Baso. (fictional country from the tv show 24)

A well kept secret of the Kaye family was that the father, Mikhail Vladimirovich Karpov came from a Russian family who had ties to criminal organizations. His parents and close relatives did not support the unlawful activities of the other members of the family, mostly those on his father's brother side, and being aware of the dangers that this betrayal of sorts might bring, they thought it best to send their son to finish college in the United States. Mikhail settled there after graduation, obtaining citizenship and changing his name from Mikhail Karpov to Michael Kaye.

When he left Russia he was already engaged to Delia Nikolaidis, a Greek young woman who had earned a scholarship to the same university where Mikhail studied, and with whom he had been in a relationship for two years. She graduated just before they moved to America as she was three years older than him. Also, their son was born in the far-off town of Arkhangelsk in Northern Russia (where the parents hid for security reasons), a few months before they left for America. They named him Stepan Mikhailovich, the middle name being a patronymic name as such was the custom, and later on they had it changed to Stefan Kaye, when Mikhail changed his name as well.

Like his father, Stefan now has both Russian and American citizenship.

Michael's almost exaggerated care to shelter his sons from anything harmful and offer them a safe, peaceful and prosperous life had been influenced by his own childhood and teenage experiences when he had lived in constant fear. With support from his family at first and then on his own, Michael prospered in the United States, becoming involved in businesses that helped him accumulate a substantial fortune.

Because of the social status that he had earned, although his family back in Russia also had a fairly high social status, he wanted his sons to follow in his footsteps. To begin with he had them attend private schools and then wanted them to graduate from prestigious universities; he himself had graduated from Harvard. At his father's request Stefan applied and was admitted to Harvard (3rd on the entry list) where he spent only one semester before transferring to a public college (Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology), because he found the general population at Harvard to be too snobbish and with over-inflated egos.



[ In the Military... ]

For the first five years he was a Marine (ooh-rah!). After that he joined the Officer Candidates School because an officer rank would give him the possibility to be more than just a simple soldier blindly following orders. He wanted to understand the decision-making process and be a part of it. Still, he felt that if he focused only on the new duties that would come after becoming an officer he would stray from his path. He didn't want to abandon the military service he had done so far and he didn't want to go back to the Marines either, he wanted something more, something new, so, before graduating the officers' school Stefan signed up with the Special Forces (hooah!) and began training.

Two years later he underwent further training in order to be admitted into the elite of the Special Forces, the 1st Operational Detachment Delta, commonly known as Delta Force. Another two years later he was recruited by Gray Fox, a secret military counterterrorist organization that carries out covert mission all over the world, sanctioned by the president himself. The organization's official cover is the ISA (Intelligence Support Activity), which is a US Army Special Operations Unit tasked to collect actionable intelligence in advance of missions by other US special operations forces, especially Delta Force and Navy Seals, in counter-terrorist operations.

The men who now form his team are fellow soldiers whom he served with either in the Marine or in the Special Forces. These men are:
- Master Sergeant Jeff Sanderson (Special Forces Medical Sergeant) - long time friend of Stefan's with whom he served both in the Marine and in the Special Forces;
- Sergeant 1st Class Eric "Hoot" Gibson (Special Forces Engineering Sergeant) - good friend of Sanderson's and former Special Forces colleague of both he and Stefan;
- Sergeant 1st Class Michael "Mike" Flynn (Special Forces Communications Sergeant) - former Special Forces colleague of Stefan, Sanderson and Hoot;
- Staff Sergeant Brian Gamble (Special Forces Weapons Sergeant) - good friend of Mike's and former Marine Colleague of Stefan and Sanderson.

After his admission into Gray Fox Stefan took part in an exchange program of sorts for future collaborations purposes between the Special Forces Counter Terrorist Organization he was a part of and its Russian counterpart, the Spetsnaz GRU. This military organization functioned in much the same way as USA's Delta Force, specializing in reconnaissance, sabotage and assassination. However, due to the very harsh standards of their training, based upon pain from start to finish, where they exert themselves to the limits of human endurance, they are believed to be probably the best special forces in the world today.

Stefan didn't go there accidentally, nor did he wish only to train. He wanted to prove himself as he had promised a few years back. Having always been a curious boy in his youth, Stefan eventually discovered bits and pieces of his family's history, on his father's side, and after making the first discoveries he couldn't stop before getting to the bottom of it all and revealing the truth. At first his father was reluctant to tell him anything but Stefan kept insisting and eventually he had no choice but to confess. Of course he embellished the story and made it seem less shocking and tragic that it actually was. He made it sound like he had told Stefan all that he wanted to know, but the teenage boy was even then too perspicacious and clever to not read between the lines and realize that there were some details that didn't add up and others that were missing altogether.

As he often did, Stefan did not reveal this to his father, but made him think in return that he believed him while he continued to pursue the investigation on his own. Michael and Delia were well aware that Stefan was very persistent when it came to accomplishing a goal he had set for himself but they never imagined to such great lengths he was willing to do. They found out in Stefan's first year of college, when he had not only transferred from Harvard, the university his parents wanted him to attend, to a public college without their knowledge but during spring break, instead of running off to some beach resort like other students would, he boarded a plane to Russia. With only a map and the money he had saved Stefan set off to find his grandparents and his father's younger brother who was an officer in the Spetsnaz GRU.

Before going to Russia Stefan had managed to gather enough information about his father's family to know why he had come to America and that his grandfather's brother, along with his sons and other members of his family were involved in criminal and even terrorist activities, while his uncle, Sergei Vladimirovich Karpov (his father's younger brother) and a cousin of Stefan's (the son of one of his father's two sisters) took the side of the law and swore to punish the wrongdoers without remorse even if they were relatives.

Stefan's encounter with his uncle hadn't gone the way he had planned. Despite his reserved attitude a certain enthusiasm and even excitement could be spotted in Stefan's demeanor, as a result of the adventure he had set on. His uncle however didn't appreciate this at all and scolded him severely for not understanding the seriousness of their family's situation. Still, the young man didn't give up and emphasized his desire to know more and to help.

This time his uncle literally slapped him across the face, telling him that he was no longer part of the family because his father chose to abandon them and flee the country. The slap hadn't been that rough and when Stefan actually had the courage to ask his uncle why he hadn't hit him harder if he said he deserved it, his uncle told him that he was not worthy of it. He was not a real man so he didn't deserve to be treated like one.

Disappointed, humiliated and with little money left to prolong his stay, Stefan returned to America without having made much progress in his investigation. However, something had changed in him. His uncle's intentional treatment had served its purpose. Only years later he would realize that it had all been a test. The man had indeed remarked Stefan's potential but he knew he had to push him into discovering it on his own.

He also did not hold any grudges against his brother or thought that he had abandoned the family by fleeing to America, like he had told Stefan. In reality Sergei had always supported his brother and encouraged him to move out of the country, especially when he had gotten engaged and was about to be a father. The fact that they almost never spoke was because it was best for the safety of Mikhail and his family.

This was yet another reason that motivated Stefan to join the army. Though he did not realize it at the time, he had learned much from his uncle that day and later on in his career he would find himself acting like him. When he participated in the joint training program (with Spetsnaz) after joining Gray Fox he did not reveal his identity or that he knew who Colonel Karpov was. He wanted them to see him only as a simple soldier that they had no reason to care about or give him special treatment. He wanted to prove himself and that he did, enduring all the painful tests and training but also proving his skills and qualities by overcoming the obstacles, defeating the opponents and completing the tasks.

It was only after he had gained the respect of the Russian soldiers through his own merits that he revealed his true identity and presented himself before his uncle who showed his true face and confessed that what happened years back was only to determine Stefan to reach the position he was now at. This time he showed his admiration for his nephew's achievements and when he offered to answer the questions about their family that Stefan had asked years back, the now Delta Captain surprised him by showing that he already knew them, since he had never stopped doing research ever since.

But there was still one problem. In order for them to fully cooperate, his uncle told him that he would have to switch sides and return to his homeland. He told him that he proved himself worthy of joining the Spetsnaz, but Stefan could not accept. Though he had respect for both countries, his family and home were now in America. He did what he did in the military to help people and not to serve anyone's interests so despite the duality he was facing he was strong and capable of keeping it under control and he would never act as a spy for either side, in detriment of the other. He told him that if America and Russia would go to war he would not pick a side but retire from the army altogether and move to Australia or some other faraway place.

His uncle understood and respected Stefan's decision and even if their military cooperation remained restricted to the official collaborations that the organizations they served might get involved in, on a personal level they became more like uncle and nephew. He also told Stefan to take care of his parents and visit them more often, since he had not spoken to them in over 12 years. Even so, at present Stefan still hasn't made time to do that, or perhaps he has kept postponing it on purpose.

His training with the Spetsnaz and his team's collaborations with them has earned him a fierce reputation among those who had heard of him and Gray Fox, since their main concern was to keep their secrecy. Stefan wasn't a fan of fame either. Like the unit's code required, he put his missions first and only cared about doing his duty, improving his skills and training the men under his command.

The fierce reputation was born mostly of speculations since Stefan as an individual was as secretive as the organization itself. He spoke only when it was necessary, kept much to himself, didn't reveal anything about his personal life or anything about him that was not related to his profession and always kept a serious, even slightly frightening face that revealed nothing of what went on in his mind.



[ First Ex-Wife and Daughter... ]


Amelia Laurent.

As far as Stefan's personal life is concerned, at 25 he married Amelia Laurent (20 going on 21 at the time) whom he had known for almost a year. Although there was an attraction between the two, Stefan married her more out of necessity, since he had gotten her pregnant and their daughter was already born by the time he was able to get back to Amelia.

Stefan met Amelia in July 1997, almost a month before turning 25, and he married her the following year, about three months before turning 26. It was through sheer coincidence that Stefan got to know Amelia as she was the sister of another soldier. When they had a short leave one summer, Stefan, who had nowhere to go since he had broken all contact with his parents, accepted the invitation of an army buddy of his, Craig Hannigan, to come with him and another friend of his, John Laurent, to Wayne, his hometown in New Jersey. There the three of them shared Craig's apartment.

The first time Stefan laid eyes on Amelia was when she came with her sister to visit their brother. Craig and John had half playfully and half seriously kicked Stefan out in the hallway for smoking and he found a window seal to sit on, next to the staircase. He heard that there were people coming up the stairs but didn't move or even turned to look at them when they passed by. Only when one of the two girls made a scolding remark about him polluting the air Stefan barely turned his head to the right to glance at her from the corner of his eye. But instead of the girl who had made the remark, he spotted the other one, who was closer and no longer bothered to look at the other girl as well. He maintained eye contact for a few moments then looked away, resuming his business.

When he returned to the apartment Stefan heard noises coming from the kitchen and assumed everyone was there. Before joining them he made a stop in his room where he came across the girl he had just recently met on the staircase. She was there because she offered to get some music CDs that Craig mentioned since she knew where they were. Craig and John were old high-school friends, so Amelia knew him too and had been at his house many times before. He was like a brother to her. Everything happened so fast when the girls arrived that Craig forgot to mention Stefan and that he had the spare bedroom.

Inevitably they engaged in a conversation and Stefan developed an interest for the innocent-looking but witty girl. As with everything concerning his feelings he didn't visibly show his interest but acted neutrally while at the same time trying to arouse her interest as well. During that same day as well as the following ones, whenever they met, whether at the apartment or in town, he continued to maintain a neutral attitude while interacting with her, especially since they were always in the company of Craig, John, Brooke and sometimes other friends of theirs.

The first time they met alone was when Amelia came to the apartment late one evening looking for her brother, or so she claimed. Putting together all the information he had, Stefan concluded that she had to know where John and Craig were, which meant that she had come on purpose, knowing he was alone. They spend half of the night on the living room sofa, listening to music and chatting. At this point Stefan slowly shed his neutral approach, becoming less secretive and more open to human emotions. He discovered that Amelia was someone who understood his way of thinking, who had the patience and interest to listen to his rationalizations and philosophical deliberations and who shared his sense of humor, although when it came to jokes she was more playful while he was mostly sarcastic - in general, but not with her. He in fact took her advice and tried to be more understanding with people.

The other half of the night they spent in the bedroom after a debate involving sex topics eventually brought to light their passion for each other and they went on to put into practice the theory they had just discussed. John never knew that Amelia had been there that night, since when he and Craig came back home in the morning they didn't go in Stefan's room to check on him, knowing he disliked it very much when people invaded his privacy without a good reason. After waking up, Amelia and Stefan snuck out past Craig sleeping on the couch and went out to enjoy a day in town all by themselves for the first time.

In the following few weeks that Stefan spent in town he and Amelia continued to see each other whenever possible without making their romance known to anyone. Although they were close and he liked being with her, Stefan always alluded to the importance of enjoying the moment and avoided discussing about relationships or making plans. He also told her from the beginning about his profession and that he could be called back at any time. When that time finally came he promised to keep in touch with her and visit her at Princeton if he ever got the chance.


Madeleine (daughter).

Not long after he left he received a call from Amelia who told him that she was pregnant. Someone who was familiar with Stefan's personality and his general view on life would have expected him to ask her if she wanted to keep the baby or suggest that she considered an abortion. Such thoughts didn't even cross his mind when he heard the news. From the first moment he perceived it as his responsibility to take care of Amelia and their still unborn child because it was something that he was directly responsible for.

All he could do on the phone was try to calm her, as she sounded very frightened, try to tell her that it wasn't such a desperate situation and advise her to seek the help of a good friend if family was unreliable. Despite her pleas he could not come to her as he had to deploy the following day and that was something he couldn't postpone. First and foremost he had to respect the rules and obey the orders if he wanted to advance in his career, and that was one thing he wanted and needed to do beyond anything else.

During deployment he communicated with her only through emails, no more than four in over seven months, since where he was it was difficult to gain access to communication equipment for personal use. On the other hand he also thought it best to avoid communicating with her because he feared that if he kept thinking of her and their unexpected situation it might distract him while out on the field.

As soon as he returned from deployment he requested permission for a temporary leave, stating his purpose and making plans in advance for Amelia and their new born child to come live with him on base. It was no longer something he could postpone. He had to do what he had promised and what was right. When he met with Amelia he spoke of marriage as if it was a business proposal. He simply said that they should get married because it was their duty as parents to offer their child a good life.

Stefan's behavior didn't show that he did not like the situation or that he did not care for Amelia but that was just his way of being: serious, practical and to the point. In a way he had a neutral attitude towards the situation because it wasn't neither something he wished he didn't have nor something he had always hoped for and which now should have been like a dream come true. In his life so far Stefan hadn't given much thought to serious commitments nor did he see marriage as a compulsory future goal. He didn't discard it either but merely thought that if it happened, it happened.

Their marriage was a hasty one and it consisted only in signing the necessary papers with Stefan's good friend Jeff Sanderson and his wife Pamela as witnesses and no other guests. To talk Amelia out of wanting a classical wedding, Stefan told her that there was no time for it, that they didn't have enough money (which was ironical since Stefan's family was wealthy enough, but he had chosen to make his own money and take nothing from them), that religious ceremonies didn't really mean anything and if she wanted to wear a nice dress and go to a party she could do it any other time. He also never wore his wedding ring because he did not like jewelry on men and he would have had to take it off while on missions anyway. It was not a rule, but it was smarter to do so.

As for their daughter Madeleine, Stefan did not take long to accept the new situation, being able to adapt to anything with ease, and he also had some experience with taking care of small children from back in his childhood and teenage years when he helped his parents take care of his younger brother by ten years. Whenever he was at home he enjoyed spending time with his daughter, playing with her, teaching her things but he was not the sentimentalist type to be upset about not being there to see her first steps, hear her first word or other such things. If he saw that she could do those things, that she was healthy and happy, then he was happy too.

His relationship with his wife was similar. Stefan grew up to be a person who although was caring and compassionate and not as heartless as some might think him, was not prone to express his emotions verbally. He thought it was better to show his affection through gestures, such as helping Amelia whenever she needed something, giving her things she wanted and providing for his family in general. The long, exhausting trainings, dangerous deployments and other problems that came with the job sometimes caused Stefan to be less talkative and more distant towards his family.

The good thing was that no matter the problem, no matter what injuries he had suffered or what situation he had faced he was not the type to be overwhelmed by anger and take it out on his wife when he came home. He never mistreated or hurt her in any way, neither physically nor verbally and he rarely got into arguments because whenever Stefan was in a bad mood he isolated himself from everything and everyone until he came to terms with what was bothering him or found a solution for the problem. If he could not find the required solitude at home then he would postpone going there until he had resolved his issues.



[ Marriage and Divorce... ]


Amelia (wife) and Madeleine (daughter).

Amelia and Stefan were married for almost five years, time in which they hadn't spent half as much time together as married couples would. At first Stefan tried to follow Amelia's advice and pursue a career as an officer without signing up for deployment but he soon realized that it was not the kind of life he wanted. Despite his wife's protests he signed up with the Special Forces and eventually with Delta Force, volunteering to go on missions even when he was not requested to.

Amelia and Stefan's marriage was by far an ideal one. In fact, they only had a piece of paper that showed they were married, because other than that they rarely spent time together, with Stefan being away for months in a row. Sometimes he even chose to go away on purpose, wanting to get away from a life that he had more or less been forced to live. He cared for Amelia and respected her, but there was no genuine love to make the marriage what it should be. The main reason they continued to be married was the same reason that had brought them together, their daughter Madeleine.

Even so, one day, after five years of marriage, Stefan told his wife in a most direct manner, right after he had returned from a mission, that they had to separate. He remained cold to her crying, her pleads and all of her questions, since he hadn't given her a clear explanation, and only told her that it was best for her and Madeleine to move away and have nothing to do with him anymore. What he never told his wife was that when you are with the Special Forces missions tend to get more personal. Since it's not always about a large war but mostly small conflicts involving fewer people, it is easier for the enemy to recognize you as an individual and not as a random soldier, similar to many others.

While on the mission, the man they were after took notice of Kaye, since he was in charge of the operation and sent him a "notice" one morning. It was a large bag containing the savagely mutilated bodies of a young woman and an even younger girl, a child no more than four years old. Soon afterwards he received a phone call from the same man who had sent the "package". He wanted to make sure it arrived intact and told Kaye that unless he gave into his demands the next package he received would contain the bodies of his wife and daughter. Eventually Kaye and his team were successful in killing the man and disbanding his illegal operations but the threat he had received marked him deeply.

He had always thought that such a thing could happen but he hopped that it never would. Even more disturbing was the fact that the man had managed to find out about Kaye's family in such a short time and even chose as victims for his "present" a woman and a girl that resembled Kaye's wife and daughter. Until he got in touch with his wife and found out that she and Madeleine were safe at home, Stefan had actually believed that they were the ones in the bag. Now, only the recollection of the way he felt in that moment convinced him that separating from his family was the only way to be sure they were safe.

Throughout the following six (almost seven) years in which Amelia got no word from Stefan, she got support from her older brother John who perceived the situation from a different point of view, since he had been in the military himself. Although he did not agree with Stefan's abrupt decision, he did understand his motifs better. On the other hand, Amelia's younger sister Brooke was less understanding than Amelia herself. She had quite a temper and had never held back in the past from telling Stefan to his face what she thought of him. Now she had more reasons than ever to hate him for all the suffering he had caused her sister and on many occasions Amelia ended up defending Stefan, despite her own feelings, whenever she was quarrelling with her sister.

Eventually Amelia and Madeleine got more attached to Stefan's parents than either he or his younger brother ever did, and during the years following the divorce they had always offered their support to their granddaughter and daughter-in-law. With both sons having disobeyed them and joined the military without their approval, with Filipp rarely visiting and Stefan disappearing completely for six years, the older couple felt that Amelia and Madeleine were the only family they had left. They also formed a tight friendship with Amelia's family.



[ One More Ex-Wife ... ]


Natasha Andrews (second wife).

Born on the 24th of October 1971, Natasha is one year older than Stefan. She and Stefan met when she, as an NCO working at the Office of Personnel Management for the Department of Defense, was ordered to conduct a series of investigations prior and after Stefan's recruitment by Gray Fox to determine where his true loyalties lay and what were his connections with the members of his Russian family on his father's side who were involved in criminal and even terrorist activities.

Their interactions turned into a cat-and-mouse game with her insisting to dig deeper and find something incriminatory and him teasing her about her own Russian heritage; she is half Cuban and half Russian, hence her first name. When he found out about her secretly checking up on him, in accordance with her assignment, Stefan decided to play her game and make her believe that her assumptions were true. He unexpectedly travelled to Russia on a more obscure route, knowing that she would follow, hoping to catch him red handed in the middle of some criminal activities and maybe even treason. But once there he surprised her by waiting for her in her hotel room and revealing that he had known about what she was doing all along.

Eventually their trip to Russian turned into a self-discovery and self-acceptance journey for Natasha who, because of Stefan, found out some unpleasant things from her own past and that the existing information could cause her to be put under investigation back in the States. After the events they went though in Russia Natasha and Stefan discovered that they had much in common, and with him being a bit emotionally unstable after his recent divorce he rushed into marrying her right there in Russia.

Back in the US where they resumed their jobs, their marriage proved to be more difficult to sustain then they had originally imagined... or didn't think much about it for that matter. He had to return to Fort Bragg, where he lived and worked while she had to go back to Washington, where she lived and worked. For a few moths they managed to keep up somehow their at-a-distance marriage, but such a marriage was almost impossible to last. No compromises could be reached. Stefan had no intention of leaving active duty and Natasha had no desire to leave her job in Washington to go be an army wife. At the end of the eight month they signed the divorce papers.



[ Recent Developments & Secrets from the Past ... ]

The year when Stefan turned 36 had been a very eventful one, most of those events being shocking for common people but apparently only regular occurrences for Stefan's family. What he was most grateful for was getting back in touch with his parents, with whom he had not spoken in almost 14 years, ever since he decided to join the military right after graduating from college. Back then they had made it clear that he had disappointed them by joining the army but eventually they learned to accept the situation, having no other choice. Stefan knew this from his younger brother who had kept in touch with them and visited them from time to time even though he too had shattered their expectations when he decided to follow in his brother's footsteps.

Unlike Stefan who attended college, Harvard even for one semester before requesting transfer to a public college, Filipp did not even go to a regular high-school, choosing a military school instead. Even so, Stefan always thought that his parents were still more disappointed with him than Filipp who they probably saw as a victim of his older brother's influences. Feeling responsible for his brother's well being more than ever, after he joined the military Stefan kept in touch with him frequently over the years. Not only Filipp but also his uncle in Russia of all people advised him to go see his family again but he always found some excuse to postpone this.

They might have forgiven him and they might be willing to welcome him back like nothing happened, and knowing his parents they probably would, but Stefan did not feel ready for it. Even though he did not regret the decisions he had made in his life he still felt embarrassed for disappointing his parents and putting them through so much emotional pain. Until he was ready to face them he preferred to keep in touch with them from a distance, to check on them without them knowing about it.

He would go to various social events where he knew his parents would be present, events that weren't the kind he enjoyed frequenting. In fact he had little interest for public events of any kind and mingled with civilians outside work only when he had to, for various reasons. But since he was living a constant interior conflict which kept alive both the desire to have a normal relationship with his parents once again and the shame of having to face them after having disappointed them, that was the only solution he could think of. At least seeing them healthy and happy brought him some comfort and it proved that the family issues he had caused had not destroyed their lives.

Yet those were all Stefan's own suppositions because in the past year he had come to learn that things were not at all as he had thought. He stood face to face with his mother for the first time in almost 14 years in the most bizarre of circumstances, abroad, on a mission, when the person who shot two guards who would have apprehended him and compromised the success of his mission turned out to be none other than his mother. As a first response she only said:
'Well son, if you do not call and disappear for fourteen years, what is a mother to do?'

Later they had a more elaborate talk where Stefan received more shocking information. His mother had used her connections to keep tabs on him over the years, simply because she was worried about him and at the same time she didn't want to be the first to go to him, knowing it might bruise his ego and bring him emotional complications that he didn't like having. She knew very well that a distracted soldier was a dead soldier and she did not want to force her son into quitting the career he had chosen. First of all she knew her son well enough to know that he would never do that no matter what she said and the ongoing quarrel would push them apart even more and secondly, she was in fact proud of her son's choice.

'I hope you don't find it emasculating that you inherited the passion for fighting from me instead of your father', she had told him, which made him further stare agape, unable to process rapidly the new and very unexpected information. Delia admitted to her son that she and Michael, Stefan's father, only pretended to be very saddened and disappointed by their son's choice of becoming a soldier because they wanted to think they could actually leave their past behind, actually part for good with all the relatives, mostly distant, they were tied to, back in Russia.

Unfortunately, when you come from an important bloodline and are born into an extensive family encompassing both important social figures and notorious criminals, a family split in two sides constantly fighting each other but where no one is what they seem to be and it is impossible to actually determine what side they are actually on (possibly because they switch sides constantly depending on their interests), it is impossible to run away from your past. It will always catch up with you.

By saying that Stefan had inherited his desire to be a soldier, a warrior, from her, Delia referred to her own past. She went to college all the way from Greece to Russia, despite the dangers she was facing being who she was, though her true identity was kept secret to the point that it became like a dream, because she wanted to take revenge against those who had butchered her family, her mother's family in fact since Delia never met them. Her mother, a duchess of the Romanov dynasty, had managed to escape the carnage that befell the royal family in the revolution and fled to Greece. There she married a kind, simple man and lived a common life, though always fearing they might find her there. No one ever did, perhaps her existence was irrelevant to them after all.

But Delia wanted to fight, to get revenge and recover what was rightfully theirs though she did not know where to start. Her rebelliousness and lack of support might have gotten her killed if she hadn't had the fortune of meeting a younger boy who understood her but also knew how dangerous such a plan was. Instead he proposed they fled far away from all the madness, let things calm down and then make amends in a more diplomatic fashion once they were well off and had built the support they needed. Delia agreed to move to the US with Michael, Mikhail at the time for he had not yet changed his name, and no longer thought twice about leaving once she got pregnant. For the sake of her child's safety she knew she had to leave but she wanted to finish college first so she gave birth to her first son, whom she named Stepan, before leaving Russia.

Stefan's father, Michael Kaye born Mikhail Karpov, also came from a prestigious family that had been close to the royal Romanov family. Unfortunately, besides producing men and women of valor it also produced some of the most feared criminal bosses in modern Russian history so Mikhail and Delia together in Russia, trying to live a normal life as a couple and raise their child would have most likely been impossible. There would have been great pressure on Mikhail from both sides of his large family, the good and the bad so to say, pressure for him to make a decision and pick a side, which he did not want. For that reason he chose to leave.

The family's greatest secret (though now known by a close few) is that Delia's mother, Stefan's maternal grandmother, was a sister of Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, the last Emperor of Russia, and thus held the title of Grand Duchess. As such, Delia theoretically inherited the official title of Princess, and her sons Stefan and Filipp that of Prince. Also, this makes them some of the few still living direct descendants of the Romanov dynasty and in turn, heirs to the now split fortune accumulated over centuries of Romanov rule.

With the help of his uncle in Russia, Sergei Karpov, Stefan is now attempting to recover some of that lost fortune, though mostly for charitable reasons. In the chaos that unfolded after the removal and execution of the last emperor, and in the communist decades that followed, the fortune was split and part of it ended up in the possession of criminal entities who used it to fund their illegal (many times murderous and even terrorist) activities. Most of these people come from the so-called "bad side" of the Karpov family.



[ Ex-almost-Wife ... ]


Rachel Gattina.

Born on the 18th of March 1984, Rachel is 12 years younger than Stefan. Although they first became acquainted at the opening of the hotel his parents had bought and renovated in New York, Stefan had seen Rachel before and had developed some profound feelings despite not having met her personally. Rachel Gattina was a young supermodel responsible for making Stefan secretly have something that he otherwise thought to be lame and pathetic, namely a crush on a picture from a magazine. The very word crush, unless it meant to physically crush something or someone, felt emasculating to Stefan and he avoided using it even in his thoughts.

The first time he had seen Rachel had been in a girly magazine, as he called them, which he came across by pure coincidence. The number featured a "high-school hottie" on the cover, as the headline read, and that schoolgirl was Rachel, only 17 at the time. Seventeen or not she had a very alluring body and for his masculine urges details like those were irrelevant, and it was just a fantasy after all. Since he never bought such magazines or had any connections to the modeling or fashion world, he did not know where to look for other pictures of Rachel and so he missed almost all her appearances, until she became a model for a young up-and-coming fashion designer.

After a few appearances she all of a sudden vanished from the fashion industry and later, by pure coincidence, Stefan found her dancing in a nightclub owned by a Russian friend of his, Gavriil (former hitman for the mob back in Russia). He went there to meet with him and then saw her and made up some excuses to come a few times more, just to look at her from a distance. One time he overheard a conversation between Rachel and another dancing girl working there. It was enough to make Stefan understand why she was doing the things she was doing and he wanted to be Rachel's savior but he was afraid not to give her false hope and then not be able to meet her expectations. Because of that and other things, the situation was more complicated than it seemed and getting involved with Rachel then might have not been too good for her.

The next time he came she wasn't there anymore and a few months later he learned from his brother that she had became a famous model working actually for the sister in law of a colleague and good friend of his, Jeff Sanderson. He was happy to see she was doing better and thought that barging into her life might end up destroying all that, so he stayed away. But she found him. Even though Stefan was living at Fort Bragg and always going on missions while Rachel worked as a model in New York, and also sometimes travelled for work, and despite their relationship being in general just a series of sexual encounters whenever they had the chance to meet, Stefan still thought that she was his everything and that they could never separate.

They were perfect together, had so much in common as far as emotions and experiences were concerned and he was perhaps the only man who truly understood her, why she behaved the way she did. He loved her the way she was and loved to be there for her ... but not as much as she would have wanted. Stefan still had no intention of leaving his demanding military career and could not be the man she needed, living with her, being there for her each day. She also had vocalized no desire of becoming an army wife, which meant giving up on her fashion career, especially now that she had managed to come back from a very dark period and rise professionally as far as becoming a famous model for Victoria's Secret.

So, with Stefan coming to visit only whenever he managed to take two or three days off from work every few months, Rachel sough comfort in foreign arms. This devastated Stefan who had become so emotionally involved in the relationship and had so much hope for it. Logic did tell him that the outcome was only natural, giving the distant relationship they had, but that was no comfort. He had to accept the situation because he had no other choice but emotional recovery seemed impossible. Once again he shut himself off from the civilian world and dedicated his whole time and attention to, perhaps his real and only true love, the army.



[ Becoming Reacquainted with Madeleine and Amelia... ]

- Coming soon -



[ Major Influences in His Life... ]


Sergei Karpov(uncle).



Irina Derevko(aunt).



- Coming soon -