Page 31 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Dimitri

The Hitman’s Halfway House for Kidnapped Girls

Ever since James invited a civilian to live with us, we typically meet in Wesley’s office for discussions related to our work.

It is several degrees warmer in here than the rest of the house from the mechanical whirring of too many electronics, and smells faintly of burnt plastic and the odors of a body.

The signs of Wesley are everywhere, mostly in the form of empty energy drink cans piled together and surfaces covered in electrical projects half-completed.

When I approach, James and Wesley are in the middle of a heated debate about something asinine. I stop to listen for a moment. It is familiar and comfortable, like the feeling of coming home.

“All I’m sayin’ is, don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” James says, brandishing a tall glass that is full of ice and a brown liquid sloshing around. “It’s a completely different beverage.”

Wesley scoffs, sitting back in his mesh desk chair with his fingers laced behind his head. “And what I’m saying is, no self-respecting Brit would, sorry.”

“Hot leaf water—‘scuse me, tea —has its place and all, but nothing beats a good southern sweet tea on a hot day. Just like mama used to make.” James turns to me, lifting his drink and shaking it so the ice rattles against the glass. “Back me up here, D. ”

I lift a brow. I know James is originally from somewhere in the southeastern US and has a large family still living there, but he does not speak of it often. “It is four degrees Celsius outside.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“You know where I am from, and you know the kinds of things I prefer to consume. You think I would choose a cold beverage that is full of sugar?”

Wesley smirks, and James scowls, sitting back in his chair. With a huff of a sigh, he takes a deep sip and places it on the glass top of Wesley’s desk. “I dunno, I guess I thought I could always count on Russia and England to be on opposite sides.”

“Well, politically , we don’t really align. Dictator regime and all that,” Wesley says, his accent becoming more pronounced as he thinks of his home country. He lifts James’s glass and slides a coaster in the shape of an alien underneath.

“I did not vote for him,” I shrug.

Wesley laughs, then turns to James and says, “See, it’s funny because—”

“I know why it’s funny, you condescending asshole,” James says, his grin more a baring of teeth than a smile. He turns to me and gestures to the middle of his own face. “Well, you’re looking a bit worse for wear, Big D. Nice shiners. Broken?”

I huff a sigh.

He nods towards the outline of the gauze patch I inexpertly affixed while cleaning my wound after the shower. “And how’s the gunshot healing?”

The pain is dull and easy to ignore unless I think about it, which is the benefit of having a high pain tolerance and a properly treated wound, even one that has recently taken damage. “Nothing to concern yourself with.”

“Missed all the important stuff, then?”

“A graze. Still, I hate to be shot.”

James snorts. “Could have been worse. I’ll remind you that you’re the one who won’t carry a gun.”

James’s derision makes some sense, as he would never allow himself to be parted from the long-range rifle he considers to be an extension of himself.

The way he cleans it is so obsessive that I cannot help but approve.

He confessed to me once that he does not keep track of his kills, only the shots he has missed. That metric can be counted on one hand.

“Nah, I’m with Dimitri on this one. Guns make you a target—well, at close range anyway,” Wesley corrects. James is usually too far away to be spotted, let alone shot at.

“Like being the size of a fuckin’ house doesn’t make him a big enough target already.” James laughs once. “Eh, I guess I see your point.”

“If they cannot dodge a knife, they do not deserve to carry a gun.”

There is a beat, and they both grin, sharing a look. “Add that one to the Google Doc,” James says, jerking his chin at Wesley.

“Way ahead of you,” he returns smoothly, placing his hands back on the large, rainbow-backlit keyboard and hammering something out.

“What Google Doc?” I ask, lost.

“We’ve got a shared document called ‘Dimitri-isms’—we’re writing down all your little pearls of wisdom.”

I scowl. He says it as if it is something I should be flattered by, but it does not feel like a compliment. It feels like another joke that they make where I am the subject, but do not share in the humor. “You record the things I say? Why?”

James hides his grin as he grabs for his phone and flicks his thumb across a page of—presumably—the recorded things I have said.

“It’s good stuff. Like, ‘shortcuts are for people who are too lazy to take the time to do something correctly’ and ‘dull blades are better at weighing down paper than cutting it,’ things like that. ”

“My favorite is, ‘planning is pointless if you cannot account for the unaccountable,’” Wesley adds, joined by James’s nod of confirmation. “I liked that one—good wordplay.”

I lift a brow. “Ah, I see. Things that are true.”

“Useful knowledge, poetically put,” Wesley says, his tone a singsong recitation.

“To what end?”

James scratches at his jaw, the motion rasping the wrong way against his facial hair. “To… have it? Hey, who knows, maybe the next generation of hitmen-and-women—hit-people?—would benefit from a manual of sorts. Wesley could post it anonymously on one of those forums.”

I consider it. The idea of a future generation benefiting from what my own father taught me and what I have taught myself is not such a bad thing. “I suppose, then, it is allowable. But if this is some kind of elaborate joke at my cost, I will be very displeased.”

“At your expense ,” Wesley corrects.

“That is what I said.”

James lifts two fingers in a mock salute. “Heard, Big D. Promise, no elaborate joke. It’s just stuff you’ve said that we like and want to remember.”

I suppose I have no reason not to believe them, other than the fact that they often share in jokes I do not understand. At the very least, they mentioned it to me when they could have remained silent about it, so it is nothing happening behind me.

I check my watch and sigh. We waste so much time.

“James, what updates on Volkevich?”

“Well, I followed Viktor back to his place and added his personal residence to our file. Also put a tracker on his car. He’s been lying pretty low, so I followed some of the goons he sent out back to the estate. As soon as the police cleared out, they went in. Tore the place a-fucking-part.”

“Looking for something?” I guess.

“Definitely. My hunch is they’re looking for that,” James jerks his chin at the bowl of rice on the far end of Wesley’s desk.

“Well then, let’s have a look, shall we?” Wesley nods, reaching for it. He digs in the grains for a few seconds, then produces the small device.

“The first rule of flash drives is never to plug one in if you’re uncertain you can trust it.

People find them on the street all the time and let their curiosity get the better of them, not realizing how easy it is to program any number of nasty surprises onto one.

A clever hacker can steal your personal information and passwords, give your computer a virus, or even,” Wesley says, his voice straining as he bends at the waist to fit the device into the USB port of his computer, “send your location to whoever created the program.”

“Wes, what the hell!” James shouts, pointing down. “You just said—”

“You think a computer I built can’t overwrite whatever command this was set up with? I thought you thought more of me than that,” he says, scoffing indignantly.

James rolls his eyes, sits back in his chair, and kicks his legs out straight while he crosses his arms. “My apologies, genius. Think it’ll even work after its impromptu bath?”

“We’re about to find out.”

I grip the edge of the desk I am leaning against and watch the screen closely.

There is nothing except the soft, constant noise of a computer fan for several long seconds, then two windows pop up at once, and James’s hoot of triumph matches the tone of my sigh of relief.

It is not ruined from being in my pocket when I jumped in after Nicole.

In one of the windows, Wesley types a few things—likely doing exactly what he promised and overwriting the flash drive’s protocol—and I focus on the other one as words appear.

“Looks like…” Wesley squints as we all move closer to the screen to see the tiny writing.

“Russian,” I finish .

“Shall I run it through a translator, or do you want to do the honors?” Wesley asks, turning his head just far enough to see me in his peripheral vision. “My vocabulary is conversational at best, or things I’ve picked up from you. I think I know three different ways to call someone a testicle.”

“We’ll have to compare notes; I’ve only got two,” James pretends to pout.

I scan the text, ignoring their quips. “It is warning against unauthorized use, and it wants a password.”

“Of course it does. Koz'ye yaichko ,” James sighs, calling whoever created the flash drive a goat’s testicle with a sly grin directed at me. His accent is terrible.

I huff, and Wesley presses his lips together against a laugh.

“Whatever it is, it must be important,” Wesley observes.

“That is putting it mildly. Kyle Volkevich tried to smuggle this out of the wedding inside another person. I agree with James—they are searching for this drive.” I gesture to the computer, where Wesley is making selections in windows that look completely foreign to me.

He types fluently in a language I will never know, and do not particularly care to. Four is plenty.