"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 admitted 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.