Page 29 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dmytro
Now Dmytro shook with an altogether different emotion: rage.
Peter was Iphicles . He’d been with Iphicles before Dmytro had come on board. Chet too, though Dmytro had only met the man once or twice before. He’d never met the rest of the crew.
Why, oh, why hadn’t he asked about them? Vetted them thoroughly? Run photo IDs and credentials through Zhenya, on the off chance they weren’t who they said they were?
Why? Because he’d trusted Peter, known him since he’d taken a job with Iphicles.
He’d been talking on the phone with his girls when Peter jammed a gun in his face.
Chet stood by, grinning like a fool. They’d disarmed him, and Peter herded him down the stairs while Chet took his weapon and his phone up to the deck.
Chet might have even used Dmytro’s gun to kill Bartosz.
The thought sickened him, made him feel like the world’s biggest fool.
Peter carried a Beretta Cx4 Storm, a Beretta handgun, and a hunting knife. Chet had a Glock G40 10mm and an ankle rig. That was a lot of firepower in shaky hands.
Bartosz… Dear God, Bartosz was gone, and Zhenya was none the wiser.
He was alone. He was Ajax’s his only guard against these men and how many others?
He had no real weapons, only a slim blade concealed in his boot.
He had no way to communicate with the outside world.
Peter controlled the radio and phones, and he could fabricate any story he liked.
Even if they were being monitored, Peter had said they were to rendezvous in fifteen.
An impossible time to mount an assault on their own people.
Bartosz was right. They had been herded into a trap. Neatly played.
Peter would ransom Ajax and then get rid of all witnesses. When he returned to land, Peter could play the part of grieving coworker, and Bartosz, Dmytro, and Ajax—maybe Chet too—would be gone forever.
“Why are you doing this?” Ajax demanded. “Ransom? Iphicles, the most respected, the most expensive security on the planet, was in on the plot all along. Fucking Iphicles.”
“Now, now. If your parents pay the ransom—”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Ajax shouted. “I’m never meant to get off this vessel alive. I knew it. I hate boats.”
“Stop whining and sit in the chair, Fairchild.” Peter motioned with his gun before calling out for his second-in-command.
“Chet? Set the heading and come down here. Bring tape.” He lifted his gun and aimed it directly at Ajax’s forehead before turning to Dmytro.
“And don’t you try anything, or I’ll put a bullet in the primary.
The crew is mine. You can’t possibly take us all. ”
Peter gripped Ajax’s arm and led him to a chair.
Seconds later, Chet arrived, carrying a weapon and a roll of duct tape.
He held Dmytro at gunpoint while Peter tore off large strips of duct tape to secure Ajax’s wrists and ankles to the chair.
He taped Ajax’s mouth shut, leaving his eyes, blank and betrayed, to speak for him.
“Come with me, Dmytro.”
The way Peter said the words was final. Apologetic. Both men held their weapons trained on him. He had no doubt they planned to take him topside and rid themselves of him as they had Bartosz. Ajax knew it too. The despair in Ajax’s eyes broke Dmytro’s heart.
He rattled the chair beneath him, the noise loud, even over the engines.
“Quiet, faggot.” Chet pistol-whipped him. The sound was shocking, a crack against Ajax’s face that might have shattered bone. Dmytro winced as if the weapon had hit his own.
Blood spurted from Ajax’s nose. Dmytro doubted he’d ever been attacked like that before.
Not possible, with security by his side his entire life.
He doubted Ajax Fairchild had ever been spanked, much less manhandled— beaten —by a brute like Chet.
A sick, twisted pleasure sat on Chet’s face.
He’d enjoyed it. Dmytro had known plenty of men like him.
Bile rose in his throat. “Leave Ajax alone.”
“Or what?” Peter sneered. “Move.”
“Wait.” Dmytro had to think. To stall. He had to bargain. “Wait a minute. What’s your plan?”
“How can it matter to you?” Chet asked. “Seeing as how you’re gonna be dead?”
Ajax’s whimper tore a new hole of grief in his heart.
“It matters because”—he motioned toward Chet—“he’s stupid, and I’m not.”
“Just for that—” Chet made to strike Ajax again, but this time Peter caught his arm. Chet cried out in dismay. “But, Skipper—”
“My point exactly.” Dmytro hid his loathing.
He hid his fear. He didn’t dare glance at Ajax because then the game would be over before he started playing.
“I have my girls to think about. If you’re purchasing loyalty, isn’t it better to buy from someone who has everything to offer and everything to lose? ”
Peter shook his head. “You don’t fool me, Kolisnychenko. We’ve had eyes—and ears—on you from day one. You fell for Freedom. You can’t fake your way out of this.”
“If it’s true you’ve listened, then you know my daughters are my life. I would do anything for them. Anything to go home to them.”
Ajax moaned. Dmytro hardened his heart. He’d been in worse situations, but he’d never gambled for higher stakes. His only option was to play for time, and he wasn’t going to get that commodity by going over the side with a bullet in his forehead.
He glanced at Ajax. He’d only spoken the truth, but it hurt like hell to see Ajax assimilate it. To know he believed it.
“Talk.” Peter returned the gun to Ajax’s head. “You have one minute.”
“Skipper, my God, Kolisnychenko’s a fucking do-gooder. He—”
A single filthy look from Peter silenced Chet’s tongue.
“Has the ransom demand been made? The drop arranged?”
“Already sent.” Peter narrowed his eyes.
“Then what? You planned to return to Iphicles without the three of us? Say the drop went sideways?”
Peter sighed. “I’m afraid you and Bartosz die trying to save Ajax during the rendezvous. Terribly sad. There’ll be a firefight? Only Chet and I make it back alive.”
Dmytro nodded. “Have you mentioned this to the rest of the crew?”
“About that.” Peter laughed. “Sorry, I lied. They were hired to go with us to Catalina and disappear. There’s only the three of us aboard now. Plus our golden goose there.”
Chet paced across the cabin, back and forth, holding the gun in one hand and gnawing on the thumbnail of the other.
“Are you certain that’s wise?” Dmytro asked.
“Shut your pie hole and get up those stairs,” Chet demanded.
That got Chet the sneer he deserved. “You think you can sell this scenario? That Bartosz and I couldn’t fight our way out of a ransom drop gone south? You think Zhenya is going to believe that? Believe Chet? You’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
Peter glanced between them, hesitating.
“Oh, fuck this!” Chet wailed. “I’m the one who did Bartosz. He didn’t see a thing coming ’cause I got the drop on him. Leaving Kolisnychenko alive is suicide .”
“But I want to stay alive.” He turned his gaze to Peter. “You know me, brother. I fight on the side that wins because in the end, all I care about is getting home to my girls. Always.”
“Don’t listen to him—”
“Shut up, Chet,” Dmytro snapped. Peter’s gun hand trembled. “Skill like mine doesn’t come along every day, Peter. And loyalty. If you swear I go home to my girls, it’s all yours.”
Peter shook his head like he couldn’t believe he was even thinking about it.
“If you fuck us, your girls are dead,” Peter taunted. “I’ll take them and sell them. I’ll kill you and then your girls will spend their very short lives suffering in Cairo or Dubai.”
Dmytro tightened his jaw. “I’m your man.”
“Remember, I’ve played you for days. I can play you again anytime I want.” Peter’s feral eyes glittered, leaving no doubt he would take the girls, kill Liv, and slaughter everyone Dmytro cared about if Dmytro betrayed him.
Wrapping both hands on the grip of his gun, he eased up to Dmytro and placed the barrel at the bridge of Dmytro’s nose, directly between his eyes. “I will burn down your world if you fuck me. I’ll take everything that belongs to you, Dmytro. Tell me you know this.”
Dmytro didn’t blink. “I believe you.”
“Look me in the eye and swear your loyalty.”
“No.” He met Peter’s grim, glittering brown eyes. Everyone knew his loyalty couldn’t be bought. Peter would know this. Peter would see through a lie like that one immediately.
But his heart stuttered. He expected to hear the gun go off.
When it didn’t, he played his best card. “I am loyal only to my daughters. For them, and for my life, I work for any man.”
A long moment followed, during which the only sounds in the cabin were Peter’s harsh pants, Chet’s grinding molars, and Ajax’s soft sobs.
Water lapped insistently against the hull.
The scent of rust, of mold, of his own fear-sweat, filled his nostrils, filthy and rank, reminding him how many times he’d smelled it on his body and in the air around him.
Beneath his feet, the boat rocked gently.
The world had tilted on its axis again.
He was nothing but a roach scrambling for survival, and every time the world went sideways, he’d managed, just barely, to keep crawling through it.
He’d eaten the garbage life offered him, avoided the chunks of concrete that fell all around him, and although he’d buried his wife, he’d brought his children to a land full of new promise, his heart filled with hope that this time he could be a better man.
Instead, here he crawled. Just another cockroach making another bargain, the wretchedness inside him fueling nausea and the instinct to survive. Perhaps he still had a chance to live. To do that, he had to ally himself with Peter—God, what a wretched bastard—and the useless waste of skin Chet.
He could do what was necessary. Would do it, if he could keep Sasha and Pen’s faces bright in his mind, in his heart, where their love would be the only warmth he’d ever have again.