He sensed the change in Ajax’s mood. “What’s bothering you, Ajax?”
I MISS Anton. Ajax didn’t say the words. He couldn’t. It was too raw. Too intimate. Until that moment, he had never realized how much Anton meant to him. More than an uncle. More like his grandfather, who shared time and space and food with him, rather than simply hire people who did. He missed Anton’s wife, Katy, whose soft voice and sweet perfume seemed to have followed him there, to the lost coast of California.
The plane crash that killed them had hurt so badly, he’d barely spoken a word for six months. Their funeral was agonizing. And now he was faced with this reminder—this constant living proof that his Anton was gone and he was never coming back.
Dmytro looked like him, but he was not the same.
Dmytro was cold winter, where Anton had been spring. Taciturn, where Anton had always smiled. Ajax stayed where he was, doing his best to sniffle quietly. Wiping his snot and tears on his sleeves. Eventually he drifted off to visions of Anton and Katy dragging him into some folk dance he didn’t know how to do.
They used to laugh and stay up late all the time when his parents traveled. Sometimes he caught them kissing in the shadows of his parents’ enormous McMansion. Laughter had never fit him as well, or felt as good, since Anton and Katy died.
Maybe he could mourn them with Dmytro. Maybe now, mourning them would help.
Chapter 14
Ajax Fairchild, I fuck sick boys like you with a butcher knife. I’m coming for you….
BARTOSZ PULLED over to get gas and stretch his legs. Dmytro joined him outside in the chilly night air. Ajax had wept himself to sleep as noisily as any child trying to hide his tears. Dmytro hadn’t acknowledged it because… well. Not to save his pride. Odd. Ajax Freedom had pride, but Ajax Fairchild did not.
The truth was he’d ignored Ajax to keep from taking him into his arms.
“Bartosz, come look. These new messages are totally different from the others.” He’d read them over several times before he forwarded it to Bartosz and Zhenya’s phones. “See what I mean?”
“Yes. Besides being horrific, he used Ajax’s true surname. Someone new, you think?”
“I don’t know.” Dmytro had become uneasy after the first one. These threats seemed more specific. More grisly.
“Probably just a different nutter. Zhenya and the others will chase it down.”
Dmytro couldn’t let it go. His instinct told him these were more serious—more dangerous—than the others. But also, crying was Dmytro’s other Achilles’ heel. He couldn’t stand it when people cried.
What a devil—offering himself like that. Dmytro could now see the very real difference between Ajax Fairchild and Ajax Freedom. Ajax Fairchild thought before he spoke. He had empathy. He was highly intelligent and a little lonely and possibly, maybe, a decent person.
Freedom would rather be slapped for doing something dreadful than ignored for behaving like a rational human being. Freedom was shock and awe personified. So offering himself…. Dmytro tried again to let it go. The proposition had probably been another ploy by Ajax Freedom to get attention.
Dmytro gazed sourly at the sky.
He would not look at Ajax again. He’d spent enough time studying the straight line of his spine already. That disgraceful mop of curly hair. His long neck and broad shoulders. His slim hips, rounded buttocks, and coltish legs.
Oh, yes, he’d clocked Ajax when he rose from the pool with his cock hard and goose flesh all over his skin. With his overblown pupils and the water dripping down his body in tiny rivers like sweat after sex.
I saw you and I wanted you. Worse, I might even like you.
He’d schooled his face and kept his body disinterested. In his old life, to betray even a breath of interest in Ajax would have led to certain death. He’d kept his thoughts—his yearnings—to himself for so long, they didn’t even feel like a part of him anymore. It was as if they belonged to someone else. Lived somewhere else now, except for some baggage in a closet that he hadn’t quite cleared out.
But he knew now. His body knew, and it wouldn’t be so easy to hide his attraction to Ajax. Especially with Ajax taunting him, I could blow you. Rim you. Ride you.
He’d wanted all of that and more, and somehow he’d managed to keep a blank expression on his face and any irritation out of his voice when he’d replied. Reflexively, he checked inside the car. Ajax was still asleep.
Relieved, Dmytro made a brief trip to the restroom, had a piss, and went around to the back to stare into the silent darkness. His muscles had grown stiff from holding still for so long, so he stamped his legs and stretched.
Serious or not, it had been a while since Dmytro was propositioned by a man. Most found out he had children and simply didn’t bother. If they did, they were older, and often they were married and looking to cheat. It wasn’t difficult to say no to something like that, but Ajax….
He had to have been making fun. Turning his boredom into a silly, shocking game.
All Dmytro had to do was to get home to his girls. He didn’t want to be a part of Ajax’s sad little drama. This was too dangerous. Too close to his real life for him to even contemplate. He returned just as the gas valve shut off. Bartosz looked a little bored.
“You okay?”
“Sure.” Bartosz retrieved a flask from his jacket pocket and offered Dmytro a drink.
Dmytro shook his head.
“Such a choirboy,” he mocked. “Despite all your time with our less than lawful friends abroad, you live like a priest.”
“All the priests I ever met were drunks.”
“Point.” Bartosz pointed the flask at him. “But what about the boy?”
“What about him?” Dmytro winced. Bartosz was as fond of eavesdropping as Ajax was of shocking people. Either way, the entire episode in the back seat had been a win for both of them.
“He has a very sweet mouth.” Bartosz drank before wiping his lips in an unsubtle, suggestive way. “I don’t mind telling you, I could enjoy guarding that body up close.”
“Don’t be a pig.” He doubted Bartosz meant the words. They both knew not to shit where they ate. “He’s a baby.”
“He’s a perfectly fuckable age, even in these puritanical United States. Plus, I read his file. He’s whored himself out plenty already. You think he’d mind?”
Dmytro narrowed his eyes. “If I didn’t think you were teasing—”
“Of course I’m teasing, brother.” Bartosz’s good nature was back. “It wasn’t me he propositioned.”
“He was only trying to shock me.”
“The way he looks at you makes me wonder if he’d put up much of a fight if you gave him a try.”
“You really think I’m that sort of man? To just ‘give a try’?” He poked Bartosz’s chest. “That should disgust even you.”
“You misunderstand. I’m saying woo him. He looks at you like you’re the last kolaczki on the plate.”
“He looks at me because of my brother Anton,” Dmytro revealed finally. “Because of some hero worship from the past. Believe me. We keep him safe. We find the threat. And we send him back. Everyone will be happier.”
Bartosz pulled out his phone. “To that end, I got a message from Zhenya.”
Dmytro took it. Read it. Looking into new messages. Sender using onion routing. We’re working on it. They’re escalating. We’ve arranged for a decoy with another set of operatives. They’re in the second safe house now. Did you ask about that list I sent? Stay where you are. Lie low. We’ll be in touch.
“What does this mean,” Dmytro asked, “a decoy?”
“They’ve got another team with a lookalike in the safe house. So hopefully everyone believes the boy is there for now.”
“And we’re to keep His Majesty moving up and down the coast until the threat is found?” Dmytro knew what he would do with anyone who threatened Ajax. The idea made his gut burn with familiar fire.
“Zhenya gave me directions to the local
marina. We’re to move to the water.” Bartosz wouldn’t take the phone back. “If we can, first thing, we get breakfast. I’m starving.”
“It’s three hours until daylight, at least.”
“Tell my belly that.” Bartosz got his receipt.
“Can we get his things from the motel?”
“Zhenya says someone will meet us at the landing. They’ll have our things waiting.” Bartosz put his hand on the door handle. Dmytro stopped him from opening it.
“Don’t wake him. He has trouble sleeping.”
“He is trouble sleeping. But pretty.” Bartosz pushed inside, and the door closed quietly between them. For a few painful seconds, Dmytro wondered if Ajax would make those astounding propositions to Bartosz too—wondered if Bartosz might take him up on them. It was really none of his business, but it might be better for everyone concerned. It also might actually enrage him.
He didn’t let himself think about it further. He got in the back seat of the car, stared straight ahead, and brooded.
Bartosz’s elastic morality reminded him too much of his past, when taking what he wanted from anyone who had it was his business plan. It would never have occurred to him back then that stealing from a girl with a broken head and a beater car was a bad thing to do, as long as it was expedient.
He didn’t like to think about some of the things he’d done. He’d fallen far from his father’s aspirations for him. Discarded all of his privilege by walking away from that life. He’d believed that concepts like good and bad, right and wrong, were for people who didn’t have to scrape and claw and bully their way along the rough streets of Kiev to survive.
Then he’d met Yulia, and for her, he wanted to be more than that guy. For his children and for his immortal soul.
It sickened him to let them down, even for a moment.
“What should we do?” he asked when Bartosz started the engine.
“Seems to me we’re doing it.”
“Where’s the boat?”
“Picking us up at the marina, just south of here.” Bartosz grinned into the rearview mirror. “The parents are sparing no expense. Did you bring your yachting togs?”
Dmytro gave yachting togs all the thought they deserved. “Let Zhenya know he should make amends with Carl and check on the girl. Make reparations for the car. Ajax will want to know she’s all right.”
“Why am I unsurprised?”
“What?” Dmytro glanced at Ajax.
“You’ve already gone soft for him. That’s why they picked you, brother.”
“What do you mean?” Dmytro asked.
“You never could resist a troubled child.”
“Don’t be stupid.” He kept his face impassive, but what would he do if he couldn’t hide his feelings for Ajax? If Bartosz got even a whiff of his growing feelings for the boy, he’d never hear the end of it. Far more troubling, falling for Ajax would make it impossible to do his job. He’d lose his best asset—a rational mind.
But if anyone had ever needed a true friend—someone who cared deeply about only him and not his looks or his money or what he could do for them—it was Ajax Fairchild. He’d had absentee parents, and with the exception of Anton, the people in his life regarded him as a job.
Just as you’re trying to do, he reminded himself. Trying, and failing.
In order for Dmytro to do his job to the best of his ability—with each threat growing more severe—he couldn’t afford to care about Ajax Fairchild either, at least not any more than he cared about the rest of his clients. He had to rein in his emotions and his dick and conceal his attraction, for Ajax’s safety.
Since it was for Ajax’s future happiness, his safety, and his very well-being, Dmytro made more than a decision. He made a vow.
Chapter 15
Ajax Freedom, you dream only of darkness and I am the light. I will purify you. I will rid the world of you. I am coming for you.
“YOU AWAKE?” Bartosz asked.
“No.” Ajax lifted his eyelids and found himself alone in the car with Bartosz. “You don’t really believe there’s a credible new threat, do you?”
Bartosz let his hands drop away from the wheel. “The problem in this business is you can never tell.”
“Have you heard from your guy? Peter?”
Head shake. “Only Zhenya. You’re safe for now, though. Go to sleep.”
“Where’s Dmytro?” Dawn was barely cracking the sky in the east. Ajax wiped his mouth, stretched, and discovered they were in a marina parking lot.
“He’s making arrangements for your things.”
“You got my things?” Ajax unbuckled his seat belt. Someone had picked up his things at the motel and brought them to him… wherever they were. “Awesome. Talk about service.”
“One of Zhenya’s men picked them up. You’ve been out for a couple hours now.”
Ajax nodded. There was a boat at the dock. She looked to be a cabin cruiser, about fifty feet long. Not a Saudi prince’s luxury yacht but a sleek, sturdy boat for a large family who enjoyed lots of time on the water. The Charioteer.
There was a gas station near the dock, and a coffee shop. “Since there’s a lookalike pretending to be me, is it safe to get out and stretch?”
“When Dmytro returns, if he believes it’s safe, we’ll go for breakfast. Would you like that?”
“Don’t treat me like a child. I’m perfectly capable of going out incognito, and I won’t accept being cooped up in the car.”
Bartosz grinned at him. “That’s good, because Zhenya sent that boat for you to stay cooped up in. See? Iphicles was Hercules’s mortal twin, and his son was Hercules’s charioteer. That’s a company boat. Isn’t it cool?”
“No!” Ajax gaped at him. “He expects me to stay on a boat? I’ll be sick as a pig.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll hurl myself overboard. The threat is probably nothing. It’s probably all imaginary. But this—”
“Don’t be stupid. We’re no closer to finding out if the threat to you is real—”
“Now just wait. I’ve allowed all of this in order to please my mother and father, but I’m a legal adult, and none of you have a job without my consent.”
“Still—”
“We’re going to breakfast.” Ajax gripped the seat so tight his knuckles whitened. “We’re going shopping. But we are not getting on a goddamn boat.”
Dmytro opened the door behind him. “If Zhenya says you will, you will. While we’re aboard, we’ll convince your stalker that you’re in our safe house. We have a decoy. We need to set up a trap.”
Ajax nearly fell out of the car. “But—”
“Do you want this to be over or not?” Bartosz rounded the car to join them.
Ajax closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Of course I do, but—”
“Then Ajax Freedom will livestream using an Iphicles VPN,” Dmytro reasoned. “Zhenya will reroute that content to the server of our choosing. He and Peter want to lure whoever’s stalking you to the safe house door. Do you understand?”
Ajax gave it some thought. “What do I get out of it?”
“You’ll be alive?” Bartosz gave his opinion. “That should be enough, even for you.”
“What about my laptop? Since I’ll be using a VPN, why can’t I have my laptop?”
“Because from what Zhenya tells us, you’re a first-rate hacker, a danger to yourself, and a menace to society at large.” Dmytro folded his arms and leaned against the fender of Muse’s car. Ajax was surprised it didn’t crumple under the weight of his disapproval.
“Uncle Zhenya said that?” Ajax was very pleased to hear it. “That’s cool.”
“Ajax.” Dmytro sighed. “Zhenya will let you use your powers for good. For now.”
“I’ll see what I can do to get you a computer.” Bartosz gave Ajax’s shoulder a pat.
“Thanks. Because as much as I want to please my parents, I’m the one with actual skin in this game. From now on we work as a tea
m, or I call my private lawyers and you’re all fired.”
Dmytro’s jaw dropped. “You can’t do that.”
“I can. I’m a legal adult. I can totally bounce if I don’t want to be here, and there’s nothing you or my parents can do about it.”
“All right.” Dmytro spoke through clenched teeth. “As long as you know being difficult could harm your situation. Do you promise to—
“Stop talking to me like a child.” Ajax made up his mind to be more proactive. Maybe it was thinking about Anton, wondering what would make him proud, like Dmytro said. Maybe it was just… ennui. “I’m a grown-ass man and I’m done letting people tell me what to do. Better tell everyone. I’m putting my own best interest first.”
Chapter 16
Ajax Fairchild. Rich fags like you should die bleeding and screaming for your mothers.
THE MESSAGES had changed. He, Zhenya, and Bartosz had gone over them while Ajax slept. In light of Ajax’s stubborn behavior, he and Bartosz thought it best to be extra cautious about letting him loose, but in the end, he insisted on breakfast.
Zhenya agreed because he believed the decoy they had in place was working. Dmytro didn’t hate the odds either. They’d taken a random vehicle. This was a random destination. He and Bartosz believed no one knew where they were except Iphicles.
The coffee shop wasn’t much to look at, but the place smelled delightful, a combination of maple and bacon and the yeasty aroma of homemade bread.
Gulls wheeled overhead, soaring and dipping to bother families eating outside and fishermen casting off the docks, pecking at bits of bait and diving to swoop things up from the water.
“This is so strange.” Ajax stepped onto the boardwalk. “Another little town I’ve never been to.”
“It’s quaint enough.” Dmytro stayed on high alert, just in case.
“Too small for my taste. I need the crowds and filth of LA or San Francisco to feel halfway at home.” Bartosz stopped outside the gaily painted wooden door of the tiny cafe. “In you go, both of you.”
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