Born and raised in Louisiana, Kain Zarek was given an ignoble birth. His mother Irene died during labor, and the resulting resentment of that passing that his father carried soured much of his youth. Kain was raised in a broken home, with his father Johnathan jumping from woman to woman to fill the void that Irene's death left in him. What womanizing couldn't solve, compulsive gambling tried to fill, and Johnathan was often at back-room poker tables in the back of seedy bars, or inviting ne'er do wells that attended those games to his home. Johnathan, however, never directly took out his ire on Kain, bt instead by proxy of his associations degraded the young man's overall quality of life. The Zarek family was constantly in debt, often times to unscrupulous criminal organizations that Johnathan would take loans out with to further his gambling habit. Kain, in turn, began to fall into the wrong crowds in his early teen years. Becoming a favored friend of the gambling roughs that Johnathan associated with, soon coming into contact with members of the Marcello family, at the time New Orleans' most influential and powerful crime family. It was through this association, that Kain would come to find purpose in his adult life.
In 1987, Kain — thorugh his father's connections with the beleaguered Marcello family — came to work as a courier for the crime syndicate. Now 18 years old, he began to make a name for himself as a smuggler, bringing goods off of ships from Mexico in past customs and to the Marcello family's circle. He also began to work as a driver for Marcello family enforcers, learning the trade he would soon come to excel at.
While the Marcello family struggled to handle the family Partiarch's return from prison in 1989, Kain was working his way up the ladder of the family while they were at their weakest. Carlos was suffering from alzheimers, and the rest of the family was working to try and ensure their place in the pecking order of New Orleans organized crime. It was the perfect opportunity for young, charismatic and skilled man to make his name. By 1991 Kain had earned his stripes, replacing a wounded enforcer of the Marcello family to bust-heads and breaks legs. Now totally alienated by his father for his choice of career, Kain soon fell to the pitfalls of success — vice. Like his father, Kain's was gambling, and like his father before him he would borrow money from the Marcello family in order to pay off both his private and public debts. By the time Kain realized he was in over his head, it was simply too late to make a change. Without a college education and a spotty criminal record, there was little recourse. He was becoming a criminal for life, regardless of his desires, and he had to come to terms with that.
By the late 90's, Carlos Marcello had passed away, and much of the Marcello family's influence was slipping. Inter-criminal struggles for influence and power was taking its toll on the Marcellos, and Kain was put time and again into a position of violence. No longer was he merely a deal-sealer for the Marcellos, he was protection for the family's heir. This "job" found him in the precarious position of protecting Carlos Marcello Jr from the majority of other New Orleans thugs seeking to make a name for themselves. Most notably was an up-and-coming gang leader named "Knox". The gang Knox controlled was steadily gaining ground on the ailing Marcellos, as their allies backed out of deals after Carlos Sr's death.
By 2005 Kain was in a position of influence within the family, one of Carlos Jr's most trusted men. But this year was not kind to New Orleans, and the weakened Marcello family found itself strained to the breaking point by the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. With many of their primary storage houses crushed or flooded and dozens of their men dead, it was Knox's gang who swept through post-Katrina New Orleans like a wildfire, snatching up land and influence among the dissenting and disenfranchised locals. It was time for Kain to get out before he went down with the remainder of the Marcellos, so he packed up what money he could, and headed for the one place all criminals can find safe haven — Las Vegas.
For a man with Kain Zarek's credentials, finding a job opportunity in New Orleans wasn't strikingly difficult. A few well posed questions to the right members of the underworld sent a promising opportunity in his direction, that of hotel magnate and mobster Daniel Linderman. The influence of the Linderman Group could be felt over almost all of the United States' largest metropolitan areas to one extent or another, and the name was no stranger to Kain's tongue. Offering his services and experience to the Linderman group, he found himself working the casinos and illegal gambling rings, once more confronted by his vice of choices, succumbing to debt and destiny.
It was through debt to Daniel Linderman that Kain Zarek was forced into a bloodier line of work, one that Linderman saved for those who owed him a few favors. It was a simple enough job; take out a leggy blonde and kidnap her son. The problem being, Kain had a modicum of a conscience, and kidnapping children wasn't a part of it. When Kain refused the Sanders job, Linderman reminded Kain that the request was only for politeness' sake, and that it was an order.
The Sanders case would have Kain following the trail of bodies of Jessica Sanders across all of Arizona, until she wound up getting herself caught by a Linderman Group police officer on the Nevada highway. Kain later discovered the fate of other enforcers sent in to clean up the Sanders problem, and came to thank his luck at being one step behind her. By the time he caught up to her in Vegas, Jessica was working for Linderman, and Kain's debt would need to be alternatively resolved. As such, he was sent to New York City to keep an eye on Congressional candidate Nathan Petrelli, working with other Linderman-owned individuals to stake out the Petrelli Manor, and eventually come to discover Nathan's connections with the FBI, reporting back to Linderman on Nathan's comings and goings.
He would continue this activity, even after Nathan's compliance and Congressional win, up until the unthinkable happened, and the world changed forever.
The bomb was, at first, something that could be understood. Crazy extremists blew up the city, and Kain had a front-row seat for the festivities. Being within the Linderman building at the time of the explosion, Kain was a part of the security force that was responding to the chaos in the building at the time, but was unable to get to any of the action taking place. He witnessed the destruction of New York City first hand, and for his efforts was buried within the rubble of the decimation.
Surviving the blast was the end of Kain Zarek's normal life. Hospitalized in critical condition with severe radiation burns and terminal cancer, he was among many who would only serve to clog up the NYC hospital system until their eventual passing. However, it was Kain's forced — but diligent — service to the Linderman group that would find him making a miraculous recovery. Daniel Linderman's superhuman gift of healing afforded Kain a new life, but one that was entirely at the beck and call of Linderman. He would become, in the fallout of the bomb, one of Daniel's newest personal aids, heading up his vested interests in New York City, and working alongside Linderman's security team. Kain's decades of criminal experience and his charming persona served as a face within the new underworld that Linderman would need, and Kain's lack of Evolved status kept him off of important books and out of the scrutiny of Homeland Security.
Now at Daniel's beck and call, Kain Zarek was a prisoner within a cage of a city, in a world that had been turned upside down.
