Page 8 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER SIX

Dmytro

Ajax Freedom. I wonder how your parents will feel when they bury what’s left of you. Will they be sad or relieved?

After he watched Ajax disappear into the box, Dmytro’s heart hurt. His girls weren’t being raised by a monster, but they weren’t being raised by their father either. They were at home with his sister-in-law so he could protect Ajax Fairchild.

He secured his weapon carefully in the towel on his lap before pulling out his phone and staring at it, willing Liv to text another update.

Thank God Ajax gave up and left him alone with his thoughts.

Dmytro didn’t mind being on the road. He was adept at traveling light, wasn’t fussy about food, and he could sleep anywhere.

But he’d never realized how painful it could be going weeks without seeing his girls in person.

They grew so fast. They had adventures that changed them—trips to the library, events at school, and games he couldn’t be part of.

He’d told Ajax he was there for the cash, and it was sadly true.

If it weren’t for the money, he’d get the first job he could find at a burger place or building store.

He’d work construction. But there was health care for the girls to consider.

Insurance. The cost of a home where he could raise them in safety.

In any other job, he’d work harder, earning pennies on the dollar, whereas Iphicles paid him gangster-style—his checks had commas before zeros, for God’s sake—and they treated him as a much-valued employee.

Not only that, Iphicles had facilitated his citizenship and helped him navigate the byzantine paperwork involved in bringing his daughters here and procuring his house. He owed them an enormous personal debt.

The advantage of Iphicles was the ability to use skills he’d learned as a gangster to earn money on the right side of the law. No one who had a job with Iphicles surrendered it, except to death.

The drawback was that his work often left him on the outside, looking into the windows of his own home, sometimes literally, when he had to make a flight and could only spare enough time to reassure himself his girls were okay before leaving again.

Once or twice, he’d waited under the eaves in the darkness, rain pouring down his collar, hand poised to call Zhenya and tell him he was out.

Dmytro hadn’t missed Ajax’s words or the sound of utter loneliness in them.

Ajax had spent his childhood without his parents.

The weary resignation in his voice when he talked about them and the accompanying bewildered pride, as if they belonged to everyone but him, hurt more than Dmytro could say.

Since Ajax had experience with remote parenting, maybe Dmytro could glean something from studying him—some way to avoid the pitfalls, like the “boring family vacations” Ajax’s parents never went on.

Maybe that was something he could work on with Pen and Sasha.

He opened the gallery of pictures they had drawn and made a couple comments. His phone jiggled—Sasha responding, although she should have been fast asleep.

“Sasha?”

“Daddy! When are you coming home? I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Soon, I hope. Business is far more tiresome than peewee soccer.”

She snorted. “It’s not even soccer season .”

“I know. How was T-ball?”

And just like that, Sasha was off and running with a play-by-play.

Every now and again, Dmytro had to wonder if he’d be less miserable at home or if he’d simply find new things to be miserable about.

Liv called him a sad sack, but he and Yulia had laughed often.

Yulia made things fun for everyone, and he wished he could be the same without her, but lacking her goodness, humor, and warmth, he had nothing to draw on anymore.

He’d stolen those things along with her life when his deadly businesses came calling and found them all at home.

Ajax came out of the sauna, looking pale. He took several deep breaths before asking, “Are you sure you don’t want to come in? It’s amazing! And you can kill someone just as easily from inside as outside if you ask me.”

He put his hand over the phone and glared hotly. “Do you mind? I’m on the phone.”

“Who is that? Is that Uncle Bartosz?” Sasha asked.

“No. No one you know. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I have to go to work now. Spokiyno moye anhel . Be good. Kiss Pen for me.”

“Bye, Daddy. Kisses!”

He hung up his phone and dropped it back into his shirt pocket. Ajax didn’t return to the sauna. Instead, he stood in the opening, watching Dmytro, letting the steam out.

“You look so sad when you talk about your girls.”

Dmytro shrugged. “No father can be with his children every minute.”

Even to his own ears, he sounded defensive.

Ajax left the sauna to grab a chair and noisily drag it over the cement floor. Dmytro gave a quick check over his shoulder. This was so stupid. They were sitting ducks. “If you don’t want to get in the sauna, then why are we—”

“I will. Give me a minute.” He sat and clasped his hands between his knees, his expression earnest if uncertain as hell. God, by this boy’s age, Dmytro had killed a man. The man had put hands on the boss’s daughter, who was only thirteen at the time, and deserved killing, but—

Ajax bit his lip before speaking. “Okay, um. I know we don’t know each other, and we come from totally different worlds.

” When Dmytro started to speak, he plunged on.

“But I want you to know from my experience, it’s not always the amount of time you spend with your kids but how you act when you’re with them. ”

Surprised by Ajax’s insight, Dmytro asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean… oh. How important you make them feel to you? I’ve never doubted my parents’ love, not once.”

“But by your own admission, you spent your childhood alone. You said yourself you’ll do anything for attention. To me, that sounds like you were a very lonely boy. I worry my Sasha and Pen will—”

“Be like me?” Ajax laughed. “Nah. I’m unique, I think.”

Dmytro hid a smile. “No kidding.”

“I was never alone. There were caregivers, bodyguards. Mom says I have an insatiable appetite for attention, but I got it. And remember, your Sasha and Pen have each other. I never had a brother or sister.”

Dmytro pressed his lips together. “I had brothers.”

“There are more like you? Oh my God.” Ajax’s brows lifted.

“Several older brothers, in fact. My father remained a hard-line pro-Russian after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We come from a distinguished military family, so the pressure was great to follow in his footsteps. We didn’t get along.”

Ajax winced. “I’m sorry.”

“My older brothers fell in line to make my father proud. I refused to do anything he wanted on principle.”

“I wish I had brothers.”

Lowering his eyes, Dmytro admitted, “I was close to the second youngest, but he moved to the States.”

Ajax asked, “Did you stay in touch?”

Dmytro rubbed his earlobe. He should have gone into the sauna with Ajax; it would have been more comfortable. It would have felt more like a confessional, and now he was cold. This was like asking for absolution in front of a glass window, as if Ajax could see into his soul.

“After I married Yulia, we talked some.”

Ajax was silent too long before he asked, “What’s Yulia like?”

“Why do you want to know?” Dmytro lifted his gaze.

“I just want to know.” Ajax grinned. “I’m very curious.”

“Like sunflowers.” Dmytro glanced down at his empty hands. “She was like armfuls of sunflowers. She delighted the eye, the heart. Everyone she met felt better after they spent time with her.”

“She was ?” Ajax startled. “Past tense?”

“I’m a widower.” Dmytro expelled a breath.

“I’m so sorry.” Ajax covered his mouth with both hands. “I didn’t mean to pry into something so painful. Oh my God. That’s awful.”

Dmytro couldn’t bear it—opening his mouth, his wounds, for this boy who had never known a day of trouble in his life.

Why had he done it? It had been so long since he’d confided anything about his life in someone.

Why, oh, why had he poured his thoughts into the vacuum created by Ajax Fairchild’s empty words?

Ajax’s eyes had misted in a show of empathy, and now he reached a tentative hand out to cover Dmytro’s. At his touch, old impulses—desire he’d turned away from when he’d married Yulia—rushed through him.

He’d fled from his bisexuality at home and planned to keep running in America, but Ajax was a perfect storm of good looks and sex appeal and provocation. In any other circumstance, it would be impossible to resist him.

For seconds that felt like eons, he watched Ajax’s pupils widen. They swallowed the brilliant green of his eyes until there was hardly any color left. A pulse ticked visibly in his throat.

“It is what it is.” Dmytro pulled his hand back, palms suddenly sweaty. He wiped them on his shirt and ordered, “Get back in the sauna. I didn’t come down here with you to chitchat.”

“You lost someone you loved.” Ajax blinked back tears. “It’s okay to have emotions.”

“I have emotions.” Dmytro spoke tersely. “I simply don’t play show-and-tell with them at work.”

Shit, shit, shit. If Bartosz had seen what transpired between them, he might call Zhenya and have Dmytro reassigned. Or worse, Bartosz might take Ajax up on what he seemed to be offering.

Dmytro needed to find solid ground again. He had to fight this dangerous attraction to his client. He had to run from the appealing empathy on Ajax’s face.

“Get back in the sauna, or we return to the room. Your choice, Mr. Fairchild.”

This is your job. Ajax Fairchild is your job.

Best to remember that, for everyone’s sake.