Dark Secrets

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Whatever 'this' is," she agreed with a small shrug.

  "You're gonna stop avoiding me."

  It wasn't a question, but she answered anyway. "Yeah."

  "And you're not gonna bite off my head whenever I try to talk to you."

  Again, it was a statement, a purely alpha thing to do that she found herself equally attracted to and annoyed by. "Yes."

  "Good," he said, releasing her suddenly and moving to pull the door to the floor open, holding it open for her to step through.

  She stopped outside her apartment, putting in the key, unsure what to say. When the door pushed open and she turned back to him, she found him leaning against the wall beside the door, watching her.

  "I'm not coming in," he surprised her by saying. He gave her a soft smile at what must have been confusion on her face. "Told you I wasn't coming in tonight when I insisted on walking you up here. I'm sticking to that. If for no other reason than I know a part of you is looking for reasons to not trust me. I'm not going to give you any. Not even if you fucking begged me to come in, baby," he said, pushing off the wall and saying that last bit way too close to her, making her seriously think she was capable of begging him to.

  "Ah... okay," she said, brows drawing together.

  "Don't worry, I plan to fuck you in all the fun and dirty ways you've been fantasizing about since you met me," he said with a small smirk. "But not right now. Not like some makeshift reward for you deciding to be genuine with me. So I am walking away." He reached out, tucking a bit of her hair behind her ear. "See you at work."

  With that, he did what he said, he turned and walked away.

  And, somewhat completely dumbfounded, she stood there numbly and watched his back as he pulled the door open and disappeared. Then, she stood there for a long minute even after he was gone, too surprised and confused and maybe impressed to go into her apartment yet.

  What man did that?

  Who would turn down sex just because they didn't want you to think it was a reward for opening up to them?

  The answer was pretty damn clear.

  No matter how much he declared the contrary, Danny was a good guy.

  And for some reason, that was terrifying.

  Bad guys, douchebags, fuckboys, players, they were all easy. You knew they were nothing but trouble. You knew where you stood with them, and it was usually with one foot out the door.

  But the good guys, they were dangerous.

  They could sneak in with their patience and their consideration and their genuine concern about your comfort level and happiness. They could get under the surface and sink in and lay hooks and you weren't even aware they were doing it.

  Until one day, you needed or they needed to pull away.

  And the hooks got pulled, taking a healthy chunk of you with them, leaving you missing pieces that had been whole before.

  It wasn't that she had never known any good men in her life; she had. Appearances of bad aside, Xander, Gabe, and K were good guys. They did some wrong things, but always for the right reasons. Their moral compasses were always pointing due north. They would drop everything in their lives to come to her, to help her, to support her if she needed it.

  They were good.

  But she had never been interested in any of them outside of a strong friendship.

  They didn't run the risk of hurting her.

  Danny did.

  He was maybe the first guy she had ever been interested in who did. Because she generally chose guys she, at least at a subconscious level, knew there was no future with. They lived out of town or they were not serious, not in a settling down stage, too self-obsessed, too distant, too addicted to work, too... something to allow them to get in deep enough to hurt her.

  Piss her off? Abso-freaking-lutely.

  But not hurt her.

  She walked into her apartment, flicking on the light, and locking the doors.

  It was too late for regrets.

  If there was one thing she learned that absolutely always applied to adult interactions, it was there there were no takes-backsies. Everything said and done was out there to be interpreted and catalogued and probably brought back up at anytime from now until forever.

  So she wasn't going to go back on her word. She wasn't going to put her mask back up and throw herself back over her wall and hide.

  She was an adult and she was going to do the right thing. She was going to try.

  Why Danny, some random nobody, got to be the one standing there waiting for her outside of her comfort zone was a mystery. He was attractive, true. But she had known attractive men before. He was alpha. But again, that wasn't new to her. Most of the men she interacted with were alpha in their own ways. He seemed to be able to read her, which was new and intriguing. He had some fighting skills. That was always a plus.

  Though all that being said, she knew next to nothing about him.

  As she stripped out of her clothes and climbed in the shower, she resigned herself to figuring him out.

  --

  That resolution took a whole new meaning when she showed up well before Danny the next day and found herself cornered in the office by Anthony.

  "What do you want, Ant? I'm not in the mood."

  "You're always in a mood," he countered and even from a few feet away, she could smell alcohol on his breath already. She wondered then, and for about the millionth time, why Vin hadn't gotten him help. It didn't even have to be obvious if he was worried about his business partners and competitors getting wind of a weak link in the family. He could have said he was on business and ship him to detox and rehab.

  Why a man as careful and smart as Vin would let him run around drunk at four in the afternoon for years was completely beyond her.

  Faith sighed. "Again, Ant. What do you want? I have a bar to set up."

  "The new guy."

  "What about him?" she snapped, not used to Anthony being so cryptic. Usually he had a runaway mouth with no filter.

  "Something felt off with him," he said, stepping inside and closing the door, something he never did. Mainly because he wasn't supposed to be in the office at all, around hundreds of thousands of dollars at all times that Vin didn't trust him with even though Anthony, like Gio and Salvatore, made an obnoxious income because of Vin's legitimate and illegitimate business ventures. But also because he never wanted to be that close to Faith. Ever.

  "Oh, take your bruised ego back out of this office," she said, shaking her head as she swiveled her chair away from him. She didn't have time for his fragile male pride.

  "Stop being such a bitch and listen," he snapped, grabbing for, and snapping her chair back in his direction.

  "I'd be really fucking careful right now if I were you," she warned, her voice low and vicious.

  "Look, I'm not trying to start some fucking shit right now. Jesus Christ," he said, standing straight and running a hand through his hair.

  Looking at him right then, he seemed different to her.

  She couldn't pinpoint just one thing it was. But his eyes were red. His eyelids were swollen and pink. His face was scruffy. His skin was off, more pale, almost sickly looking.

  As if maybe he was detoxing.

  But he smelled like booze.

  Maybe he had been holding off before he couldn't take it anymore and took a drink?

  If so, why?

  That wasn't like him.

  "Alright," she said carefully, brows drawn low, watching as he paced the very small space.

  "I get that fucking everyone around here thinks I'm the biggest fuck up in the fucking family," he ranted, looking down at his feet as he moved around. "I get that. And I've earned that mindset time and time again. But one thing I'm not is stupid. I'm not fucking blind either. You getting the drop on me, I get that. You've been training since you were a teenager to be able to do that shit. But him? Just a nobody bartender by all accounts? No, Faith."

  Alright. Well, he had her interest.

  And not just because he had adm
itted culpability in his own awful behavior. That was new. He genuinely didn't usually even seem aware that the shit he did was out of line.

  Maybe if he cut out the alcohol entirely, he would be a completely different man than the asshole she had to put up with for a decade, the dickhead who helped put her in the position where she had to make a deal with Vin to begin with.

  Because aside from that, if she looked past her own attraction to Danny, she knew Anthony was right. Something did seem off about his story.

  Hell, he had snuck up on her multiple times.

  No one was able to do that.

  No one.

  "I'm listening," she said, sitting back.

  He seemed surprised by that, freezing mid-stride and turning to face her fully. "Seriously?"

  "Yes, seriously. Something has you shaken and, to be honest Ant, you're usually too fucking plastered to give a fuck about anything else."

  "Fair enough," he allowed, but his jaw tightened.

  "So..."

  "So I pulled his personnel file."

  "And?" she asked, getting impatient.

  "And it's all bullshit. His resume? Made up. I called to make sure."

  "I'm going to need more than that, Anthony. Tons of people fake their resumes. He's obviously had training. He mixes drinks better than me."

  "Then why not put the bars he worked at on the resume? The places he put weren't even that great. It's not like he was bolstering the damn thing up with lies meant to make him look better."

  "Alright. That's weird, but if that's all you have..."

  "He lives in an apartment he just leased about three months ago."

  "People move to the City all the time, Ant."

  "Yeah, Faith, but do people who move to the City all the time have literally no fucking trail before then?"

  She felt her heart seize in her chest at that.

  Because no they didn't.

  Unless they were running from something or trying to hide their real identity.

  "Yeah," Anthony said, nodding at her face which must have shown how freaked that news made her. "Look, maybe it's nothing," he allowed, being way too reasonable for his usual character. "But I don't think it is. I think he's had training and I think he's hiding something from Pops deliberately. And I think that makes him dangerous."

  "Why are you telling me?"

  "I know we're oil and water, Faith. But you're all I have. Gio barely talks to anyone, let alone me. Pops and Salvatore would just tell me I'm drunk and paranoid. Like it or not, you're the only one who would listen. And if you look around and find what I found, that shit isn't adding up, Pops will listen to you about it."

  A weight landed firmly on her shoulders then.

  Was she really going to agree to looking into a man she had decided to get involved with?

  Then again, was she really willing to get involved with a man who said he was being upfront with her, but was obviously hiding something from her?

  "Okay," she said, absolutely no enthusiasm in her tone whatsoever. A niggling little voice was saying maybe she would have preferred to be ignorant of the inconsistencies in his story. But that was ridiculous. She wasn't that stupid woman, the one who found a suspicious hotel charge on the credit bill and shrugged it off or believed the lie that her husband's clothes smelled like perfume because his sister visited him at work and hugged him.

  Ignorance because the lie was too good was acceptable.

  But willful ignorance, choosing to be blind? Yeah, that was not the kind of woman she was.

  "Okay?"

  "Okay. I will look into it. But I am not going to go on a witch hunt so you can watch him burn a the stake, Anthony. If it turns out that he has a good reason to hide his past, I am not narcing on him to Vin."

  "Fair enough," he said with a nod, making his way toward the door.

  "Anthony," she said, stopping him, making him look over his shoulder at her.

  "Yeah?"

  "I don't hate you when you're mostly sober."

  To that, he had no response, but she watched as something darkened his eyes, as his jaw got tight.

  He gave her a small nod and walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.

  She sat there with her heart slamming in her chest for a long couple of minutes. She had just agreed to check into Danny, a man she had decided to open herself up to. There was no telling what she might find.

  Maybe he was just trying to start over. Maybe he had a shitty life and didn't want anyone from it to be able to find him again. She couldn't begrudge him for that.

  But there was a chance, even a slightly bigger chance, that he was not who he said he was because his motives for being at Lam had nothing to do with securing a good bartending gig and a lot to do with screwing over Vin.

  Honestly, it wasn't her business.

  But she and Vin had a deal and that deal worked in her favor. It was in her best interest to make sure he wasn't being double-crossed.

  And, whether she liked to admit it or not, there was affection there after all the years. When she had started, her attitude then made her current attitude look downright warm and inviting. She was eighteen and pissed at the world and, especially, the D'Onofrio family. But there was no denying that, over time, she had softened toward them- especially Vin and Salvatore. At first treating her like a rat in their restaurant, they slowly softened toward her, started seeing her like a daughter and sister in their lives, looking out for her no matter how much she insisted she didn't need them to.

  She wasn't naive. She knew that time she was sloppy drunk and Salvatore showed up to take her home wasn't some random happenstance. He had been keeping an eye on her and making sure she didn't get into trouble.

  They had been good to her.

  And while, if you really were keeping score, they still owed her a hell of a lot more than she owed them, she couldn't stand by and let them be overthrown or, worse yet, murdered just because she wanted to be able to trust the guy she wanted to sleep with.

  She was smarter than that.

  And she would do better than that.

  "Hey, are we setting up the bar or is everyone being forced to drink straight tonight?" Danny's voice suddenly asked, making her jump. She turned to find Danny standing inside the suddenly-open door in black slacks and a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  Her stomach twisted in a knot as she gave him a small smile and stood. "Sorry, I got distracted. Let's get started," she said, moving to him, shocking back when he didn't move out of the way so she could pass. "What?"

  His eyes were penetrating, darker than usual, focused on her, picking up on something that seemed off. "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing," she said, shaking her head. But the words were too quick, too defensive.

  "Faith..."

  "Really. It's nothing. Anthony was just in here so..."

  "Ah, that explains it," he said, giving her a smile that warmed his severe face. "Come on. You get the fruit. I'll get the juice."

  Then they did just that.

  And every time she looked his way, every time he smiled at her, every time they exchanged easy words, every time his hand found her waist, her hip, her arm, her hand, every single freaking time she tried to find something wrong with him, she simply couldn't.

  Which made what she had to do the next day all the harder.

  EIGHT

  Faith

  She tucked her hands into her leather jacket pockets, the cold November air blowing her hair back, making her ears sting. Really, there was no reason to walk, but she was pretty sure she would drive herself crazy if she had to sit still in the cab. Besides, it got the nervous energy out.

  The night before, things had changed with them.

  With her guards down, conversation had been easy, light, even fun and teasing. And she was pissed because she couldn't even fully enjoy it because she had been so busy looking for anything suspicious.

  So that put her walking into a truly shitty neighborhood where Xande
r kept his business despite being able to afford better.

  It went without saying that she was in a shitty mood.

  She walked into his office that was in the same part of town as his old one, but about five times the size. It was Ellie, his woman's plan. Because Ellie recently found out she was pregnant. As such, she had no plans on letting her husband and the father of her child work cases alone anymore. So they were expanding and taking on staff. "Who the hell are you?" she said, stopping short at seeing two people standing there that she didn't recognize.

  One was a man- tall, practically a giant with perfect mixed-race skin, light-skinned black with the kind of face that made the word 'chiseled' sound wholly insufficient. And if that wasn't enough, he had stunning hazel eyes and a strong, firm, muscular build.

  The other was a woman- short, compact, and thin woman with long, shiny black hair, brown eyes, and sporting a solid 'don't fuck with me' attitude that Faith would recognize from a mile away.

  And, from the looks of things, she had interrupted some kind of wild argument between them because the woman was wound like a clock which the man apparently found amusing.

  As they often did.

  The assholes.

  "Honey, you're the one barging in. I believe that's our question," the man said. And damn if his voice didn't match his perfect appearance- deep, smooth, sexy.

  "This is Enzo," the woman said, obviously pissed at the guy and perfectly willing to girl gang up on him. "And I'm Espen. We, ah, are working here."

  "Here?" she asked, brows drawing low. "For Xander?"

  "Yeah."

  "I thought he already hired two guys."

  "He did. But he wanted one more."

  Ah. That explained it. They were fighting for the final position.

  "Well, I'm Faith and I need to..."

  "You're Faith?" Espen cut her off, smiling. "We've heard a lot about you."

  "It's all true," Faith smiled. "Is Xander..."

  "Thought I heard you," Xander said, coming in from the back room, K at his side. "What brings you down here?"