Dark Secrets(40)

"Fuck," he hissed, reaching up to rake a hand down his face.

"What you got?" Max asked, stiffening.

"Vin."

"What about him?"

"It doesn't make any sense though."

"You know that thing you said about not liking suspense? That goes for both of us," Max said with a smirk.

"This arrangement she has with Vin, doesn't it just make sense that it's because she's got something on him?" 

"Like knowing he had his people rape and murder her parents and almost do the same to her," Max concluded. "But you're right. It doesn't mash. Vin and his organization are old school. They don't involve families. They have beatings and bodies all over, but only the men who fuck with them. They never go after women and children."

"Stupid, rogue guys maybe?" Daniel suggested, it being the only thing that made sense.

He didn't like thinking it because she was not the kind of woman who would ever be okay with his sympathy for her or her situation, but that poor fucking kid. He couldn't imagine how she felt after she woke up to find her dad dead and her mom in pieces. She herself had been beaten badly. But somehow that next day, she walked into Axe's and started training, started the process to make sure no one could ever hurt her again.

No fucking wonder she had guards, was afraid to let them down, to let anyone in.

He didn't fucking blame her after what she had been through.

But he couldn't figure out why she worked at Lam. Why work for the people who had, at least inadvertently, been the source of all her heartbreak? If what Max said was right, she made good money by most standards, but it wasn't living large. She didn't even own a fucking car for chrissakes.

If you were going to blackmail someone, why not go for the fucking wallet? Vin's were certainly deep enough.

"When are you taking shifts on your own?" Max asked suddenly, snapping Daniel out of his swirling thoughts.

"Dunno. Not more than this week, I'd say. Vin wants me on my own. Or he wants to have to stop paying us both to work on the same shift when we both obviously know what we're doing. Who the fuck knows."

"You might be able to get more on your own shift. From what I can tell, Faith has the eyes of a hawk. She watches everything. I'm sure she's watching you."

He wasn't wrong.

She watched him constantly. Even if he had a chance to get closer, to look around, to eavesdrop and get intel, he couldn't have done it with Faith keeping an eye on him.

"Yeah. Things will move along once I am on my own."

"But you're still going to get involved with her," Max concluded.

"The fuck could it matter at this point? If anything, I might be able to get more information."

Those words tasted sour in his tongue, left a burning in his stomach. He didn't even like thinking them let alone saying them aloud.

He didn't want to get involved with Faith to get information, to get closer to the end goal. He had done that in jobs before; he was man enough to admit that. It was an ugly move and he felt shitty about it, but sometimes the job called for it. He wasn't the type to dwell on past regrets because if he did, he would be downright crippled by the sheer number of them.

But this wasn't that for him. When he had done that in the past, he had done it knowing full-well going in that that was the reason, that was the end game- to get information by any means necessary. Even if that meant post-orgasm pillow talk.

He wanted to get involved with Faith for purely person reasons. If some information came up, well, it put him in an odd position. Because he wasn't sure he could share it, depending on what it was, who it implicated, if Faith would be harmed in the backlash of the secret getting out. It put him in a strange place professionally, one he had never really been in before. He didn't lie to his partner. He didn't withhold information. That wasn't how it worked.

But because there was a distinct difference this time between the professional and personal side, he would have to make those judgements on a situation by situation basis.

That wasn't how the job worked.



       
         
       
        

It wasn't how he usually operated.

But special circumstances called for certain changes in methods.

"Promise me you aren't going to blow this one," Max surprised him by demanding.

It wasn't that it was a strange thing to say for normal people. But for them, it was out of the usual. They both knew that jobs went south sometimes even when you did everything right, you didn't get personally involved, you didn't lose focus. That was the line of work.

But the fact of the matter was, Max needed a win just as bad as Daniel did.