Dark Secrets (Dark #2)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Yep," he said, getting up and going to get more coffee. "Xander Rhodes, well, he's a good PI and sometimes he doesn't operate fully within the law, but generally toes the line. He's expanding his team. Gabe chases skips. Has a fucking flawless track record of it. But everything he does is above-board. K is somewhat new around here. Can't find out shit about him. Everything he's got is locked up tight. Has a bank account under the business name, but no personal one. Pays everything in cash. I couldn't even find a real name for him. Kinda fucking crazy actually."

  "And Corey?"

  "She's pretty clean too. Owns that kinky club, Limits. But there's never been anything illegal reported there. She has no connections into any of the skip chasing or private investigating or even any martial arts. Just a normal chick. Work-obsessed. Financially stable. Lives in a nice place. That's about it."

  Daniel nodded, not surprised by any of that. He hadn't gotten a lot of time to get to know them all, but from what he got to hear from them, they all seemed like good people. He got nothing on them that said they were criminal.

  "Got some new names for you to look into," he said, thinking of the information she had given him. "All the guys who work or teach at Axe's Self-Defense. It's the gym where she learned all her skills. I met Trey today and he just seems like a normal guy. I want to make sure they all are. Also, what did you dig up about her parents?"

  "Yeah, well, that's the weird thing..."

  Daniel felt himself stiffen, feeling like Max was purposely holding that information for last- to gut punch him with it. "I don't like suspense, man. You know that."

  "They were a lot like K. Couldn't find shit on them except the usual birth and marriage certificates. No bank accounts. No arrests. Bought their house in cash. The dad, Benny, was reported missing, presumed dead. The mother was admitted to the hospital where her records reported she was beaten and raped. But she was completely catatonic. And she never recovered mentally. From what I found, she is a permanent resident at Clearview."

  "Clearview?" Daniel prompted.

  "Mental hospital. Or whatever the fuck the P.C. term is these days. Has been for the past decade."

  "She was sixteen when it happened. How the hell did she not get taken into the system if her mom was out of her mind?"

  "Fuck if I know," Max said with a shrug. "The house got sold and the money went to the mom's bills. There's no record of Faith from sixteen until eighteen when she popped back onto the map with bank accounts, work checks from Lam, an apartment in a shitty area, and a GED. Exactly what she did or where she was for two years is a complete mystery."

  "She didn't have a medical record the same night her mom was brought to the hospital?"

  "Nah. Nothing. Not a trace of her."

  That was interesting.

  It was equally troubling.

  She was sixteen. She had watched her father and mother get beaten. She got beaten herself and almost raped. She witnessed the aftermath of her mother's rape. Her mother was not mentally there for her anymore. She was utterly alone in the world and traumatized. Where the hell had she gone? Had she been homeless? Just scratched up enough money to be able to pay for classes?

  Then why had she started working at Lam at eighteen? Why was that where she popped up?

  Unless...

  "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.

  They didn't always work together. In fact, it was rare for them to. But they were alway
s in contact.

  But where Daniel had two jobs that went down the shitter before he could even get really involved and the job before that that had lasted for an absurd number of years in his life, had been blown all to hell over a pretty little redhead and her badass boyfriend. Not that he was angry about that. Fact of the matter was it ended pretty fairly. He got a gunshot wound to the shoulder and a ticket out of that godforsaken fucking situation that seemed completely without end.

  Max had been on two long-term jobs. One exploded around him, leaving him lucky to make it out with his life. The other very anti-climacticly seemed to dissolve before he could make anything happen.

  That was the line of work.

  But they both needed this job to go well. They needed some bragging rights. They needed to be able to hold their heads high again.

  "I am doing everything in my power to make sure this doesn't blow up in our faces, Max."

  He nodded tightly at that, looking off for a minute before turning back with a huge grin. "It's so not fucking fair you are gonna get her. Me and her, we had a connection, man," he chuckled.

  "Yeah, bonding over booze you hate."

  "She thought I was hot shit and you know it."

  Max was never the humble kind.

  "Too bad you were too fucking late yet again, man. Just like with that sweet as sin Russian girl back in..."

  "Fuck off. I'm still sore about that," Max smiled, getting on his feet and bringing his coffee cup to the sink. "Alright. Well, I'm out. You gotta get showered and ready for work and I got yet more fucking research to do. I still say I'm too fucking good looking to be sitting behind a computer all day," he added as he reached for the door.

  "Who the fuck you kidding," Daniel said with a grin. "You weaseled your way into a lead role on this one too."

  "Yeah, well," Max smiled, "gotta keep you on your toes. I'll see you Sunday night at the bar," he added as he walked out, leaving Daniel to have an unfamiliar pit of worry settle in his stomach.

  Why, he wasn't sure.

  But it was there. And as he showered and dressed and left for work, it started sprouting and growing.

  He knew that feeling well.

  And it almost always followed shit hitting the fan in massive, unforeseen ways.

  TEN

  Faith

  Her father, for all his illegal activity, was a smart man.

  See, when she woke up, there was maybe fifteen minutes for her to wallow in the misery at the loss of her father and beg, scream, cry at her mother to please snap out of it, to please talk to her. Because fifteen minutes after she woke up, the front door burst open again, making her air strangle in her chest as she slammed backward against the wall as two men stepped into her living room.

  They were vaguely familiar to her, being associates of her father, men she had seen time and again from afar but her father insisted she not associate with.

  But she was sixteen and not stupid. She knew who they were.

  Vin D'Onofrio and his son Salvatore.

  And she knew enough about their reputations for genuine fear to start in her belly and spread outward until it overtook her completely, until her entire body was shaking, until she was sure her heart was going to explode from the confines of her ribcage.

  It happened in a matter of seconds as the men stepped in and looked around, not even noticing her in the corner for a long second.

  "What the fuck were..." Vin started, his voice low and savage as he reached up and ran a hand through his immaculate hair.

  "Pops," Salvatore prompted as his deep eyes fell on her, making her slam back against the wall again, more audibly. Salvatore was maybe only five years older than her at the time. Young, too young to be walking into a murder and rape scene without losing his dinner. But that was the life he had led- to become numbed to violence.

  "Faith," Vin said, his face falling at the sight of her, at the bruises and blood, at the open button and zip of her pants. His hands rose slowly, palms out. "You know who I am, right honey?"

  Unable to speak past the heart she was pretty sure had broken free after all and lodged itself in her throat, she nodded.

  "I am not going to hurt you. I understand if you don't trust me on that, but I promise I won't put a hand on you. I need to ask you something," he said, his tone gentle, a little hesitant. "Honey, your pants are unfastened. Did they..." he didn't even get to finish his sentence before her head was shaking almost violently. "I know it's a sensitive topic, but I need you to be honest with..."

  "They only raped my mother," she spat, the fear quickly transitioning to a feeling that, before, she was all but unfamiliar with, but would soon find became more of her default setting- anger. "They were about to rape me too until someone else came in."

  Vin nodded a little tightly at that, the area around his eyes tightening. "We need to get your mother to the hospital," he said, echoing a thought that was on her own mind.

  "Don't you touch her," she snapped when Vin moved toward her.

  "Honey, I don't think she's going to get up on her own," he reasoned and Faith's objections fell away when her mother didn't scream or lash out, when she just let herself be picked up and carried outside.

  "Come on, kid," Salvatore said to her, holding the front door open, waiting for her to follow.

  But she wasn't a kid anymore.

  Those men stole the remainder of her childhood, her innocence from her.

  She became a whole other animal entirely that night. She became a woman with a mission. There was nothing fiercer in the world.

  They got to the hospital a short car ride later, Faith in the back with her mother, tears a burning thing at the backs of her eyes, tears she refused to let herself shed. They took her in and Vin and Salvatore took seats in the waiting area with her. Salvatore was distant. Vin seemed silently angry. As for Faith, yeah, she was a ticking time bomb.

  She was also paying attention.

  Because she overheard a nurse say the words: child services.

  She wasn't going into the system.

  She wasn't going to let anyone steer her from her plan.

  "Faith," Vin interrupted her as she was getting ready to bolt. "Can you tell me what the men who were in your house were after?"

  It was right that moment, after a lifetime of guilty smiling anytime she tried to fib, she became a master liar.

  "They didn't. They were just yelling. They weren't looking for anything."

  He nodded, accepting that, then looking down at his phone.

  "I have to go to the bathroom," she announced, getting up and walking away. Two nurses and a doctor tried to stop her, tried to talk her into getting looked over. She simply ignored them as she turned a bend and took the closest exit.

  Because something had occurred to her as she sat there.

  One day, completely out of the blue and uncharacteristic of him, her father had come home when she was twelve with a big stuffed bear in a bright pink color and given it to her. She had smiled and shook her head, insisting she was a little old for teddy bears.

  To which he said the oddest thing.

  He said, "Promise me that no matter where you go, you keep this bear in your possession," he demanded with enough vehemence that she had automatically agreed.

  She knew where the list was.

  Her father had left it in her care all along.

  Without a car, but painfully aware that her time between being discovered missing and being discovered in general was small, she ran all the way back to her house, tearing through her bedroom closet to find the thing, squishing it until she felt that the left leg was much stiffer than it should have been. She grabbed a scissor and cut it open to reveal a black USB drive.

  Body humming, she tucked it into her back pocket and went back into her closet for her old vacation duffle bag, stuffing it with clothes and the stash of money her parents kept in a floorboard in their bedroom, grabbing some food out of the kitchen, and dropping down beside her father's body, knowing that s
he would never get to see his funeral if he had one.

  And she touched his cold hand and made a promise to him.

  "I'll make them pay for this," she vowed, getting up and leaving.

  She never would go back. Part of that was because her father went 'missing' because his body had obviously been removed. The house was paid off and the next of kin ended up being her father's brother who had sold it and put the money away for her mother's medical bills. It would have been a kind gesture, but she knew her uncle enough to know it wasn't out of the goodness of his heart, but his way of washing his hands of the whole situation.

  She, well, she found an add on a bulletin board for some college kid looking for a roommate. She was sixteen, but she had a body that passed for eighteen and she doubted anyone would check to see if she was going to class each day. Besides, she was. She was just going to private classes at the gym. She came home bruised so often that her roommate staged a makeshift intervention where she held her hand and told her that domestic abuse was never her fault and that if she needed any help, she would be there for her.

  It would have been almost amusing if Faith didn't realize that the world needed more women like that- women willing to never judge, women willing to lend a hand to other women who felt trapped.

  She worked odd jobs.

  She trained.

  She visited her mother under a fake name.

  And she made plans.

  She took the USB and downloaded the file to save online. She made paper copies- one she kept in her locker at the gym, one she had vacuum sealed and buried, another she planted in a hole she discreetly made in the wall behind a desk at the local library.

  Because through those papers, she found everything she needed to know.

  She found the names of the men who had brutalized her family and herself. She found out who their boss was.

  And when she was eighteen, she lifted her chin and charged into his legitimate business and demanded he not only hire her, but also pay for her mother's very expensive stay at a very nice mental hospital every month until she got better or passed on. She did so and got away with it not only because Vin didn't condone what had happened to her parents or herself and had dispatched of the men who did it, but because she had too much power to test, too many protocols in place for the event that something happened to her, too many cogs in a wheel that would guarantee Vin and his sons and every member of their organization would go away for life.