Page 22 of The Primary Pest
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dmytro
Ajax Freedom,I am coming for you like night and death. I will break you open and send the rot and filth inside you to hell.
Dmytro was seldom surprised,but he was now. How had it never occurred to him? Ajax had to have known Anton. Dmytro had still been in Ukraine when Anton took that last fatal plane trip to South America. Ajax and his family had probably gotten the news first.
The fact shocked Dmytro all the way to his toes.
Ajax had good memories of Anton. He probably even knew more about him than Dmytro did because Anton had become a new man after leaving for America. When he left, Anton had been a mighty warrior. But by the time he died, he fought on the side of the angels.
Even Dmytro, who missed him like a drowning man missed air, could not wish for a better brother, a better role model, than Anton.
He watched Ajax’s face now. He wondered if he could learn anything he didn’t know about Anton from him. He wondered how he could ask when he’d been so deliberately rude and unforthcoming himself.
Ajax’s body wasn’t boyish, only his face. Only his attitude as he swirled from place to place, fluid and confident, at home in the small pool of water. He let the jets massage his well-defined muscles, and when they blew air into his shorts, he laughed and patted himself down unselfconsciously, reminding Dmytro of a brightly colored betta fish. Testy and bellicose. Ready to do battle. Uniquely beautiful and uniquely arrogant.
“Did you really know my brother?” Dmytro asked before he could think about the words. “Because I didn’t. Not here. He changed when he married, and then he moved, and I didn’t know him after.”
“I was just a kid.” Ajax rested his arms on the side and kicked his feet lazily in the churning water. “I don’t suppose I knew that much about adults back then. He was very good to me.”
“Was he?”
A smile found Ajax’s lips. “My parents were awesome, but they were never there. Anton always made time for me.”
“And Anton talked to you?” That squared with Dmytro’s memory of him. He wasn’t the warmest man, but he liked children and always had time for a word or two. Never acted impatient or as if Dmytro’s questions were stupid.
“He taught me card games.” Ajax appeared lost in the memory. “And board games. Sometimes he read aloud to me or sat with me on the plane to give my parents time to sleep.”
Dmytro had to swallow the sudden sadness that enveloped him. “He was unselfish. I remember.”
“He taught me self-defense. And to shoot.” Ajax smiled suddenly. “Mom wanted to kill him, which seems kind ofcounterintuitive, but Mom’s a serious peacenik, and when she saw me with a gun in my hand, I thought she’d—”
“How well can you shoot?” Dmytro sat forward.
Ajax rolled his eyes. “Obviously not as well as Anton.”
“Obviously.” Anton had been Spetsnaz, in the security service Alpha Group. Dmytro had similar skills and a good education. He’d tried to follow in Anton’s footsteps for a time, but back then, because of his father, he didn’t take orders well. Or at all. When he met his former boss and the man’s shady associates, he decided to become muscle for hire, which led him in an entirely different, far less glorious direction.
Anton had been a one-man army. If he’d taught Ajax to shoot even half as well as he’d taught Dmytro when he was a kid, then Ajax could be a highly proficient amateur.
He was there to protect Ajax, but if the kid was good, if he could also protect himself, perhaps in the direst emergency, they could make a weapon available to him.
Ajax swam around a bit more and then rose from the water, dripping, his lean, athletic body coltish but in no way childlike. Ajax had sparse body hair, but it was dark and easy to see. The feet in his shower shoes were huge, like flippers. His hands were narrow and long. Dmytro frowned and glanced away.
He would test Ajax’s self-defense moves. Perhaps he could carry on where Anton left off. Be an unofficial uncle, and by so doing, learn more about his brother and lay an unwanted attraction to rest. He never found anyone irresistible, not when the price was so high.
“We’ll find a place for target practice. And for working on hand-to-hand,” Dmytro decided. “If you’re good enough, you can help us keep you safe.”
“Really?” Ajax’s eyes widened.
Dmytro asked, “You’re a man, aren’t you?”
It was a long time before Ajax answered. “I am a man.”
Dmytro nodded. For him the matter was settled. “You must learn to defend the things that matter. The world is cruel.”
“Yes, it’s very cruel.” Ajax swiped a hand over his damp face.
