Page 3 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER THREE

Dmytro

Ajax Freedom. You will be judged by your God and your fellow man. You are an abomination. The world will be a better place after you’ve breathed your last.

Dmytro was on the phone with Evgeni Ivanov, the owner of Iphicles Security, when Ajax’s eyes flew open.

“Bartosz, window. Stop! Unlock the door.” Ajax banged on the glass. He looked pale and sweaty with a delicate green undertone. “Stop the car!”

“Boss? Hold a minute, the client needs—”

“Shit.” Bartosz swerved off at a vista point and parked between a minivan and a pickup truck.

Several people stood at the edge of the lookout, braving the wind and cold to enjoy a beautiful moonlit view of the valley in the distance.

Ajax shouldered his way out of the car just in time to be sick on the ground.

The noise he made was incredible. Foul, retching, choking sounds.

Dmytro felt his own gorge rise. He’d killed men, sometimes in cold blood, but he couldn’t bear the sound of someone getting sick. He dove out the door just in time to be sick too.

Somewhere behind him, Ajax hurled again. Fresh splatters hit the ground. The sound made Dmytro gag. He closed his eyes, blinked back tears, and breathed the fresh, desert air.

“Stop that,” he called weakly. “They can hear us getting sick at the office.”

“You stop.” Ajax didn’t stop. Dmytro felt himself going again. This was the crack in his armor. His true Achilles’ heel. Blood didn’t bother him at all, but give him someone vomiting, even one of his precious girls—

“Christ.” He heaved again, following Ajax in a pas de deux of wretchedness.

He wiped his mouth and dug his earbuds out of his pockets. Shoving them in, he hit Play and Dwayne Johnson sang “You’re Welcome.”

Memories of the film—of sitting with his daughters in a theater full of giggling elementary school kids—reinforced how out of place he was in a world that believed monsters were imaginary, and gods had sway, and good triumphed over evil.

Maybe this was his punishment.

Dmytro found a piece of Big Red chewing gum to fold into his mouth. The rear window on his side rolled down, and Bartosz shouted, “Everything come out okay?”

“Shove it.” Dmytro leaned his back against the SUV and automatically checked his weapon. He pulled an earbud out. “Are you done, Mr. Freedom? I have nothing left.”

Ajax called, “It’s Mr. Fairchild and… sorry.”

“Me too.”

Bartosz rolled up the window until Dmytro couldn’t hear his laughter anymore.

“I hate throwing up.” On the other side of the car, Ajax rinsed with his drink and spit on the ground.

“Really? Because throwing up has always been the best part of my day.” Dmytro gave his gum a ferocious snap .

“Oh, sarcasm .” Ajax lobbed the word. “I’ve heard of that. Didn’t they use that back in the olden days?”

“Yes. Before your generation started mistakenly calling it irony.” Dmytro stood. After readjusting his clothes, he returned to his call. “Boss. How is your day treating you?”

“Better than yours is from the sound of it.” The mirthful tone in his booming voice made Dmytro grimace. “But Mitya, we have a problem.”

“What?” A wary shiver made his neck tingle. Men like Evgeni Ivanov didn’t have problems. They caused them.

“The safe house alarms have gone off fourteen times in the last two hours.”

“Mechanical failure or mischief?” Dmytro asked.

“Can’t tell. It could be an animal, or it could be a thief. The CCTV shows nothing. I’ve got a man heading up there, but—”

“It could be someone setting off the alarms periodically so we won’t pay attention to them later when they make entry,” Dmytro surmised.

“Exactly. Can’t take the chance. Especially not with Ajax.”

That seemed oddly specific. “Why him especially? Beside the fact his parents are rich.” The job had been described to him as an all-hands-on-deck, follow-protocol-to-the-letter, death-before-dishonor sort of detail. What Dmytro didn’t know was why?

“For one thing, Ajax’s mother is the CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation, and his father just invented a promising new cancer protocol for children.”

“So? His parents are achievers. We deal with rich clients all the time.”

“Ajax is special to me.” Evgeni—Zhenya to his friends—said.

Dmytro kept a wary eye on the client, who seemed to be watching a very young couple take in the view. They looked too thin to Dmytro. The woman was heavily pregnant.

Why was he watching those people? What went through his head? What did he make of the less fabulous? Were they merely extras in his life or did he see them?

“What kind of special,” Dmytro asked. “Does he require medical or psychological care? If so, you’ll need to fill me in so I can set something up.”

“Nothing like that. He’s my godson.” Zhenya said that like he thought it was a good thing.

“You never mentioned you had a godson.” Dmytro groaned. Now he was going to have to make an effort.

“Why would I?”

“Because I should have that information?” Everyone at Iphicles was either foreign military, black ops, or muscle like him.

They had special… skills. They didn’t always fit into a normal life with normal people.

Half of them didn’t even exist on the grid.

Dmytro didn’t have many secrets from his colleagues.

They often lived together on the job. How had Zhenya befriended a CEO and a research scientist and become godparent to their child?

“Er—you know the Fairchilds?”

“When your brother and I were starting Iphicles, we took a lot of different jobs to get things started. We still used questionable methods in those days.” Blackmail, intimidation, and even coldhearted violence had all been in their wheelhouse.

“That was before Katerina had her way and we decided to legitimize things.”

He and Zhenya both paused, probably in an unconscious moment of mourning for Dmytro’s brother Anton and his gentle wife. Katerina had been a civilizing influence for all the Iphicles men in one way or another.

“We took on a routine protection detail that turned out not so routine at all. We prevented a kidnapping—Ajax’s mother, Violet, who was pregnant at the time. She and Jackson Fairchild were so grateful they capitalized our startup. Without them, Iphicles would not exist.”

“I see.”

“Ajax is a riot. Literally.” Zhenya chuckled.

He actually chuckled. It was such an unusual occurrence that the sound was rusty and forlorn.

Like a gate in a forgotten cemetery. “I know what you’re thinking, but he wasn’t always such an immense pain in the ass.

He’s his parents’ kid, so fair warning, he’s a highly intelligent, outside-the-box thinker in a way you won’t understand before it bites you in the ass and about as mature as a gummy bear. ”

Dmytro sighed. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“You need to detour to the coast as soon as you can. Head for the Santa Barbara house. Someone from our team will arrive before you to make sure it’s secure and provisioned.”

“Thank you. Will do.”

Dmytro opened the front passenger door and relayed the news to Bartosz.

Ajax got into the back. Sweat still clung to his skin. He didn’t look like he was going to stay awake for very long after they took off.

Dmytro buckled his seat belt. “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” Ajax muttered.

“You two are sick Furbies,” Bartosz said as he keyed the engine. “Bump one and the other goes. Splat . Wait until I tell the rest of the team.”

Dmytro ignored him. “There’s been a change of plans, Ajax. We’re heading for the Santa Barbara safe house now.”

Ajax frowned. “Why?”

“The other safe house might be compromised. Seat belt, Ajax.”

“Okay. Um… wait.” Ajax grabbed up his hat and scarf and bolted from the car.

Cursing, Dmytro followed, angrily moving around the SUV.

Ajax hung his things from the side mirror of a pickup truck with veterans’ bumper stickers on the glass in the back of the cab.

He darted back to the car before its owners noticed and practically dove inside.

That left Dmytro standing outside, pretty much holding his dick.

Oh, they were going to have a talk about this later when he wasn’t angry.

Dmytro returned to the front passenger seat. Ajax rapped on the window as if Bartosz were his chauffeur.

“Drive, Bartosz.”

“Sure thing, boss.” Bartosz complied, turning the big vehicle.

As they waited to pull out, the couple Dmytro had been watching returned to their battered truck and found Ajax’s abandoned winter gear.

Hiding his face, Ajax ducked down so they couldn’t see him.

The man eyed Bartosz and him suspiciously before picking the scarf up to check it out.

Evidently he found nothing wrong with the scarf—it was a ludicrously luxurious cashmere knit—so he wrapped it around his wife’s neck.

She put the hat on and adjusted its angle in the driver-side mirror.

The color looked good on her. The two strangers waved as Bartosz edged the car back onto the two-lane highway.

In Dmytro’s world, people didn’t give anything away for free.

They didn’t do anything without taking credit.

He liked that Ajax wanted to give his gift anonymously, though it didn’t jibe with the intel they had on him.

Ajax Freedom would have Instagrammed the event and posted pictures for everyone to see.

Dmytro was forced to admit Ajax Fairchild might be okay.

In the bruised purple darkness, melancholy flooded Dmytro’s heart.

The couple reminded him of his much younger self and his wife, Yulia.

He’d looked at her just so a thousand times, imagined their happy future, imagined they had their whole lives ahead of them.

He’d held her close and felt his children kick against his belly from inside hers.

Yulia had lost her life because of him, because of his choices and his failures.

He needed to be there for his girls, so he kept on—for Yulia, for Sasha and Pen. For everyone but him.

He wondered what the insouciant Mr. Fairchild/Freedom would make of that, since despite his kindness, the boy apparently held his own life cheaply.

Ajax’s breathing slowed and evened out.

He wasn’t really a boy, Dmytro realized.

He looked young, but he had beard stubble.

Just now, his dark hair created a curly halo around his head.

His lashes cast half-moon shadows beneath his eyes.

He looked a little too much like one of Caravaggio’s paintings for Dmytro’s comfort—Amor Victorious or David with the head of the slain Goliath still dripping from his hand.

Beautiful and powerful but innocent in a way men like Dmytro, Zhenya, and Bartosz had never been.

Caravaggio had a way with dark hair and dewy youthful skin that would do Ajax justice.

Ajax . Even his name was extra.

Still, Ajax had noticed the woman at the vista point was cold, and in his own way, he’d offered her his warmth. Maybe Ajax Fairchild wasn’t so bad after all.

Bartosz drove with the windows down for a few minutes because the scent of sickness had filled the air.

The resulting wind chilled him, but when you could smell the stink of yourself, you shouldn’t ask for special favors.

As soon as he noticed Ajax shivering, though, he asked Bartosz to roll up the windows. Bartosz did so without complaint.

“Thank you,” said Dmytro.

Bartosz reached over and patted his shoulder. “Buy a scopolamine patch next time.”

“Tell the hurling dervish. We’d be there by now if we’d flown.”

It was Ajax who had refused to fly.

Ajax started snoring softly, mouth open. His teeth were perfect and as white as candy-coated gum squares. He had soft, full lips, which Dmytro had no business looking at.

“So, what do you think of our client?” Bartosz switched to Russian again.

“He’s not entirely awful.” Dmytro checked his messages and found a new one from Liv.

L: The girls are in bed, all tucked in and cozy for the night. TTYL.

“That’s an improvement on what you thought this morning,” said Bartosz

“He’s still an asshole.” Dmytro glanced back at their sleeping charge. “It’s no wonder people reacted the way they did when they found out what a fraud he is.”

The team had researched Ajax’s social media activity, although Dmytro had barely skimmed.

Part enfant terrible, part agent provocateur, Ajax Freedom made a glorious name for himself among moneyed baby sociopaths, and then everything boomeranged spectacularly when they found out he wasn’t who he said he was.

Maybe he didn’t know who he was yet?

At any rate, he’d lied about his sexuality and his politics. In doing so, he’d created a young conservative wave that would have drowned him in a hot second had they known where his true sympathies lay. No one knew why he’d stirred that pot.

Maybe to annoy his liberal leaning parents?

After graduating from college, he’d come to the conclusion that authenticity was more important than celebrity and he’d recorded an incendiary manifesto.

Dmytro wished he could see the face of every girl who thought they were going to become the next billionaire Mrs. Freedom and every moneyed poser who wanted to be just like him.

Ajax Freedom’s final tirade robbed them of everything.

It was the classic story of one man’s meteoric rise to fame and even quicker plummet into infamy.

As someone who’d once found himself in a similar, if more literally explosive, predicament, Dmytro felt for him.

He didn’t sympathize, but he winced a little.

People made choices, and they had to live with them.

Ajax Fairchild deserved to live and enjoy the consequences of his actions for a long time to come.