What the hell was that? Bartosz? Dmytro’s agonized expression broke Ajax’s heart.
“Get us underway, Chet,” Peter ordered. “We have a rendezvous in thirty.”
“Aye-aye, Skipper.” He left the three of them alone. Peter motioned for Dmytro to cross the cabin and sit beside Ajax. Noisy engines fired up with a roar, and the boat gave a sick-making lurch.
“Was that…. Did they just kill Bartosz?” Ajax asked Dmytro.
Dmytro didn’t answer, but from his face, the news was probably bad.
Peter grinned again. Wolflike, Ajax had the thought when they met. Peter the wolf.
How true that seemed now.
“Now that we have your full attention, Kolisnychenko, and yours, Mr. Fairchild, I trust you two won’t do anything further to fuck up my plans?”
Chapter 21
NOW DMYTRO shook with an altogether different emotion: rage.
Peter was Iphicles. He’d been with Iphicles before Dmytro had come on board. This Chet, he’d seen once or twice. He’d never met the rest of the crew. Why, oh, why hadn’t he asked about them? Vetted them thoroughly? Run photo IDs and credentials through Zhenya, on the off chance they weren’t who they said they were?
Why? Because he’d trusted Peter, known him since he’d taken a job with Iphicles. He’d been talking on the phone with his girls when Peter jammed a gun in his face. Chet stood by, grinning like a fool. They’d disarmed him, and Peter herded him down the stairs while Chet took his weapon and his phone up to the deck. Chet might have even used his gun against Bartosz. The thought sickened him, made him feel like the world’s biggest fool.
Peter carried a Beretta Cx4 Storm, a Beretta handgun, and a hunting knife. Chet had a Glock G40 10mm and an ankle rig. That was a lot of firepower in shaky hands.
Bartosz…. Dear God, Bartosz was gone and Zhenya was none the wiser.
He was alone with Ajax, his only guard against these men and how many others?
He had no real weapons, only a slim blade concealed in his boot. He had no way to communicate with the outside world. Peter controlled the radio and phones, and he could fabricate any story he liked.
Bartosz was right all along. They had been herded into a trap. Neatly played.
Peter would ransom Ajax and then get rid of all his witnesses. When he returned to land, Peter could play the part of grieving coworker, and Bartosz, Dmytro, and Ajax would be gone forever.
“Why are you doing this?” Ajax demanded. “Was Bartosz right? Is this a kidnap for ransom? That’s rich. Iphicles, the most respected, the most expensive security on the planet, was in on the plot all along. Fucking Iphicles.”
“Now, now. If your parents pay the ransom—”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Ajax shouted. “I’m never meant to get off this vessel alive. I knew it. I hate boats.”
“Stop whining and sit on the chair, Fairchild.” He motioned with his gun before calling out for his second-in-command. “Chet? Set the heading and come down here. Bring tape.” He lifted his gun and aimed it directly at Ajax’s forehead before turning to Dmytro. “And don’t you try anything, or I’ll put a bullet in the primary. The men on board are all mine. You can’t possibly take us all.”
Peter gripped Ajax’s arm and led him to a chair. Seconds later Chet arrived, carrying a weapon and a roll of duct tape. He held Dmytro at gunpoint while Peter tore off large strips of duct tape to secure Ajax’s wrists and his ankles to the chair. He taped Ajax’s mouth shut, leaving his eyes, blank and betrayed, to speak for him.
Dmytro had a moment to wonder why all that was necessary before Peter spoke again. “Come with me, Dmytro.”
The way Peter said the words was final. Apologetic. Both men held their weapons trained on him. He had no doubt they planned to take him topside and rid themselves of him as they had Bartosz. Ajax realized it too. The horror on Ajax’s face as tears slipped from his eyes broke his heart.
He rattled the chair beneath him, the noise loud, even over the engines.
“Quiet, faggot.” Chet pistol-whipped him. The sound was shocking, a crack against Ajax’s face that might have shattered bone. Dmytro winced as if the weapon hit his own.
Blood spurted from Ajax’s nose. Dmytro doubted he’d ever been attacked like that before. Not possible, with security by his side his entire life. He doubted Ajax Fairchild had ever been spanked, much less manhandled—beaten by a brute like Chet. A sick, twisted pleasure sat on Chet’s face. He’d enjoyed it. Dmytro had known plenty of men like him.
Bile rose in his throat. “Leave Ajax alone.”
“Or what?” Peter sneered. “Move.”
“Wait.” Dmytro had to think. To stall. He had to bargain. “Wait a minute. What’s your plan?”
“How can it matter to you?” Chet asked. “Seeing how you’re gonna be dead?”
Ajax’s whimper tore a new hole of grief in his heart.
“It matters because”—he motioned toward Chet—“he’s stupid, and I’m not.”
“Just for that—” Chet made to strike Ajax again, but this time Peter caught his arm. Chet cried out in dismay. “But, Skipper—”
“My point exactly.” Dmytro hid his loathing. He hid his fear. He didn’t dare glance at Ajax, because then the game would be over before he started playing. “I have my girls to think about. If you’re purchasing loyalty, isn’t it better to buy from someone who has everything to offer and everything to lose?”
Peter shook his head. “You don’t fool me, Kolisnychenko. We’ve had eyes—and ears—on you from day one. You fell for Freedom. You can’t fake your way out of this.”
“If it’s true you’ve listened, then you know my daughters are my life. I would do anything for them. Anything to go home to them.”
Ajax moaned. Dmytro hardened his heart. He’d been in worse situations, but he’d never gambled for higher stakes. His only option was to play for time, and he wasn’t going to get that commodity by going over the side with a bullet in his forehead.
He glanced at Ajax. He’d only spoken the truth, but it hurt like hell to see Ajax assimilate it. To know he believed it.
“Talk.” Peter returned the gun to Ajax’s head. “You have one minute.”
“Skipper, my God, Kolisnychenko’s a fucking do-gooder. He—”
A single filthy look from Peter silenced Chet’s tongue.
“Has the ransom demand been made? The drop arranged?” Peter narrowed his eyes. “Then what? You planned to return to Iphicles without the three of us? Say the drop went sideways?”
Peter sighed. “I’m afraid you and Bartosz die trying to save Ajax during the rendezvous. Terribly sad. There’ll be a firefight, you see? Only Chet and I make it back alive.”
Dmytro nodded. “Have you mentioned this to the rest of the crew?”
“About that.” Peter laughed. “Sorry, I lied. They were hired to go with us to Catalina and disappear. There’s only the three of us aboard now. Plus our golden goose there.”
Chet paced across the cabin, back and forth, holding the gun in one hand and gnawing on the thumbnail of the other.
“Are you certain that’s wise?” Dmytro asked.
“Shut your pie hole and get up those stairs,” Chet demanded.
That got Chet the sneer he deserved. “You think you can sell this scenario? That Bartosz and I couldn’t fight our way out of a ransom drop gone south? You think Zhenya is going to believe that? Believe Chet? You’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
Peter glanced between them, hesitating.
“Oh, fuck this!” Chet wailed. “I’m the one who did Bartosz. He didn’t see a thing coming ’cause I got the drop on him. Leaving Kolisnychenko alive is suicide.”
“But I want to stay alive.” He turned his gaze to Peter. “You know me, brother. I fight on the side that wins because in the end, all I care about is getting home to my girls. Always.”
“Don’t listen to him—”
“Shut up, Chet,” Dmytro snapped. P
eter’s gun hand trembled. “Skill like mine doesn’t come along every day, Peter. And loyalty. If you swear I go home to my girls, it’s all yours.”
Peter shook his head like he couldn’t believe he was even thinking about it.
“If you fuck us, your girls are dead,” Peter taunted. “I’ll take them and sell them. I kill you and then your girls spend their very short lives suffering in Cairo or Dubai.”
Dmytro tightened his jaw. “I’m your man.”
“Remember, I’ve played you for days. I can play you again, anytime I want.” Peter’s feral eyes glittered, leaving no doubt he would take the girls, kill Liv, slaughter everyone Dmytro cared about, if Dmytro betrayed him.
Wrapping both hands on the grip of his gun, he eased up to Dmytro and placed the barrel at the bridge of Dmytro’s nose, directly between his eyes. “I will burn down your world if you fuck me. I’ll take everything that belongs to you, Dmytro. Tell me you know this.”
Dmytro didn’t blink. “I know.”
“Look me in the eye and swear your loyalty.”
“No.” He met Peter’s grim, glittering brown eyes. Everyone knew his loyalty couldn’t be bought. Peter would know this. Peter would see through a lie like that one immediately.
But his heart stuttered. He expected to hear the gun go off.
When it didn’t, he played his best card. “I am loyal only to my daughters. For them, and for my life, I work for any man.”
A long moment followed, during which the only sounds in the cabin were Peter’s harsh pants, Chet’s grinding molars, and Ajax’s soft sobs. Water lapped insistently against the hull. The scent of rust, of mold, of his own fear-sweat, filled his nostrils, filthy and rank, reminding him how many times he’d smelled it on his body and in the air around him.
Beneath his feet, the boat rocked gently.
The world had tilted on its axis again.
He was nothing but a roach scrambling for survival, and every time the world went sideways, he’d managed, just barely, to keep crawling through it.
He’d eaten the garbage life offered him, avoided the chunks of concrete that fell all around him, and although he’d buried his wife, he’d brought his children to a land full of new promise. With his heart filled with hope that this time he could be a better man.
And here he crawled. Just another cockroach making another bargain, the wretchedness inside him fueling nausea and the instinct to survive. Perhaps he still had a chance to live. To do that, he had to ally himself with Peter—God, what a wretched bastard—and the useless waste of skin Chet.
He could do what was necessary. Would do it, if he could keep Sasha and Pen’s faces bright in his mind, in his heart, where their love would be the only warmth he’d ever have again.
He didn’t dare look at Ajax. Didn’t dare, because to look at him would be to give away everything. How much he cared. How hard he yearned. How badly he wanted what Ajax offered—his humor, his body, a chance at something beautiful when all of this was finished.
Ajax was nothing like Yulia—not like sunflowers, maybe, but he was something new and precious all the same. Someone real and good. Perhaps this new trial was penance for the things he’d done? For all the times he’d turned his back on human misery?
Maybe he could finally pay for the suffering he’d caused others in his lifetime, and would cause in his future now that his trajectory had changed again. Perhaps this was what he deserved—to lose everything one thing at a time. His humanity, his future, his lover, his girls, his life….
Wait. His lover?
Don’t look at Ajax. Don’t look. He refused to look toward the chair where Ajax had been tied. Where he sat bruised and defeated and weeping softly.
When had love happened? Had it begun with that dimply, arrogant smile? Had it begun with Ajax’s first wisecrack? The meal in the back of the town car that ended so wretchedly? Or did it have more to do with the generosity Ajax showed to others? Or Ajax’s body, when he’d risen from the water like a young god, dripping and wet? Had he fallen when he’d discovered Ajax’s secret anxiety, why he tapped his fingers, counting off the decimals of pi to hide his fear from others and control it for himself….
When had he begun to love Ajax Fairchild?
Unlike Ajax, love had slipped beside him silently, effortlessly, shyly, and permanently. It had attracted no attention to itself because it simply was.
“Have they asked for proof of life yet?”
Peter nodded. “His livestream last night. I wired instructions to his parents through the same channels.”
Peter let his weapon drop. Dmytro hid his relief. “Won’t they contact Iphicles for help in arranging the ransom? Iphicles will want another look at him right before they make the drop.”
“Not this time. The Fairchilds no longer trust Iphicles because of the dog-and-pony show you and Bartosz put Ajax through.” Peter grinned, motioning for him to lead the way up the stairs. Dmytro hesitated for a long few seconds.
“Come on, Dmytro,” Peter coaxed. “Old war horses know when to fight and when to go home. You’ve given me your loyalty, or rather, you’ve sworn on your girls’ lives. I don’t expect more.”
“What about what I expect?”
Chet laughed and spat at Dmytro’s feet. “Expect nothing, ’cause that’s what you’re getting.”
Peter seemed to agree. “You’ll take your girls and be grateful.”
Dmytro hesitated. Christ, if he pushed and fucked this up—what should he do? What would he have done before Yulia, when the glaciers inside him had been unyielding, unmoving? When he’d been frozen for so long, he didn’t know what warmth was…?
“Fuck. That.” He turned with a frown. “I’ll expect my cut. I can be bought easily, but not cheaply. What’s the asking price for the boy?”
“That’s none of your goddamn business,” Chet answered.
Dmytro glared. “Nevertheless, I expect my share. We can bargain, but don’t for a moment think I won’t be paid for this.”
Chet shoved him. “Or I could kill you. Say the word, boss.”
Dmytro’s gaze shifted to Peter. Had he planted enough doubt about their chances? “That’s right, Peter. Go back to Zhenya with only Chet and some idiotic story about me and Bartosz being outgunned during a ransom drop. At sea. You won’t last an hour. I’m the key, Peter. Don’t fool yourself. Only I can make this happen for you.”
“Chet, go back to the bridge,” Peter said finally. “I need to talk to Dmytro alone.”
“Skipper.” Chet’s jaw dropped with shock and disappointment.
“Don’t be an ass. He’s right. We go back without Bartosz and Dmytro and Zhenya’s gonna see right through us. Dmytro will help us sell this thing and then we can punch out. Just like we said. Right?”
“There’ll still be new identities and lots of cash, though, right?” Chet asked. God, what a loser.
“That’s right, Chet. We’ll go to Ukraine. No extradition there. We can try out some nice Ukrainian girls for a change.”
Chet narrowed his eyes at Dmytro. “Just you and me, Skip?”
“Right, Chet. Go man the bridge and listen out for any chatter on the radio.”
“Okay, boss.”
Chet skipped up to the bridge and disappeared, leaving Dmytro to eye Peter with some distaste. “He has no idea he won’t survive this, does he?”
“What do you mean?” Peter’s eyes shone fever-bright, and for the first time, Dmytro wondered if he was on something. “We’re all going to Ukraine. You, me, and him. We’re gonna need a native speaker. We’ll be the three amigos.”
Which meant no. Or yes. It meant Peter was an inveterate liar, or he was making things up as he went along to confuse them.
If Dmytro was right, neither Chet nor he would ever see shore again, if Peter had anything to say about it. Was that even his plan? To make a ransom drop at sea? It was up to Dmytro to make sure he was the last man standing.
Oh, Ajax…. Please don’t believe anything you h
eard me say just now.
Chapter 22
AJAX LET his head hang, chin to his chest, while he concentrated on the difficult, nearly impossible task of breathing in and out with a broken heart.
His was shattered. Obliterated.
It hurt to take each breath in. To let each breath out was agony. Inside him, screams were building up to replace the soft sobs he had to let out through his nose. His gorge rose, and he didn’t even care that if he threw up, his life would end in a rush of hot vomit behind his duct-taped lips.
Hot tears dropped on his legs. His knit boxers were still damp beneath his shorts where he’d creamed them. He had to think part of the reason he was crying was because he didn’t want to go out like that. Not that he was going to die, but that he’d had so much promise, had so much everything, and now he was just another lump of unambiguously anonymous flesh, on his way out with all the others. He’d feed the fishes.
As long as he kept that thought in mind—his death—he didn’t have to think about the last hour of his life, where he got humped, and then betrayed, by someone he’d begun to think of as a lover.
No. Dmytro was a fuck. That’s all he’d been.
As he twisted his hands, testing his bonds, he worked his mouth to release the tape. He put that hour of quiet happiness behind him.
He had to figure a way out of this mess.
Or maybe he just had to figure out what the mess was?
Peter was Iphicles, wasn’t he? Ajax had been told over and over, had taken it as gospel, that Iphicles’s men were the best of the best. Untouchable. Unbribeable. Ultra-vetted and ultra-loyal.
But he could see how even one of Iphicles’s own might be tempted by the millions his parents would be willing to pay to get him back.
He saw, and he grieved.
His parents liked money a lot. But they didn’t do the work they did for money.
His mother enjoyed the prestige of being one of the few female CEOs at her level and—he faced it—she wore her pussy hat with pride. His father worked as a research physician because he wanted to help children. When there was money in those things, they were thrilled, but he doubted that if someone turned the spigot off, they’d look elsewhere to make a living.
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