Page 18 of The Primary Pest
After he watchedAjax 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 soccerseason.”
“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.”
