Page 2 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER TWO

Ajax

Ajax Freedom. The bringer of death comes with torrents of blood and fire. Prepare yourself for the end of times. Prepare yourself to meet God’s judgment.

Dmytro read the latest threat out loud. Did they think Ajax couldn’t hear or that he wasn’t paying attention? Ajax studied his new bodyguard with a practiced eye, assessing him as possibly useful and definitely easy on the eyes. Maybe a little bit dangerous.

If only they’d met under different circumstances…

“What do you suppose it means,” he asked, “‘the bringer of death comes with torrents of blood and fire?’ Is that like a side order? Do you suppose we can substitute rice and beans?”

“Who can say?” Dmytro’s face remained blank. “We’ll ask him when he comes to kill you.”

“ Guh , I wish he’d do it and get it over with.” Ajax let his head fall back against the seat cushion. “This feels like one of the family vacations my parents couldn’t be bothered to show up for.”

Dmytro gave him a sarcastic poor-little-rich-boy glare as if he’d seen Ajax’s kind of privilege enough that it didn’t faze him anymore. “At least your parents cared enough to hire us.”

“Because of the death threats?” Ajax asked. “Everyone gets death threats online these days. Certainly anyone worth reading about.”

“Ajax Freedom” had done the unthinkable.

He’d flipped the tables on his audience and insulted their collective intelligence by showing what he really thought of them.

So, duh, he got death threats. He only needed protection until Iphicles Security Services found out whether his detractors were a credible threat, but it didn’t have to be him , did it? It didn’t have to be this Dmytro dude.

Dmytro looked at him like he was nothing—as if he thought he knew who and what Ajax Freedom was.

Everyone thought they knew, because Ajax had embodied his bougie tastemaker persona for a long time.

He’d slept around. Indulged himself with the finest of everything.

He drank too much and talked conservative political shit when he did, and everyone had listened.

He’d become an Instagram celebrity by hanging out with people who used each other to get ahead, and his message was basically, “I only say what we’re all thinking.”

Unfortunately, he’d gotten tired of Ajax Freedom, and he’d let the truth come out.

Online, in interviews, and in person, he’d let the world know that the person he was deep down inside wasn’t interesting or edgy or entertaining.

That person held a deep disdain for his audience, despite making bank on their interest in him.

Of course things hadn’t gone well after that.

If there was anyone in the entire world who didn’t know the scam Ajax Freedom had perpetrated, who didn’t hate him, who didn’t want to see him drummed off the internet forever, he didn’t know who that person could be.

He’d wanted to go back to being plain old Ajax Fairchild.

Except he didn’t like Ajax Fairchild much either.

At the drive-through, Dmytro leaped from the car and the wheelman, Bartosz, kept driving.

“What’s that about?” Ajax hadn’t expected to see his bodyguard leave first thing. Way to go. He’d already pissed the guy off so badly, he’d rather walk than be in the car with him.

“Dmytro will go in, and we will circle the block and pick him up. Better than to be boxed between cars in the drive-through lane with no route of escape.”

“Oh.” He slumped farther in his seat. Right. It’s not always about you. “But he doesn’t know what I want.”

“I’ll call him, and you can let him know.” Bartosz did something and Dmytro’s curt voice came from the car speakers.

“Bartosz, if you talk about corn dogs again—”

“The client has something he wishes to ask you. You’re on speaker.”

After a second’s pause, Dmytro answered, “Yes? How may I assist?”

Ajax clutched his ultrasoft fabric scarf. “Can I get a blue raspberry slush? With Nerds?”

“If that’s a thing, I’ll get you one.” Restaurant noises—trays and chatter and chairs scraping on tile in the background—made it hard to hear.

“And tots?” Ajax tried to imagine the menu. Since they’d stripped the batteries out of all his electronics, he couldn’t look up the menu. “Maybe some kind of fried thing?”

A long pause. “Everything is fried here. Could you please be more specific?”

“Chicken tenders… No. Chicken nuggets… No! Popcorn chicken.”

There was a long silence. “Is that your final answer?”

“I’m not finished.” Ajax leaned his cheek against the window. “Make sure you get ranch dressing. Lots of it.”

“Didn’t you say you get carsick?”

“Food helps, except when it doesn’t.” There was no foolproof method for avoiding the spins and the nausea. “With a pill on board and some food, I’ll probably fall asleep.”

“Excellent,” Bartosz said. “Won’t that be excellent, Dmytro?”

“Hanging up now.”

“How far are we going?” Ajax asked.

“Not far. We have a safehouse in the local mountains.”

“Your safe house is at altitude?” Ajax felt anxious already. “I’ll need ibuprofen, vitamin B12, and a ton of alkaline water for the altitude sickness. And it will probably take me a day to get my equilibrium. I don’t do well above six thousand feet.”

“I’ll bear that in mind next time someone asks where we should build a safe house.”

“And no fair! You should have told me where we were going.” Ajax let his head fall back against the seat. “I could have brought my snowboard.”

“That’s the thing about private security. It’s private and secure because we don’t tell everyone everything.”

Ajax didn’t need this.

His parents were going to be sorry they’d hired all these people.

They rounded the block for a third time, and with stop-and-go traffic, they were just passing by when Dmytro came out of the restaurant, laden with food. Bartosz stopped at the curb and waited, earning honks and some cursing from the people behind them. He ignored it and unlocked the door.

To Ajax’s dismay, Dmytro opened the back door. “Scoot over.”

Ajax didn’t move. “Can’t you get back in front?”

“No. Scoot over.” At Dmytro’s long-suffering expression, he unbuckled his belt and scooted. Dmytro crawled in and handed over a drink carrier with three slushes in it. He placed the food bag between them.

This was degrading. Ajax was going to have this man—this hulking, gorgeous, awful man—staring at him the whole time with eyes that said, You are nothing . Nevertheless, he opened the bag. Chicken, tots, dressing. He handed Dmytro his corn dog and poppers. Dmytro gave Bartosz a drink and his food.

Ajax held his food between his hands without opening it. “This is weird. You’re weird.”

“Why?” Dmytro stopped in the process of unwrapping a straw.

“You’re supposed to be this badass bodyguard, but now we’re eating junk food in the back of the car like kids, and—”

“And what?” Dmytro bit the tip off his corn dog with a snap. “I eat junk food. Everyone eats junk food.”

“Guess I figured you must eat clean or paleo or gluten-free or something.”

“Paleo.” Dmytro’s lips quirked. “I look like a paleo guy to you?”

“Sort of.” Ajax nodded. Dmytro looked like a clean-shaven caveman, a warrior, or a barbarian to Ajax. “You look like you should be holding a haunch of venison by the hoof and drinking from some kind of horn.”

“I eat what’s available to me.” Dmytro glanced down at his food and grimaced. “ Ugh. The batter inside is still raw.”

Dmytro exchanged a few foreign words with Bartosz. His sentence ended with the English phrase “mustard the color of bile.”

Dmytro addressed his poppers. “These? I like.” He tossed one into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “What exactly is ranch dressing? Was it made on a ranch? Is it only for cowboys? Why does it have buttermilk only sometimes?”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.” Ajax swirled a piece of his popcorn chicken in dressing before eating it. “I don’t know why they call it ranch.”

“Don’t you think about what you eat?”

The question annoyed Ajax.

“You don’t care what I think.” It was like all the other meaningless questions people threw out to engage him. It wasn’t that they really wanted to know his answer. They mostly asked so they could find a way to exploit whatever he said.

“Not yet, no.” That got a brief unhappy flash of Dmytro’s cold eyes.

“What would it take?” Ajax leaned toward him.

“What do you mean?” The man’s thick, well-shaped eyebrows rose.

“What would it take for you to care what I think? Cash? Sex?” This was a big preemptive strike, and he thought he knew exactly where it would land.

Sure, it was reckless and stupid, but Ajax’s heart was pounding.

“If those are all you have to offer,” Dmytro said coolly, “I don’t believe I’ll ever care what you think.”

Ajax’s hands stilled mid-dunk. “That’s better.”

“What is?” Dmytro was obviously unhappy he’d lost control.

“Don’t pretend you like me. You were hired to do a job. We’re not going to be friends.”

“If you say so.” They finished the rest of their food in silence, and afterward, Ajax drifted, dimly aware of city lights passing by outside the car’s tinted windows.

Then they were climbing the Grapevine. Darkness seemed to swallowed them as traffic thinned out.

Only an occasional car heading in the opposite direction broke the illusion that they were the last people on earth.

Beside Ajax, soft whuffling sleep sounds reminded him he wasn’t totally alone. He yawned, turned his face to the window, and fell quite deeply asleep.