6.
S ANDI
“Are we there yet?”
I looked over at Ajax and sighed instead of punching him in his handsome face. He’d been asking that regularly for the last hour or so. I knew it was just to get under my skin, but that didn’t matter. The urge to push him out onto the highway at 70 miles per hour was almost overwhelming.
“Are you making this difficult because you don’t want to be going to Rojo, or are you just being an asshole for no reason?”
“Both?”
“You don’t sound sure of that.”
“What I’m sure of is that there was no reason for us to pick up and leave the second I agreed. We could have waited until tomorrow like reasonable people and then spent this trip basking in the afterglow of a night of mind-blowing sex.”
I ignored his comment about sex because I hadn’t decided if I was quite ready to go there yet. There was something about Ajax that made me think that things between us might get complicated, and I wasn’t really into that.
Mind-blowing sex? I was into that, for sure. Complications like feelings and commitment? Not so much.
So, I avoided the issue and explained, “I’d like to have a day or so to get acclimated to my new place, stock the pantry, and get the lay of the land before I start work. I think your niece encouraged us to leave so quickly because she was afraid you’d change your mind.”
“She was very helpful getting everything packed up. I was starting to think she wanted to get rid of me.”
“She did . . . because she wanted you to fulfill your promise to reconnect with your family.”
“My family has been doing just fine without me.”
“That’s why they’re so intent on bringing you back into the fold, I’m sure.”
“My brother doesn’t want me back.”
“Bullshit!” I frowned at Ajax and he raised his eyebrows in question, not accustomed to that tone of voice from me. So far, he’d seen irritation, but never anger, but he was about to. “Your brother wouldn’t have jumped in his fucking car at a moment’s notice to be by your bedside if he didn’t care about you.”
“I can admit that did shock me a bit.”
“What is the deal with you two, anyway?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Well, we have about two more hours for you to explain it to me.”
“Not sure that’s enough time, and I don’t know why you care.”
“Listen, buddy. You clearly know I find you attractive, and yes, I’m considering letting you do unmentionable things to my body. However, as much as I enjoy caring for people in a medical setting, I’m not all about healing someone when I’m in a . . . personal situation with them.”
“A personal situation?”
“Roll with it.”
Ajax burst out laughing before he said, “Sexual relationship, Ratched.”
“Whatever you want to call it. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not really one to fall into bed with someone without knowing at least a little about them, and all I know about you is that you have the ability to piss people off so badly that they shoot you.”
Ajax laughed again and said, “You’ve already figured out how I got shot, I’m sure.”
“It had something to do with rescuing that young woman.”
“Yes.”
I thought about how to word my question and finally asked, “Why did you rescue her instead of the police?”
“The police have certain restrictions on how they do things. I don’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means that when I’m hired to do a job, I work whatever angle I need to and don’t worry about pesky things like laws or a criminal’s personal rights.”
“Doesn’t that make you a criminal?” I asked.
“Never said I was anything else.”
“Who shot you?”
“There’s an invisible world that exists right here in the world you can see, and if you’re lucky, the ugliness of it never appears in your line of vision.”
I scoffed before I said, “What the hell does that mean?”
“That means that a man who owns a very large company came home to find a video playing on his television that showed his two grown daughters had been taken from their homes and were being kept in separate places to make it harder for him to retrieve them.”
“And you got one but . . .”
“My friends got the other. They’ve been reunited with their father, who will take care to protect them better in the future.”
“He called you instead of the police?”
“No. He called the police, who then called the FBI. They spent days investigating him to make sure he was on the up and up, then they spent a few more days investigating his daughters to make sure that they weren’t doing anything wrong, and then they . . .” His voice trailed off before he asked, “Do you get where I’m going here?”
“But on television, they . . .”
“They solve the crime in an hour, and everyone goes home happy,” Ajax interrupted. “That’s not how the real world works, babe. Sometimes, in the real world, the ones that are supposed to be the good guys are just as fucking twisted as the ones everyone considers the bad guys.”
“Your brother was one of the good guys. Was he twisted? Is that why you don’t get along?”
“He wasn’t twisted, but his hands were tied. When something happened to someone I loved and he couldn’t help her, I helped her myself and ended up in prison.”
“It was a woman? What happened to her?”
“She died before I got there.”
“So, why did you go to prison?”
“Because I made sure they followed close behind her.”
I absorbed that for a minute, and Ajax waited silently. I could feel him staring at me, but resisted the urge to look over at him while I thought about what he’d said. I finally asked, “How many people did you kill?”
“I wasn’t convicted of killing anyone.”
“But you said . . . Hold on . . . I’m confused.”
“I went to prison for cleaning up evidence after a crime was committed. That’s how I got my nickname.”
“Ajax. Like the cleaning product.”
“Exactly.”
“You didn’t say that you didn’t kill anyone, you said that you . . .”
Ajax interrupted me before I could finish and said, “I’ll never admit to anything when it comes to what I did or didn’t do.”
“You’re a professional liar.”
“No. I don’t always lie, but I don’t blurt out the truth either.”
“Who was the woman?”
“She was my wife.”
“Oh, no.”
“Technically, she was in the process of becoming my ex-wife.”
“But still . . .” I thought about how horrible it would be to lose your spouse, something that I’d never had to worry about when I was married. Hell, we weren’t together anymore, and I’d still be heartbroken if something happened to him. I asked, “And your brother couldn’t help her?”
“This is the part where I change the subject and you don’t push me for any more answers.”
“But I want to know. I think I need to know. I just can’t . . .” I stopped and took a breath before I said, “I’m becoming very fond of you, Ajax, and I want to know more about you, but if I think that you’re a cold-blooded killer in my heart, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get past that.”
“Your son is in the military, right?”
“Yes. He’s stationed in Japan right now.”
“He’s been trained to do things that could take a life for the right reasons, correct?”
“Well, yeah.”
“So have I, and I can assure you that I’ve never just gone on a killing spree for the fun of it.” Ajax laughed before he explained, “I’ve never gone on a killing spree at all, but I have taken the lives of people before they could hurt or kill someone who didn’t deserve it.”
“When you get hired to help someone, is it always on the right side, or will you take money to work for the wrong side?”
“Depends on what you consider right and wrong.”
“Your brother doesn’t agree with your view on right and wrong.” It was a statement, not a question. I waited patiently for Ajax to say something. When he didn’t, I glanced over and found him staring out the window with a forlorn look. I asked, “Is that why you don’t like him?”
“I like him. I love him. We just disagree.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“I have. That’s why I went to prison and then just took off and never looked back.” Ajax laughed bitterly before he said, “Actually, I have kept track of the goings-on in his life with his wife and children and the friends I made when I visited him in Rojo.”
I thought about that for a minute and then asked, “If you hadn’t gone to prison, what would you be doing right now? What would your relationship with your brother be like?”
“If I hadn’t gone to prison, I’d probably still be working at the FBI alongside my brother.”
“You worked together?” What he’d just said suddenly clicked, and I gasped before I asked, “You worked for the FBI?”
“We both did, but not in the same department. He was an agent with the cybersecurity and technology department. I worked in organized crime. I was doing undercover work and someone flipped on me. The people I was investigating found my wife and kidnapped her while she was on her way to work. I knew who had ordered it instantly, and I retaliated in a way that made sure they couldn’t hurt anyone else.”
“But you didn’t kill them?”
“In some situations, you don’t have to raise a hand. Instead, you play one side against the other and let the problem take care of itself organically.”
“That sounds so professional and . . . sort of genius.”
“I’ve been known to have a good idea or two now and then.”
“Don’t get a big head about it,” I warned.
“Speaking of heads, you’ve seen mine more than once, and I was wondering if you’re ready to see it again.”
“I’ve never even kissed you, Ajax. I’m not quite sure I’m ready to see anything of yours again until we get some things straight.” I then added, “And even if we do get everything ironed out and agreed upon, I won’t know for sure if I want to see you naked until I know if you can kiss. That’s a deal breaker.”
“I’d kiss you now, but it’s not the right time.”
“Right. I’m driving, so it’s really not a good idea.”
“But you won’t be driving forever, Ratched, and when you stop, I’ll find the right opportunity and give you something to think about and help make your decision.”
“We’ll see,” I allowed, but now all I could think about was what it would be like to kiss him and have his hands on me. I squirmed in my seat at the thought and heard him chuckle, but glared at him before I said, “I’m not an easy mark, Ajax. You’re gonna have to do some work.”
“I’m more than ready to start.”
◆◆◆
AJAX
I surprised myself by not deflecting when Sandi started asking me questions, and I didn’t know what to think about the honest answers I’d given her. Of course, I hadn’t given her all the details, but enough to let her make a decision about what kind of man I was.
I had no illusions when it came to people understanding my thought process or even the work I did. Yes, I tried to do things for good, but I also worked for some shady fucking people in the process. I didn’t go out every day planning to take someone’s life, but I also didn’t shy away if that was what needed to be done.
That gray area that some people found between good and bad was a lot wider than most people seemed to think. And fortunately for me, I didn’t have a problem living in it.
Considering Sandi’s reaction, I didn’t think she had a problem with it either, especially considering that she’d been committing crimes right and left for the last week or so. She might not have been the ringleader of things, but she knew what was going on when Jewel left Rojo to attend to me. She also had to know that Jewel was transporting narcotics that she probably shouldn’t have laying around and then distributing them to someone outside a medical setting.
There was also the fact that she helped dig a few bullets out of me without reporting it to the police.
It took a certain kind of someone to do all of those things, knowing they were against the rules and not seeming to care at all.
Sandi was my kind of people, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
However, as much as she might try to understand me, I could tell that she wasn’t ready to take it all in or even admit her attraction to me. Oh, she’d mentioned that she might want to sleep with me, but what she didn’t talk about was how her eyes always seemed to land on me when she didn’t know I was looking at her or how she watched me when she thought I wasn’t aware.
There was a hunger in her eyes that went a lot further than sexual attraction, or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. However, that could be me projecting, considering that’s how I felt about her.
My problem was that I didn’t know if it was genuine attraction and an actual urge to settle down or a reflex after such a close brush with death - a much closer brush than I wanted to think about.
I laid there wondering if that was the night I might actually die, which for years might have been a welcome idea, and realized that I had no legacy to leave the world. I had no one that would truly mourn me - other than my brothers, who I knew would do that, but the love I had for them differed from the love I wanted to have waiting for me.
For a few days I thought it was the fever, the pain, and the uncertainty of such a close call, but the more I talked to Sandi, the more I realized that it was her that was making me feel this way.
When our conversation naturally tapered off, I leaned my seat back and closed my eyes, not really sleeping. Instead, I was thinking of our different interactions and trying to analyze what was going on in my head. That was not something I did often since I was more the kind of guy that flew by the seat of my pants. However, laying in that field and seeing my lonely life flash before my eyes seemed to be affecting me more than I had first realized.
By the time we pulled into Rojo, the town my brother had settled in after he met Steph, I was feeling pretty confident that what I was feeling for Sandi would disappear like it had with the women who had come before her. I’d almost convinced myself of that when she reached out to touch my arm and asked if I was feeling okay with the most sincere look of interest and caring that had ever been directed at me.
Shit.
And just like that, I knew this feeling wasn’t fleeting, and it wasn’t because we’d been in such close quarters. No, it was all her, and there was no denying it.
Hopefully, the next few days would cool that fever she was giving me. If not, I wasn’t sure how in the hell I’d get her off my mind because she was adamant that whatever we had going between us was going to be quick, simple, and over with no regrets.
Or she was trying to convince me of that at the same time she tried to convince herself.
Only time would tell if that would happen, but for now, I had her with me and could work through trying to get her out of my head.