“Get online and tell me your truth, assholes. Give me what you’ve got.” He glanced at Dmytro, who nodded. “I’m Ajax Freedom, and with great power comes endless opportunity to unload on the little guy. So why not unload right back? But use your words, kiddies. Leave your dumbassery in the comments. Tell me what you really think, because I’ve got the best security in the world and the cash to fund it forever. Catch me if you can, motherfucker.”
He pulled off his headset, turned off the cameras, and let Bartosz do the rest. When he allowed himself to look up, the first pair of eyes he saw was glacial blue.
He ached at the disappointment he saw there.
“Tell me you don’t believe that’s me, Dmytro.”
“It’s not entirely you,” Dmytro acknowledged. “But you can’t simply shed him like a skin.”
Ajax placed his headset on the desk. “It wasn’t hard to go back and find that voice, but he was never as angry. He fiddled while Rome burned. Now he makes me sick.”
“Because Ajax Freedom didn’t have to watch anyone get hurt.” Dmytro was far too observant for anyone’s good.
“Fair enough.” Ajax glanced at his feet. “Is there anything to drink on this boat? I’ve earned it.”
Dmytro gave a jerk of his head, and he followed, as he’d done for most of the day.
He blamed their behavior on shock. Everyone must have noticed, but no one commented, even when Dmytro led him to his cabin and closed the door behind them.
“I like that you use third person when you talk about him.” Dmytro dug a bottle of vodka out of his suitcase and unceremoniously handed it over.
“He’s not me.” After uncorking it, Ajax swallowed a mouthful and handed it back. “He’s never been me.”
“I know.” Dmytro took a swig before brushing a stray curl behind Ajax’s ear. Ajax leaned into that gentle touch. “I see you.”
“I don’t understand you,” Ajax finally admitted. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Calm blue eyes held his. “What don’t you understand?”
“I don’t know why you’re touching me. All you want is to get home to Sasha and Pen. Is this how you intend to make me do what you want without arguing? Because I would. You don’t have to pretend—”
“Nothing is pretend here. Bartosz gave me a hard time about you from the beginning. I’ve been with plenty of men. I haven’t done a good job hiding what I feel today because for a minute”—he winced—“in the restaurant, I thought you were hit.”
“I thought you were hit. Oh my God, I thought you were hit, and my heart just stopped.” Ajax blinked away his shock. “So…. You’ve been lying to me all along?”
“I’ve been lying to myself.” Dmytro didn’t look happy to reveal this. “I have always lied to myself.”
“I see.” Ajax swallowed hard. “What happens now?”
Dmytro picked up his hand. “I don’t know. Nothing can happen.”
“Why?” Because he couldn’t get enough, Ajax wrapped both hands around Dmytro’s. He let Dmytro have his unblinking gaze. He should have been anxious, allowing someone to look that deeply inside him. He should have been uncomfortable in the long silence that followed. Yet he gave Dmytro access to his very essence—just as he’d given Dmytro the truth of his anxiety the night before.
Dmytro cupped his jaw and rubbed a gentle thumb over his split lip. “I’m sorry you got hurt on my watch.”
Breathlessly, he whispered, “It’s nothing.”
Dmytro narrowed his eyes. “You know I can’t simply turn off my job, become the lover at a certain hour as if I’m punching a time clock. Whatever we have here cannot happen. Do you understand?”
“But we have something?” Ajax’s heart fluttered.
“Don’t we?” He suppressed a smile. “Even if it’s only because of Anton?”
“I never felt about Anton the way I feel about you.” His cheeks got hot just thinking about it. “He was a mirage shimmering in the distance. Something I couldn’t quite see but knew I wanted. You’re real. You’re solid. Flesh and blood. You steal my breath.”
“Stop.” Dmytro shut him down. “You’re far too tempting.”
Ajax gave him a little shove. “Not so you’d know it.”
“Ajax,” Dmytro warned, “I can’t—”
“Until we find whoever is trying to hurt me. I understand.”
Dmytro gave a nonanswer. “I’ll protect you, little mink. Trust me.”
“It’s boar.” Ajax hid a laugh. “A male mink is called a boar.”
“How very fitting, because from the moment we arrived, I said, ‘Bartosz, this job is going to be a wretched bore.’”
“It’s spelled b-o-a-r. Just so you know.” Ajax lifted a smug brow. “Boars are stubborn, sometimes vicious animals.”
“I am forewarned.” Dmytro pushed him gently. “Be good. Get some rest now. I’ll go find out what’s happening from Bartosz.”
Ajax’s body already trusted Dmytro’s. Now, he listened when Dmytro gave an order. He surrendered to his touch. He went wherever Dmytro led him.
His heart trusted Dmytro, but his head wasn’t ready to turn everything over to a man he barely knew, even if that man was Anton’s brother. His head reminded him that Anton and Dmytro were very different men who’d led very different lives. His head said he shouldn’t trust anyone right now.
This was no time to be an idiot, but he didn’t have to trust Dmytro all the way to be with him, especially in this closet of a cabin, where breathing required his full attention, when he wasn’t distracted….
“I’ll be here if you want to hang out.” Heat crept from his neck to his cheeks. People were on the other side of a flimsy wall. Talk about dumbassery.
“We’ll talk more.” Dmytro’s lips quirked. “I’ll be back, but it won’t be until much later.”
“In that case, leave the vodka.”
Chapter 18
Ajax Fairchild. I will splatter your brains all over your boat. Soon you’ll be at the bottom of the sea, staring up with sightless eyes.
“I CONTACTED Iphicles again, like we discussed,” Bartosz informed Dmytro stiffly once they were alone. “How does the bastard know we’re at sea? How did they get that information?”
“Someone is tracing our every move,” Dmytro said furiously.
“I called Zhenya. He’s tearing his hair out.” Bartosz glared at him. “We have to admit the possibility that the boy himself is leaving a trail.”
“No.” Dmytro refused to believe it. While Ajax didn’t give the threat much credibility at first, after the shooting incident, he was genuinely concerned. “He thinks it’s one of ours.”
Bartosz shook his head. “I smell duplicity. We should have never taken on this job, brother. Mark my words, we’ll all come to regret it.”
Angrily, Dmytro turned back to his work. Truth was, the whole thing was beginning to stink to him too.
They’d anchored off the coast of Catalina. Peter slept in his cabin and Chet took watch. While Bartosz listened to transmissions from Iphicles operatives, Dmytro made note of emails and traced their source. There were IP addresses he felt should be flagged, but it was unlikely anyone as sophisticated as Ajax said his stalker seemed to be would leave so obvious a trail. He would use burner accounts at the very least. A Tor browser. He was a needle in a warehouse full of hay and they weren’t going to catch him that way.
It was time-consuming, tedious work, but someone had to do it. It kept him from dwelling too much on Ajax, who slept in his cabin alone, and their pursuer, who might be anywhere at all.
Bartosz asked, “Are you reading these comments? Our boy is the most loved and hated man on the internet right now.”
Dmytro nodded curtly. “The sheer number will make finding our threat writer next to impossible, unless he uses the same words as in the emails.”
“Zhenya’s guys created a filter for unusual turns of phrase. If he commented, Ajax’s most ardent admirer might stand out.”
�
��Still gets us nowhere. Ajax said his stalker was skilled. The decoy was supposed to be the key.”
“Doesn’t sound like he’s fooled, though, does it?”
“I hate waiting.” He ran his fingers through his untidy hair. “Floating in limbo while a thousand people line up to take their shot at our client on the web and one waits in the shadows to do it for real.”
“It would be easier if you spent less time mooning about him and more doing your job.”
Dmytro could only remain silent. He was ashamed of himself. He’d never let his feelings for a client—an attraction especially—alter his performance at work.
Bartosz sat back. “You’ve wanted him from the first minute you laid eyes on him. At least admit that.”
“I’ll admit no such thing.” He’d thought Ajax was an attractive pain in the ass. It was only after getting to know him he’d been drawn to him. He took out his phone and looked for a message from Liv. Nothing. He’d missed their goodnights again.
“Shit,” he muttered before typing that he was safe and she should kiss the girls for him. He sent texts to each girl for them to read in the morning.
“Miss the girls?”
Dmytro glanced up. “Of course.”
“I don’t expect it will be long now. The decoy is an excellent agent who can handle himself, and he has Zhenya to watch over him.”
“I know.”
“So why do you look like a boiled cabbage? Because of the boy?”
“He’s not a boy.” Dmytro laid his phone down. “He’s a bright, sensitive man—highly intelligent and lonely, and—”
“Listen to yourself, Mitya.” Bartosz removed his earbuds and placed them on the worktable.
Dmytro sighed. “When I took this job, I was prepared to look after a spoiled rich boy with nothing to recommend him.”
“And now?”
“If anything happens to him….” He didn’t know what he would do. What he felt for Ajax was becoming something deep and real. Something he hadn’t felt since Yulia. Despite being bi, or even predominantly gay, he’d loved her with his whole heart. She’d added warmth and stability to his life. He’d wanted hers to be rich with laughter and love and the children they both longed for. He was starting to have similar feelings for Ajax, and he wasn’t going to be able to hide them much longer.
Bartosz threw a pen at him. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Are you?” Dmytro gaped and then shook his head. “No. It’s impossible. I cannot feel this. I cannot be the man who falls for a client.”
“Right? Because it’s dangerous for all of us. Your emotional attachment compromises our safety.” Bartosz reminded him, “You got a brand-new life at Iphicles.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“Are you willing to accept the possibility you’re destroying it?” Bartosz asked gently. “What would Yulia say if she knew you risked the safety of her children’s father?”
Dmytro stood. “Someday someone will kill you for the liberties you take, Bartosz.”
“They’ll have to catch me.”
“Then God help you. You’re slow as a fat toad.” He and Bartosz went back a long way—they were brothers-in-arms—but he couldn’t bear to be near him just then.
“Yet I’m crafty.”
Dmytro kept any further thoughts to himself.
Chapter 19
AJAX HAD fallen into a deep sleep. Now he woke from the heaviness of alcohol-induced slumber without knowing exactly where he was or what roused him. He held his breath and kept still because he sensed he wasn’t alone.
He opened his eyes halfway.
Dmytro leaned against the cabin doorway, hands jammed deep in his pockets, saying nothing. Jesus, was Dmytro watching him sleep? Ajax recoiled. Folks could say all they wanted about how romantic that seemed in a teen novel, but to him it was just creepy.
“What?” he asked sharply. “What do you want now?”
“Nothing.” Dmytro startled. “Just checking to make sure you’re all right. Do you need anything?”
In the moonlight, Ajax felt around to make sure he had his water bottle. “I’m fine. Anything new?”
“Not since the last message.” Dmytro smiled wryly. “As you can imagine, we’ve got our hands full vetting the comments.”
“I’ll bet.” Ajax patted the side of his bed. “Sit. You’re giving me a crick in my neck.”
Dmytro sat politely, hands clasped between his knees. “There are still comments rolling in by the hundreds.”
“I don’t give a shit.” Ajax sighed. “I never cared how people saw me, only that they couldn’t look away. That’s how come I was so successful. Now what I want is to be by myself.” He glanced at Dmytro’s strong hands. “I want to like myself. I’m not always so successful at that.”
Dmytro gave a little head shake. “Nobody’s confident at your age.”
“You weren’t?”
“Of course not.” Dmytro covered his face with his hands. “I was a mudak. I thought if I was tough enough to be in the baddest gang, it wouldn’t matter that I failed to please my father at every turn.”
Ajax’s heart hurt for him. “How did you fail?”
“My father and all my brothers were military”—he shrugged—“and I have a massive problem with authority. I never followed the path he chose for me.”
“Anton did?”
“Oh, yes. Anton was my father’s shining star until he married Katya. She was like you called your mother. A peacenik.”
Outside, water lapped against the hull. Above them, men talked softly against a backdrop of radio transmissions. Yet he and Dmytro might as well have been the only people for a thousand miles. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, giving Dmytro more space to spread out if he chose.
“How did Katy change things?”
“Katya,” he corrected, “dreamed of America and a new life. Rosy-cheeked children and making a difference.”
“And they got stuck babysitting me. Somehow I feel worse now.”
“You shouldn’t.” Dmytro shrugged. “Your heart is good. I told you, Anton would be proud. Katya too.”
Ajax’s throat burned. “They’d be proud of you too. I know it. I’m sure your daughters are.”
“What about when they find out what I do for a living? Or what I’ve done in the past?”
“What could be so bad?” From what Dmytro had offered so far, he hadn’t been an angel. But he was not the monster he sometimes implied he was.
“I was a thug, Ajax. I’ve done things…. Terrible things….” He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“What changed all that?”
“Yulia pulled me from the gutter and washed the stink from me.” He lowered his lashes. “I used to believe I was lucky because I never got caught and thrown in prison—if I died in the streets, that would be a win. She made me see that what I was doing would be a stain on my soul forever. I didn’t think I had a soul, but somehow she believed—shined it up—and after, I couldn’t be a mudak anymore.”
Ajax grinned. “I’ll bet that hurt like a bitch.”
“Like acid on my skin.” Dmytro resisted another of his smiles.
“That happened to me when I read that goddamn Plummet book. I realized that it was essential to be the best possible version of myself no matter what. I had to change. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore.”
“I don’t want to think about some of the things I’ve done.” Dmytro glanced away. “I look at my girls and imagine evil touching them somehow.”
“It won’t, because you’ll know how to keep them safe, same as you do for me.” That must have been why Dmytro held his phone clasped between his hands, almost prayerfully, whenever he wasn’t tasked with another job. “You’re making up for lost time by keeping others safe.”
“Repentance is futile,” Dmytro deadpanned.
“Did you just make a Douglas Adams joke?”
“You caught me.�
�� Dmytro scooted back on the bed to get more comfortable. “I joke all the time. You just don’t think I’m funny.”
“You got that right.” Ajax met his gaze, and again, something familiar and warm passed between them. He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t suppose he had to know. He wasn’t in control of his life. Maybe he never had been. Now, especially, he had to let things play out. “Tell me about Yulia.”
At first Dmytro seemed reluctant to answer. A hollow sadness filled his eyes, and he glanced down again, lost to his memories, maybe.
“I met Yulia in a German bar. Friends took me when I was in town on business for my boss. We were all regulars at the worst kind of dives and strip clubs in those days.” He spoke dreamily. “She wasn’t supposed to be a nice girl. She took her clothes off for money and… she did other things.”
Ajax was shocked, but he couldn’t show it. Not while Dmytro was pouring his heart out. He owed Dmytro that much.
“She was older than me,” Dmytro continued. “I think she saw all the things I hid from the world.”
“That you liked men?” Ajax asked.
Dmytro nodded. Could he still not say the words? Everyone knew he’d been with men. Not that he liked them. “And how out of my depth I was. I wasn’t made for the military, like my father and brothers were. I hate orders. Authority. Going by the book just because the book says that’s what you should do. But I didn’t love being a gangster either.”
“I guess religion wasn’t your thing, so the priesthood was out.”
“Pretty much.” Dmytro laughed.
“So Yulia….”
“Became my religion. She was better than everything around her. I wanted to give her more.” He shook his head. “She was always, always worth more than life gave to her.”
“So you married her?” Ajax concluded. “And came to America and had babies?”
“Not to America. And it wasn’t easy like you make it sound.”
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