CHAPTER ONE
Dmytro
Ajax Freedom.Your time on this earth is at an end. Prepare to meet the God you denigrate. Prepare to pay for your sins. Prepare for the coming bloodbath.
Death threats came hourlyto Ajax Freedom, the internet persona of their client, Ajax Fairchild via his website, but you wouldn’t know it from the slow, deliberate way he dressed. Like a stripper in reverse, he smirked at Dmytro, daring him to react to the bulge in the boxer briefs he wore beneath loose, soft jeans that hung open while he pulled a Henley on over his pale, well-muscled body. He put on and zipped up a hooded sweatshirt.
Dmytro frowned into his phone. The client was apparently trying to get a rise out of him, but this was the twenty-first century. Did the boy expect him to blush with maidenly modesty?
Modern, rational thinking didn’t stop the shockwave of intense physical attraction, but Dmytro had practice hiding hisreactions from the most dangerous men in the world. This pampered boy-man posed no problems for him.
“It’s 7:57 p.m.,” Dmytro warned. “Be ready to leave in three minutes.”
“All right.”
“All right,” Dmytro echoed uselessly. Ajax had been walking around in a provocative state of undress since they’d finally lured him out of his room. Dmytro took solace from his phone and his daughters, Alexandra and Penelope, who had texted him that they missed him and couldn’t wait for him to get home. The two little girls were the most important people in his world. If he messed up on the job, the least that could happen was those two angels didn’t eat.
Dmytro had been hired to keep Ajax Freedom alive, so that made him number three on Dmytro’s list of people to care about, if only until the job ended. Freedom could run about naked and swing from the chandeliers, flaunt himself in front of the men who protected him, or make crank calls to the White House for all Dmytro cared, so long as Dmytro got back to his girls in one piece.
He hid his smirk behind an impassive face. The egregious display of pale, freckled skin wasn’t getting Ajax anywhere, even though said skin was pretty, creamy, and looked velvety soft. Plus… freckles. A particular kink. Still, nothing Dmytro couldn’t handle.
Ajax fussed noisily in the closet for a few seconds before turning to say, “Well? Are we going?”
Dmytro briefly lifted his gaze from his phone. “Has three minutes passed?”
With a huff, Ajax fussed in the closet some more. He muttered, “Suitcase, suitcase, sports bag, garment bag, messenger bag, backpack, laptop bag.”
“Nuh-uh,” Dmytro reminded him. “Laptop stays here.”
Ajax appeared aghast. “I thought you were just saying that to piss me off.”
“When I want to piss you off, it will be unmistakable. Leave the laptop. You’re on an enforced digital time-out.” Dmytro had cloned Ajax’s phone and pulled the batteries from it, disabled his desktop, and confiscated the laptop, his fitness tracker, and anything else that could be traced. They had allowed the young man to keep his fancy dive watch but had disabled its GPS. The rest of his many devices had been secured or would be stored. They’d checked his bags. “Think of it as a chance to go old school and read a physical book.”
Ajax frowned. “When was the last time you read a physical book?”
“None of your beeswax.”
“Fine.” Ajax handed over the bag he’d filled with outerwear.
“Please use the next two minutes to double-check that you have everything you need.” Dmytro scrolled through his texts, looking at the drawings his daughters had sent recently. The picture Alexandra—Sasha—had sent of Mrs. Whatsit was wonderful, although he could hardly stand to look at it. She’d made Whatsit’s eyes glisten, and they seemed to follow him no matter how he held his phone. Dmytro didn’t know about art. His sister Liv once said it had something to do with shading and negative space. Sasha was going to be a real artist someday, sophisticated and subtle, like her late mother.
With a sigh, Dmytro texted that yes, he’d watchA Wrinkle in Timewith Sasha and Pen again when he returned, although privately he thought children’s movies were going to destroy humanity. So much music and magic and mystery.
You are more than you believe.
Everyone hoped that was true, but no one actually was more, they were onlydifferent.
He eyed his client.
There was something intrinsically wrong with a job that took him away from his children to protect someone else’s. He was good at what he did, but his methods never deviated. Get in, keep the client alive while the rest of the team from Iphicles Security—the bespoke service he worked for—neutralized any threats, and get home.
Pen’s drawing showed her love of geometric shapes and primary colors. There was nothing nuanced about Pen. He liked her drawings as much as her sister’s. They both showed promise to him. He put his phone away and checked the peephole. Peter stood by the elevators, keeping watch in the hall.
“Time to go.” When Dmytro moved, he moved quickly. He could spring from a twenty-minute power nap into a melee with no ramp-up time at all. He picked up Ajax’s duffel and looped the shoulder straps over his neck. Next came the messenger bag, and finally the backpack and one of the suitcases. There was no point in arguing about the amount of luggage a client had. One simply found a way to carry it. Sometimes, if one had to, one carried the client as well.
Ajax froze like a gazelle faced with a cheetah.
“You take the wheeled Pullman. I’ve got the rest.” How Dmytro wished people wouldn’tdither.
