Dark Secrets(10)

"Yeah," he said, walking back into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.

"'Yeah'?" the male voice said, more gruff than Daniel's, sounding a lot like the owner of it gargled both glass and jagged rocks for the hell of it. "So you're just going to say fuck it to all the rules now, huh?"

"Max, I just did a fucking ten hour shift and I got another hour or two before I can get to sleep. Not in the mood for goddamn code words."

"Alright," Max said and Daniel could hear the click of a lighter. "So, how'd it go?"

"Not much to tell," he said honestly. "Apparently the rules changed though. Vin doesn't have final say about me being there."

"No shit? Who does?"

"Faith. The female bartender."

There was shuffling on the other end for a while before Max let out a whistle. "Well, I wouldn't mind being reprimanded by her fine ass."

"Max..."

"Oh, fuck off," Max laughed. "You thought about it, admit it. Cleaning up after you closed up, bending her over that bar..."

"Good thing this job was mine. At least I can keep my head in the game and not..."

"Up her skirt," Max suggested. When Daniel snorted, Max could be heard chuckling slightly, the sound low and rumbling. "Look, can't blame me. This job tends to be lacking in the pussy department. What can I say? I'm fucking famished, man."

"Find yourself a woman. You need to keep your head in the game, being distracted by a hard-on isn't going to do you any good."

"Speaking of, find anything interesting?"

"There's a register behind the bar to make change and the tip jar is kept in a locked cabinet but the key is easily accessible. Nothing hiding in there. The office is out of bounds to anyone but Vin, Faith, and the kitchen manager. The door is left open and the safe is even on display, but there's no way for me to get in there without being seen."

"How long are you in training?"

"I was told a month, but I think they were expecting someone who didn't know what they were doing. So hopefully shorter. Faith is too observant for her own good. She could be a problem."

"What's her deal? Is she family? Just paid well?"

"Honestly, fuck if I know. Vin seems to show her respect, giving her the right to hire and fire as she saw fit. She's not family. I don't know what she makes, but bartenders make salary unlike waitresses and the tip jar was insane and it was only a Wednesday." She had wanted to give him half of the tips, as was customary, but he refused and only took a third. That still gave him one-fifty. If she went home with three-hundred on a Wednesday, he didn't want to know what she would get on a Friday or Saturday night. It gave her a salary of around seventy-K for the year. No chump change, but she wasn't rich either, it was certainly not enough money to warrant her staying in a place where she had guns pulled on her regularly.

"Best guess is maybe Vin has something on her. If it was a normal bar, I'd say she was just a creature of habit, that she liked it there. But Anthony pulled a gun on her tonight and she didn't flinch. And we both know there have been fights and even two shootouts at that place in the past five years. Doubt she'd stay unless there was a reason."

"Anything else important about her?"

Daniel went into his room and sat down on the bed, scrubbing his face with his free hand. "She teaches Krav Maga and there seems to be some genuine bad blood between her and Anthony D'Onofrio. The kind where he'd pull a gun on her like it meant nothing."



       
         
       
        

"Alright. Well, that's something. Keep on it and check in."

"Will do. Hey Max..."

"Yeah?"

"Get yourself laid," he said, hanging up the call and moving back into the office to put it on the charger, look over some papers, then lock the door and finally head to bed.

He had a feeling he would need to be rested to be able to get the better of Faith.

If such a thing was even possible.





FOUR





Faith





Alright, so he really didn't need training.

She found herself almost annoyed by the fact as she watched him pull two bottles off the shelf and proceed to do some goddamn flairtending- juggling them around like some cheesy marketing scheme new bar owners use to try to bring in clients. If he tried to pull some bullshit like flaming shots, she was canning his ass.

He knew what he was doing.

But he still pissed her off.

Really, there was no reason she should have been training him at all. He could have gone right into taking her two empty shifts and gotten out of her hair.