Page 32 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Dmytro

Nervously Chet spread the chart on the table between them. “This is the rendezvous point.”

He acted like a scalded cat, jumping at every sound. He put his back to the wall more often because he was good and rattled now. He thought he knew how this was going to play out, but Dmytro had thrown a massive wrench into his plans.

Kind of sucked for him, not being teacher’s pet anymore.

Peter lit into Chet for his little stunt with Ajax. He teased Chet, said he was all mouth when it came to hating the gays. Chet said that when it came to getting his dick sucked, he didn’t care who did it.

What Dmytro didn’t know until that minute was that Peter’s hatred for gays in general and Ajax in particular went deep as bone. Peter was never going to forget that he walked in on Chet cradling Ajax’s head to his balls, but then, neither would Dmytro.

Which one of them would Peter rather have at his back? Dmytro knew the answer. He’d proven himself a thousand times over with the toughest men in the field.

“What do you think, Dmytro?” Peter took him out of his thoughts. “We have five minutes before we rendezvous.”

“The drop’s at sea?” Dmytro frowned. “You’re telling me the Fairchilds actually got the ransom together without calling Iphicles or getting an immediate second proof of life? That’s insane.”

“We sowed enough trust issues. They’re desperate enough to do whatever it takes.”

“Or they’ll cause a thousand problems you cannot afford to have. FBI. Interpol.”

“Well, hell.” Chet’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “We sure didn’t think of that, did we?”

Peter glared at him.

Dmytro returned his gaze to the map. “How do you know Iphicles won’t have a crew on that boat? Air support? If they called in the feds, there will be Coast Guard vessels. Who the hell knows? His mother would call in JSOC if she could.”

Peter shook his head. “Fairchild’s parents already made the drop on a junker. They know if there’s no money, the boy is dead. If my radar detects hostiles before the drop, the boy is dead. Anyone follows the drop, the boy is dead.”

“We both know Ajax is dead anyway.” Despair filled Dmytro’s heart. “What about the crew on the junker?”

“There’s only the pilot, and he’s one of mine.”

Dead, then. The body count just kept getting higher and higher. The trick was to act as if he didn’t know he was dead too. “You believe Ajax’s parents have accepted your terms?”

“If they want their little faggot back, they will.” There went Chet again, the belligerent asshole. Did he think the more often he said the hateful word, the more likely Peter would absolve him of the lust in his heart?

Dmytro wanted to stomp his boot over Chet’s smug face. Peter wasn’t likely to forget he’d had rape on his mind only moments before. Dmytro certainly wouldn’t.

Goddamn. Peter had contingency plans for every single thing. Thinking fast, Dmytro raised the one question still bothering him. “Did you plan all this from the start? Make those original threats in order to set it in motion? Or was Ajax simply an opportunity you couldn’t pass up?”

“No, God. He dropped right into our lap.” Peter laughed. “Zhenya sent him to the safe house with you and Bartosz, but he put me in charge of logistics. It was the easiest thing in the world to reel you off in a different direction.”

“ You tampered with the safe house alarms.” Dmytro didn’t need an answer.

Peter nodded. “And Chet booby-trapped the SUV.”

“What about the girl?” he asked.

“At the motel? Oh, she caught me spying on Bartosz,” Chet said. “I gave her a good bang on the head. She probably don’t remember much, huh?”

“The first of your many mistakes,” Peter said. “God, you’re an ass. What part of ‘don’t be seen’ did you have a hard time with?”

Chet thudded his chest. “The kid didn’t think any of the threats were real until I shot up the restaurant. Christ, I had his fluffy little head—I had all of you—right in the crosshairs. But I fired into the ceiling. Pew, pew, pew . I made sure y’all got on this boat.”

“He’s right, you know.” Dmytro threw him a bone. “I only started to worry when the messages changed from that biblical bullshit to the really nasty stuff—”

“That was me.” Chet chortled happily. “I did that.”

Dmytro concealed his revulsion. “Ajax didn’t believe any threat existed until the gunfire at the restaurant.”

He hadn’t necessarily believed it after, either. He’d known they’d be dead if the shooter had wanted them dead. He’d seen the trajectory of the bullets and pointed it out. God, they’d walked right into a trap. Oh, Bartosz…

Dmytro’s heart hurt.

Peter might be a professional, but Dmytro doubted he’d ever done anything like this.

In spite of his careful planning, his level of self-confidence and overbright eyes suggested this was an endgame of sorts for him.

He was going all in for the ransom drop, and if things went south there, he didn’t have a backup plan.

They were all hanging by the spiderweb of Peter’s sanity.

Chet was simply, as Ajax would say, an asshat.

“What do we do now?” Dmytro asked.

“Now, we wait.” Peter snapped his fingers, and Chet jumped like a confused dog. “Get me something to drink.”

Chet found a half-empty whiskey bottle and handed it over.

“Let’s all drink. To Ukraine and pretty women.” Peter drank deeply and handed the bottle to Chet.

Chet drank his fill and handed the bottle back. “Or pretty boys. Huh, Kolisnychenko? C’mon. That’s what you’re really into, isn’t it? Boys like our little hostage.”

Dmytro smirked. “They have pretty boys there too, my friend. Rest assured you won’t be lonely.”

“I meant for you!” Chet blinked when he realized how that sounded. “No way do I want—”

“Shut up.” Peter snatched the bottle back. “You both disgust me.”

“I ain’t like him, boss. I was just playing with the kid. I wasn’t actually gonna do nothing.”

Peter tipped the bottle back for another deep swallow. He handed it to Dmytro, who wiped the neck off carefully on his sleeve.

“I’m equal opportunity,” Dmytro said before he took a small sip. “If you don’t like it, you can eat a dick.”

“I don’t like dick, you fag fucker.” Chet glared.

“Don’t worry, Chet. Is that short for Chester?” Dmytro lowered his voice. “In Ukraine, I’ll find you boys who dress like girls so no one will be the wiser.”

“Fuck. You,” Chet muttered darkly. “We’ll see who the boss thinks is worth keeping.”

Dmytro boasted, “No one has lived to complain about my job performance yet.”

“Me neither, brother.” Peter took the bottle back with a chilly smile. “We have a bargain, you and me.”

“We do.” Dmytro nodded.

“Don’t test it.” Peter drained the bottle and threw the empty against the wall. Smash . The reek of alcohol mingled with oil and the odor of anxious men.

Dmytro winked. “With great paychecks comes great discretion.”

“It had better.” Peter studied him as if to spot any duplicity. “It just better, Kolisnychenko, or I will salt the earth with the bones of your children.”

Dmytro nodded and rested his eyes while Chet watched the radar and Peter listened to the chatter on the radio.

Peter kept a keen eye on him, so there was nothing Dmytro could do but wait.

He didn’t know much about boats, and he knew less about navigation.

He was only a warrior. His time to act would come, but not while Peter and Chet outnumbered him in the close confines of the bridge, armed and watching him like raptors.

Dmytro had to bide his time. Look for an opening.

Find any crack between Peter and Chet and widen it.

When the call came via a satellite phone Peter wore strapped to his hip, Dmytro made that one more thing on the list of items he would try to get his hands on—either to get help or, if all hope was lost, to text Sasha and Pen one last time.

Peter activated voice-altering software before putting the call on speaker.

While Peter argued with the caller, Chet trained his weapon on Dmytro. They still didn’t trust him, which meant he had to sit perfectly still to keep from getting his ass shot. So far they stayed together, making it impossible for him to take one out while the other wasn’t looking.

Impossible, too, to make things right with Ajax.

God help him. He knew what Ajax had to be thinking. If he didn’t believe Dmytro was looking out only for himself, then he was a fool.

Yet… Ajax was a kind of fool too. The hopeful kind. The romantic kind who rushed right in where one might say angels should not go.

“That’s right. I said no .” Peter’s agitated words broke through Dmytro’s melancholy. “For fuck’s sake, I said no . You got your proof of life last night .”

Dmytro shot him an I-told-you-so look.

“Christ.” Chet picked at a scab on his face, drawing blood. He hissed softly. “Shit… What should we do, boss?”

“All right, then,” Peter muted the phone. “All right. Fuck. You.” He pointed at Chet. “Bring him up here.”

“No way.” Dmytro stood. “You’ve seen—”

“He knows this is it. It’s too important for fucking around.” To Chet he said, “Do I make myself clear?”

Chet nodded and scurried down the stairs.

Peter trained his handgun on Dmytro before unmuting the sound. Violet Fairchild was screeching at him to put her son on now. Peter shouted, “I hear you. Fuck off. I’m getting him.”

A long, tense minute later, Chet dragged Ajax up to the bridge. His hands were still tied, but Chet had cut the tape at his ankles. Dmytro noticed one bled freely from a fresh gash.

He met Chet’s gaze with one simple promise in his own: If we get out of here, you’re a dead man. And I’ll take my time.

Chet halted, holding Ajax between them, pistol to his head. He grinned. Peter holstered his weapon and grabbed Ajax’s hair.

“Ow, Christ, stop with the grabby hands, will you? My hair is my glory.”

“Be wise.” Dmytro suppressed a badly timed burst of gallows humor.

“What’s it matter?” Ajax scoffed. “We’re dead men.”

Dmytro lowered his gaze.

“Your mommy wants to hear your voice now.” Peter shouted the words so Violet could hear them. He gave the phone to Ajax and nodded.

Ajax hesitated. “That’s my mother?”

Peter said nothing. He must have switched off the voice-changing app.

“Now is not the time to be stubborn, Ajax.” Dmytro nodded to the phone.

Ajax didn’t move. “I’m often stubborn at the worst possible time.”

“Little mink.” Dmytro licked his lips nervously. “This is not that time.”

He jerked his head toward Peter and Chet.

Ajax nodded, but fresh tears welled in his eyes instead of bravado.

Any hope they had was thin as spun sugar.

Dmytro found his anguish mirrored in Ajax’s gaze.

He saw betrayal too, even though he’d thought using Ajax’s special nickname would be some kind of clue—a reminder men like Peter and Dmytro played deep, deep games.

Didn’t Ajax know? Dmytro lied for a living. In a situation like this one, only the last man standing shaped the truth.

Peter took the phone off speakerphone before holding it to Ajax’s ear. He shoved a pistol into his ribs with his free hand. Chet covered them both from six feet away. Too far to make a play.

Ajax swallowed hard. “Mom?”

Dmytro couldn’t hear her words, but he could imagine them.

“No, I’m not scared, Mom. It’s just business. I… get it. I’m sorry, though. I’m so sorry.”

A longer pause. A mother pouring out her terror, her grief, her advice. Maybe her final goodbyes to her only child.

Rage—fury and powerful empathy—filled Dmytro, as though he were in the room with Violet Fairchild and his own children’s lives were at stake.

“It’s gonna be okay, Mom. Look, you know I don’t say this enough”—he winced—“no, stop crying, Mom, it’s going to be all right, I swear… Oh… Okay. Dad?”

His and Ajax’s gazes met while Peter made hurry-this-along gestures. Dmytro could keep his face neutral only by imagining the horrible tortures he’d visit on Ajax’s tormentors.

I will start with your eyes…

“No, listen. I want to say how much I love you guys. How lucky I feel—” His voice broke. “No, listen. Listen to me , now, Dad. I love you both. So much. And Grandpa. Do you understand? You are awesome parents. And I’m so goddamn proud to be your—”

Peter jerked the phone away and fiddled with it before lifting it to his mouth. “That’s enough.”

Chet huffed a sigh of relief tinged with displeasure. Dmytro could very well believe shit just got real for him.

Had Chet never killed a man in cold blood? Made him beg for his life when he knew it was going to end anyway? Had he never tortured someone for information? Or because they stole from someone who could afford to make them pay?

“You got that?” Peter shoved Ajax back toward Chet. “Then release the money. You know what to do.”

Dmytro’s eyes snapped to Peter’s.

Jesus. It wasn’t a cash drop. There was no second boat, or if there was, there was no cash on board. The ransom drop was a wire transfer.

The rendezvous is a ruse!

Peter grinned with unholy pleasure. “ Surprise .”