Page 42 of The Primary Pest
“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 sender 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 took his 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.”
“Heistrouble 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 into 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 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?”
“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 attraction to Ajax, 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 the people in his life regarded him as a job.
