Page 9 of The Primary Pest
Bartosz reached over and patted his shoulder. “Buy a scopolamine patch next time.”
“Tell the hurling dervish. We’d be there by now if we’d flown.”
It was Ajax who had refused to fly.
Ajax started snoring softly, mouth open. His teeth were perfect and as white as candy-coated gum squares. He had soft, full lips, which Dmytro had no business looking at.
“So, what do you think of our client?” Bartosz switched to Russian again.
“He’s not entirely awful.” Dmytro checked his messages and found a new one from Liv.
L:The girls are in bed, all tucked in and cozy for the night. TTYL.
“That’s an improvement on what you thought this morning,” said Bartosz
“He’s still an asshole.” Dmytro glanced back at their sleeping charge. “It’s no wonder people reacted the way they did when they found out what a fraud he is.”
The team had researched Ajax’s social media activity, although Dmytro had barely skimmed. Part enfant terrible, part agent provocateur,Ajax Freedom made a glorious name for himself among moneyed baby sociopaths, and then everything boomeranged spectacularly when they found out he wasn’t who he said he was.
Maybe he didn’t know who he was yet?
At any rate, he’d lied about his sexuality and his politics. In doing so, he’d created a young conservative wave that would have drowned him in a hot second had they known where his true sympathies lay. No one knew why he’d stirred that pot.
Maybe to annoy his liberal leaning parents?
After graduating from college, he’d come to the conclusion that authenticity was more important than celebrity and he’d recorded an incendiary manifesto. Dmytro wished he could see the face of every girl who thought they were going to become the next billionaire Mrs. Freedom and every moneyed poser who wanted to be just like him.
Ajax Freedom’s final tirade robbed them of everything.
It was the classic story of one man’s meteoric rise to fame and even quicker plummet into infamy. As someone who’d once found himself in a similar, if more literally explosive, predicament, Dmytro felt for him. He didn’t sympathize, but he winced a little. People made choices, and they had to live with them. Ajax Fairchild deserved to live and enjoy the consequences of his actions for a long time to come.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dmytro
Ajax Freedom.There is no freedom in sin. There is no rest for the wicked. Prepare yourself for the torment of eternal damnation. I am the Bringer of Justice, and I will end you.
Boom.Dmytrothought the sound was part of his regular nightmare. The one where his apartment building was coming down and he had to find a way to get Yulia, Pen, and Sasha out of the rubble through a thick haze of smoke and choking dust. On waking, he needed several disorienting seconds to figure out where he was, who he was with, and why. As always, the pain of losing Yulia consumed him.
“What’s happening?” He unbuckled his belt and retrieved his weapon in a single practiced motion.
“Stand down, Mitya.” They’d come to a rolling stop along a road he didn’t recognize. “The engine blew.”
“I thought we’d been attacked.” He sighed with relief.
“This is California, not Kazakhstan. I’d have woken you at the slightest sign of trouble.” Bartosz laid a comforting hand onhis arm. Since they’d met as young mercenaries, Bartosz, better than most, understood the shitshow behind Dmytro’s closed eyelids.
“The engine is dead?” Dmytro asked.
“Looks like.” A frown drew his lips down. Bartosz was hot, even when he was angry. Women loved him. Men wanted to be him or fuck him. Everyone liked a dangerous man, Dmytro guessed.
“Where are we?” Dmytro couldn’t tell because a bisque-thick fog obscured everything except the closest sign—a flickering, old-fashioned, neon job that read SeaView Motel, on which thevand theihad burned out. The red vacancy sign flashed its welcome.
It was on the other side of the highway. They would have to cross in the void.
“I don’t like this,” Bartosz admitted. “Do you think someone sabotaged the engine?”
“Why bother to tamper with it if they weren’t going to blow us up?”
