“Me too.”
Bartosz rolled up the window until Dmytro couldn’t hear his laughter anymore.
“Ihatethrowing up.” On the other side of the car, Ajax rinsed with his drink and spit on the ground.
“Really? Because throwing up has always been the best part of my day.” Dmytro gave his gum a ferocioussnap.
“Oh,sarcasm.” Ajax lobbed the word. “I’ve heard of that. Didn’t they use that back in the olden days?”
“Yes. Before your generation started mistakenly calling it irony.” Dmytro stood. After readjusting his clothes, he returned to his call. “Boss. How is your day treating you?”
“Better than yours is from the sound of it.” The mirthful tone in his booming voice made Dmytro grimace. “But Mitya, we have a problem.”
“What?” A wary shiver made his neck tingle. Men like Evgeni Ivanov didn’t have problems. They caused them.
“The safe house alarms have gone off fourteen times in the last two hours.”
“Mechanical failure or mischief?” Dmytro asked.
“Can’t tell. It could be an animal, or it could be a thief. The CCTV shows nothing. I’ve got a man heading up there, but—”
“It could be someone setting off the alarms periodically so we won’t pay attention to them later when they make entry,” Dmytro surmised.
“Exactly. Can’t take the chance. Especially not with Ajax.”
That seemed oddly specific. “Why him especially? Beside the fact his parents are rich.” The job had been described to him as an all-hands-on-deck, follow-protocol-to-the-letter, death-before-dishonor sort of detail. What Dmytro didn’t know was why?
“For one thing, Ajax’s mother is the CEO of a Fortune 100 corporation, and his father just invented a promising new cancer protocol for children.”
“So? His parents are achievers. We deal with rich clients all the time.”
“Ajax is special to me.” Evgeni—Zhenya to his friends—said.
Dmytro kept a wary eye on the client, who seemed to be watching a very young couple take in the view. They looked too thin to Dmytro. The woman was heavily pregnant.
Why was he watching those people? What went through his head? What did he make of the less fabulous? Were they merely extras in his life or did he see them?
“What kind of special,” Dmytro asked. “Does he require medical or psychological care? If so, you’ll need to fill me in so I can set something up.”
“Nothing like that. He’s my godson.” Zhenya said that like he thought it was a good thing.
“You never mentioned you had a godson.” Dmytro groaned. Now he was going to have to makean effort.
“Why would I?”
“Because I should have that information?” Everyone at Iphicles was either foreign military, black ops, or muscle like him. They had special… skills. They didn’t always fit into a normal life with normal people. Half of them didn’t even exist on the grid. Dmytro didn’t have many secrets from his colleagues. They often lived together on the job. How had Zhenya befriended a CEO and a research scientist and become godparent to their child?
“Er—you know the Fairchilds?”
“When your brother and I were starting Iphicles, we took a lot of different jobs to get things started. We still used questionable methods in those days.” Blackmail, intimidation, and even coldhearted violence had all been in their wheelhouse. “That was before Katerina had her way and we decided to legitimize things.”
He and Zhenya both paused, probably in an unconscious moment of mourning for Dmytro’s brother Anton and his gentlewife. Katerina had been a civilizing influence for all the Iphicles men in one way or another.
“We took on a routine protection detail that turned out not so routine at all. We prevented a kidnapping—Ajax’s mother, Violet, who was pregnant at the time. She and Jackson Fairchild were so grateful they capitalized our startup. Without them, Iphicles would not exist.”
“I see.”
“Ajax is a riot. Literally.” Zhenya chuckled.He actually chuckled.It was such an unusual occurrence that the sound was rusty and forlorn. Like a gate in a forgotten cemetery. “I know what you’re thinking, but he wasn’t always such an immense pain in the ass. He’s his parents’ kid, so fair warning, he’s a highly intelligent, outside-the-box thinker in a way you won’t understand before it bites you in the ass and about as mature as a gummy bear.”
