Page 17 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ajax

Ajax Freedom, the angels are on my side, and the demon gods you pray to are powerless against me.

“Nothing. Just counting.” Ajax’s fingers didn’t stop moving. “It helps when I feel restless.”

“You can stop.” Dmytro took hold of his hands. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not afraid. Not the way you think.”

“Then what?” Dmytro couldn’t stand the haunted look on Ajax’s face just then.

“It helps me redirect my focus. If I can’t get rid of some redundant, obsessive thought, I might stay awake all night worrying. Or I might freeze and be unable to do something important like go to class on a test day or dispute a miscalculated bill.”

“I see.” Dmytro gave the explanation some thought. “You rechannel your focus when you become anxious.”

“Exactly. When my thoughts get paralyzing, that’s when the compulsions start. And I hate going down that road, so I pick something harmless. Counting. Reciting formulas. Old habits.”

Dmytro lowered his eyes. “What are you thinking now?”

“Pi,” Ajax admitted. “I imagine the decimals jumping over a fence in a field like sheep.”

“Before that,” Dmytro asked. “What made you start tapping?”

“I was… remembering Anton.”

“Me too.” Dmytro gave a soft nod and let his hands go. “Talk to me. Tell me what you remember.”

“When I was little, he piggybacked me all over the gardens like he was my personal horse.” Ajax shifted against the seat. “Once, I overheard my mom say he and Katya wanted children, but the universe seemed to be making other plans.”

“Oh.” Dmytro’s stomach dropped. “I always wondered.”

“They seemed happy to me,” Ajax offered, “but what do kids know?”

“A lot.” Dmytro pulled out his phone and held it between his hands.

His daughters’ picture lit up his home screen, but he didn’t actually look at it.

As though he could feel their light, their warmth, through his fingertips, he smiled.

“Kids always know more than their parents are willing to share. They can read the atmosphere of a home, and no matter what you try to tell them… Perhaps they see into your heart until they grow older—”

“And learn to doubt their instincts.” Ajax nodded “Since one or both of my parents missed my entire childhood, I’m not sure my experience counts.”

“That’s no good.” Dmytro glanced up and their eyes met. He was probably wearing his heart on his sleeve, but Ajax had touched on his deepest fears. “I keep in touch with my daughters every single day. We text or video chat at least three times a day. I hope they—”

“My parents wanted to be there for me.” Ajax licked his lips. “But they had super important jobs. Someone had to take one for the team. It wasn’t always me. Plus, they left me in excellent hands. I’m not messed up by it or anything.” He gave a nervous laugh. “Well, I am messed up, but not by them.”

“I hate being an absentee father. I worry constantly.” Dmytro gave Ajax’s back another awkward pat.

“After my wife died, I faced the dilemma of doing work that only I can do—work I’m good at, which pays extremely well—or staying home with Sasha and Pen and finding some other kind of job. I second-guess my decision every day.”

“Maybe you’ll find another woman you love.”

Dmytro wanted to say it wasn’t possible. He’d tried. He couldn’t stop himself from comparing every other woman to Yulia. He felt disloyal even thinking about it now. He wished he could break the ice surrounding his heart, but it seemed he was a one-woman man.

Ajax glanced shyly at him and then down at his hands. Dmytro was suddenly embarrassed by the whole conversation. It was too intimate in the cramped rear seat of the girl’s car. Too charged with emotion.

“Maybe I’ll look for someone,” he finally lied.

“In the meantime”—Ajax said the words in a rush—“I’m sure your girls know you love them.

But I’ll tell you something I was just thinking.

There’s an app called SkySafari, and you can put it on your phone and plug in any geographical coordinates.

When you and your girls go to bed at night, wherever you are in the world, you can see the same sky.

That’d be something, right? Them being able to see the exact stars you’re looking at?

The position of the moon? Or you could pick a third place and pretend you’re there together? ”

“SkySafari?” Dmytro’s voice thickened.

“It’s a very small world now, you know? You can be anywhere, with anyone, in real time if you’re lucky enough to have the resources. That’s… maybe going to be my new goal. To help kids get the same technical resources I had so they aren’t ever… alone.”

“Because of your parents.”

Ajax nodded. “I wouldn’t trade my parents for anyone, even if they might be thinking about trading me right now.”

“Your parents are only worried about your safety.”

“They’re disappointed too.” Ajax’s fingers started ticking again. “They thought I’d go to grad school and make a name for myself.”

Dmytro suppressed a grin. “You got things half right. Tell me about that.”

“About what?”

“Ajax Freedom.” Dmytro said it with a tinge of disgust. “Tell me about the billionaire brat pack and all that entitled behavior because that’s… not really you, is it?”

“How would you know?” Ajax scoffed. “I’ve had access to the best of everything all my life. People fall all over themselves to please me. Of cours e I’m an entitled jerk.”

“I… don’t see it.” Dmytro studied him carefully. “Anymore.”

Ajax gave a chuckle. “Just wait, baby. Because I’m sure a meltdown is coming, and when it does, you won’t know what hit you.”

“It did,” Dmytro pointed out. “It has.”

“When? Packing? Leaving? That fast-food thing? Pfeh. ” He waved his hand dismissively. “I was just warming up with the fast-food thing.”

“What I remember is you gave your scarf to someone who needed it more.”

“Well… that.” He let his hair fall over his eyes. “I have a million scarves.”

Dmytro glanced out the window. “You refused to leave Muse until she got help, and the danger there might have been very real.”

“We had no proof of that. It’s my parents who believe I’m in danger. Those notes—”

“Would be terrifying to any parent.” Dmytro was a parent. He’d kill anyone who threatened his daughters, and no one would ever find the body.

“Any parent who’s never been on the web. Believe me. Threats like those are a dime a dozen. You could post a smiley face and get threats like those. It’s probably a Russian bot.”

“Zhenya believes the threat. And I assure you, he’s not in the habit of wasting the clients’ money.”

“If you say so.” Ajax settled back into his seat. “How come you don’t drive?”

Dmytro lifted his hand to feel for the thick scar on the back of his head. “I got a head injury on the job. Right afterward, I had some seizures, so now I’m under observation. I’ll get to drive again when enough time has passed without one.”

Ajax tightened his lips. “I hate that anybody might be injured because of me.”

“That’s the job, Ajax.” He’d said the words softly—uttered Ajax’s given name with too much familiarity. Now he wanted to catch hold of it and pull it back because it said too much about him. Ajax had heard the difference. His expression said he liked it.

“I didn’t mean for things to go so far,” Ajax finally confessed.

“I knew what I said on those videos and podcasts crossed a big fat line, but it seemed like the more I put a target on my back, the more people engaged with each other. I mean, even if it was against me, I thought I was making people think. Negotiate. Communicate. Come together.”

Dmytro sighed. “I can truly see how you’d believe that, but you were naive.”

“Okay, maybe. But now everyone ‘thinks’ I’m a jerk.” He used air quotes.

“I don’t think you’re a jerk,” Dmytro offered. “You simply chose the worst possible way to achieve what you believe in.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“Yes, you are.” Dmytro turned away and pulled out his phone. A thick silence descended again.

“Everything okay back there?” Bartosz eyed them both in the rearview mirror.

Ajax wrapped his arms around himself. “I don’t suppose you remembered to ship all my things ahead.”

“Ha, ha.” When Bartosz braked for a red light, he turned. “If you need medication, I’ll make certain you have it wherever we’re going.”

“Where’s that?”

Bartosz said, “That’s need-to-know.”

“ I need to know.” He stared from one man to the other. “Honestly? Do you seriously think I’m leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for someone who wants to purify me ‘for the good of the world’?”

“No, we don’t think that.”

“Well, what, then? I have the world’s best stalker?” His eyes widened. “Or do you have a leak on your side.”

Bartosz and Dmytro exchanged a glance. Dmytro said, “Not likely.”

“But not impossible?” Ajax asked.

Bartosz’s face was lined with exhaustion. “We’re just playing it safe.”

When the light changed, he turned back to the road. Dmytro thumbed through pictures on his phone.

As usual, Ajax had to fill every silence. “Are you talking to your girls?”

“They’ve been asleep for hours by now. You should follow their example.”

“I will as soon as my mind shuts down.”

“What will it take?” asked Bartosz.

Ajax rubbed his eyes. “Exhaustion, probably.”

Dmytro put his phone down. “You’re not exhausted? After the day you’ve had? Do you need me to read you a story?”

Ajax’s flinty look put Dmytro on high alert. “What will make you stop treating me like a child?”

“I’m not—”

“I could blow you. I’m awesome at it. I can give you references. I could rim you.” Ajax’s mutinous glare singed him. “Ride you like a horse until you scream and I cream all over your face.”

“Ajax.” Dmytro concealed the sudden burst of lust that shot through him at Ajax’s coarse words. He hoped he did.

“Or…” Ajax leaned closer and spoke at a near whisper. “You could fuck me from behind like an animal. Push me up against a wall and pound me. Or wait—I’d like to get on all fours while you grip my hair and push so deep you strike sparks in my heart.”

Bartosz shook with laughter. “Oh, brother, how I wish you could drive.”

Dmytro stilled every muscle in his body and forced his face into its normal neutral stare. The thing he couldn’t control, his treacherous heart, beat double-time while his shock passed.

“Or I could have Bartosz play an audiobook.” He narrowed eyes he knew to be too cold and not blue enough.

With a put-upon sigh, Ajax flopped in his seat. “What’ve you got?”

Bartosz took pity on Dmytro and cleared his throat before asking, “I’ve got A Brief History of Time ? That should put you to sleep.”

“I’ve already read that, and it probably wouldn’t. But anything’s okay as long as it’s not some self-help motivational book.”

“You don’t read those?’

“I read everything, but I bought this motivational audiobook for a long flight and that’s why I walked away from Ajax Freedom.” If possible, he made himself smaller. “After I read it, I couldn’t be Ajax Freedom anymore.”

“How come?”

“Because I loathed him and everything he stood for, and suddenly getting people to think about important things by pretending to be everything I hate made no sense.”

“It made sense before you read the book?” Dmytro asked, fascinated.

Ajax’s gaze slid away. “Not exactly. But I dug the attention, all right? It was fun. Sometimes.”

“You had power.”

“Yeah.”

“I understand.”

“Living an authentic life is hard fucking work.” Ajax whispered. “Sometimes I’m so exhausted I can’t sleep.”

“I can turn on the radio,” Bartosz offered. “Or use a pressure point to knock you unconscious.”

Ajax huffed another sigh. “Liquor is easier. Can we stop someplace and get some?”

“No.” God help me. “Alcohol is not a good sleep strategy.”

Ajax turned his back. “This is turning out to be the longest night.”

“I can sing Ukrainian lullabies.” Dmytro gave it a shot. It worked for his girls, although Liv said they only slept to get away from the noise. Now his voice sounded barely used, like an ancient set of bagpipes wheezing to life.

“You sing your kids to sleep with that voice?”

Dmytro glared and kept on singing. Bartosz hummed along. The tune was simple. Universal. Ajax didn’t have a clue what the words meant, but for Dmytro the song was so painful just then, tears stung his eyes. Ajax stayed silent for a change, and shortly Dmytro trailed off.

He sensed the change in Ajax’s mood.

“What’s really bothering you, Ajax?”

I miss Anton and Katya so much right now.

Ajax didn’t say the words. He couldn’t. It was too raw.

Too intimate. Until that moment, he had never realized how much Anton had meant to him.

More than an uncle. More like his grandfather, who shared time and space and food with him, rather than simply hiring people who did.

He missed Anton’s wife, Katya, whose soft voice and sweet perfume seemed to have followed him there, to the lost coast of California.

The plane crash that killed them had hurt so badly he’d barely spoken a word for six months. Their funeral was agonizing. And now he faced this reminder with Anton’s face, and mannerisms, and even his voice—this constant living proof—that his Anton was gone and never coming back.

Dmytro looked like him, but he was not the same.

Dmytro was cold winter where Anton had been spring.

Taciturn where Anton had always smiled. Ajax stayed where he was, doing his best to sniffle quietly and wiping his snot and tears on his sleeves.

Eventually, he drifted off to visions of Anton and Katya dragging him into some folk dance he didn’t know how to do.

They used to laugh and stay up late all the time when his parents traveled. Sometimes he caught them kissing in the shadows of his parents’ enormous McMansion. Laughter had never fit him as well, or felt as good, since Anton and Katya died.

Maybe he could mourn them with Dmytro.

Maybe mourning would help both of them.