A Life Betrayed (Montreal #2)

Chapter Two

I t wasn’t unusual for Rayan to discover Mathias was in town by waking in the middle of the night to find him in his bed. Sometimes he’d feel the weight of the man above him, hands already rousing him as he emerged from sleep.

That night, Rayan could smell the alcohol on Mathias’s breath—it clung to him like cologne—and see the dullness in eyes that were usually so sharp. This version of Mathias was different from the one who occupied their daytime reality. The nocturnal Mathias moved slowly and deliberately and spoke of things never mentioned in the light of day, his voice a low murmur close enough to Rayan’s ear to make his skin shiver.

Rayan stared at Mathias lying beside him, still in his shirt and slacks, hair splayed across the pillow, and studied his face in the dimness. He liked him here in his bed when the world was still, before the crank turned and lurched the day into motion like clockwork.

“How long can you stay?” Rayan asked.

“Only for today. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

Mathias closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. “I swear, that ape will grind me down before the end.”

Despite his rise to the Quintino, Mathias still held himself responsible for maintaining the alliance between the family and the Hamilton-based Reapers. His semiregular meetings with William Truman also served as an excuse for him to make the hour-long drive across the lake to see Rayan. And to Rayan’s immense pleasure, Mathias didn’t seem particularly keen on giving that up.

“The gift that keeps on giving,” Rayan teased and moved his hand to Mathias’s chest, slipping a thumb between the buttons of his shirt to graze his skin.

“You’re still too far away,” Mathias muttered, a shadow crossing his face.

“I’m right here,” Rayan said softly and leaned in to kiss him.

The snow started early in the morning and grew heavier as the day wore on. By the time they emerged from bed around lunchtime, it had blanketed everything outside in a thick layer of white. As Mathias readied himself to leave and make the drive back to Montreal, Rayan turned on the television in the living room to check the forecast.

“With the blizzard touching down earlier than expected, we’ve received reports of up to twenty-three centimeters of snow in parts of the Greater Toronto Area. The Don Valley Parkway and sections of the 401 have been closed, and motorists are asked to seek shelter where they can.”

Images of the storm battering the province flickered across the screen. “The roads are closed,” Rayan said, turning to Mathias, who was pulling on his coat by the door. “You won’t make it anywhere tonight.”

Scowling at the presenter on the screen, Mathias grudgingly slipped off his coat and hung it back up on the hook. He took out his phone and slid a thumb across the screen as he stepped into the bedroom. “You’d better have enough booze,” he called over his shoulder.

Rayan lifted the remote to mute the TV and listened for Mathias’s voice through the wall. If it was English, it would be Giovanni on the other end—the boss himself, on speed dial—with Mathias devising carefully worded excuses for his absence. If it was French, he would be speaking to Jacques, imparting a brisk set of instructions, no questions asked.

Rayan knew better than to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help himself. He was still desperate for any part of Mathias’s world, even that which he’d left behind. He heard a snatch of clipped French in a tone he remembered well and smirked. Jacques had his sympathy.

Turning his attention back to the television, Rayan stared at the buried cars—the people whose lives had ground to a halt—and tried to stem his growing sense of elation. As selfish as it was, he could think only of the fact that he had Mathias to himself.

“There’s only one thing to remember about cooking pasta.” Mathias, shirtless, stood before a steaming pan of boiling water, a wooden spoon in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “You’ll be forgiven for not knowing, estraneo .”

Rayan snorted, loose with pleasure, Mathias having moments ago fucked every coherent thought from his brain. “Go on,” he goaded.

It was past midnight the following day, and they hadn’t yet eaten dinner. Time seemed to have lost its temporality while, outside, the snow refused to let up. It heaped along the windowsills and piled up on the balcony. Mathias had taken it upon himself to give Rayan a condensed lesson in Italian cooking. Despite having drunk his weight in scotch, the man had a steady hand and moved about the kitchen like a pro.

“Always take it out just before you think it’s done. That’s when it’s done.”

Mathias took the pan off the stove and tipped it into a colander in the sink. Then he fished out a piece of penne with a fork, stepped over to where Rayan was seated at the counter, and pushed the pasta into his mouth. Rayan ate it dutifully.

“If it’s mushy, you fucked up,” Mathias said.

Rayan nodded, not overwhelmed. He’d always preferred rice to pasta, and he much preferred Mathias’s lips to food—lips that now pressed against his. Rayan reached instinctively for Mathias’s neck, and he felt himself once again begin to stir.

It was ridiculous, the sex they were having, as though they had nothing else to do while snowed in. He had a hunch Mathias was using it as a distraction from his gradual nicotine withdrawal. He’d been forced to ration his remaining cigarettes as long as snow barred the building’s entrance and the street, making a run for supplies impossible. Even if they could leave, nothing was open. The official word was that the plows were prioritizing important routes, but the storm was delaying clearing efforts. “Stay inside and hold tight” was the general message.

Mathias refused to watch television and had instead raided Rayan’s bookshelves, leaving a trail of books strewn about the apartment, each abandoned after barely a chapter. Rayan had made several attempts to get started on the readings for his classes but got only a few pages in before Mathias, restless and irritated, would appear and jump him. Not that he wasn’t a willing participant. They’d exhausted their usual repertoire—the hurried release that typically characterized their coupling during Mathias’s too-short visits to the city—and moved to a whole new playing field. Without Rayan realizing it, Mathias had begun to manipulate him like a finely tuned instrument, knowing exactly what got him off and how to hold him at bay, edging him so that when he finally came, he was so far gone he couldn’t speak.

Earlier that afternoon, when Mathias had him bent over the bed, coring him slowly, he’d pressed his mouth to Rayan’s shoulder and spoken in a tight voice. “What do you think about when I’m not here?”

Mathias was deep, pushed hard up against him, and Rayan could only groan as the pressure built, threatening to spill over. Mathias, whether he was there or not, was all Rayan thought about. Lying with him afterward, Rayan realized he couldn’t remember what day it was. He brushed his fingers against the layer of stubble on Mathias’s cheek, taking pleasure in his private dishevelment.

“You’d think they’d know how winter works by now,” Mathias scoffed and raised his arms above his head in a lazy stretch. “What a fucking joke.”

When this is over, don’t bother driving back, Rayan thought. Just stay here.

“What are you plotting?” Mathias asked, giving him a curious look.

“Nothing,” Rayan mumbled.

They’d spent two years like this, capturing days and weekends between the long stretches of time they were apart. If it took a snowstorm to ground Mathias for a couple of days, Rayan would take it. He’d known what it was to lose Mathias completely and was forever grateful to have him at all. But it didn’t stop him from harboring covert imaginings of a life in which each day began and ended with the man’s face, as it was now, turned toward him.

At the front of a gaudily decorated hotel ballroom, the wedding party was seated along a large table draped with white lace. In the center of the table, Enzo Carbone’s youngest daughter and her new husband—neither of whose names Mathias knew or cared to remember—crossed arms to tilt flutes of champagne into each other’s mouths. Enzo sat beside his daughter, grinning broadly, his face flushed from the free-flowing booze and the heat of more than two hundred guests packed into the airless room.

Weddings, funerals, christenings—an endless rotation of mindless engagements. Here he was, finally accepted into the family’s inner circle, and Mathias felt more out of place than he had as a grunt. He’d left Toronto as soon as the roads had cleared but now wished the snow had lingered another day, if only so he could avoid this teeth-pulling spectacle.

Mathias scanned the sea of attendees, his mind elsewhere. He was growing concerned that the time spent with Rayan, fractured as it was and never long enough, was beginning to eclipse the rest of his life—threatening to render it meaningless. Because to be with Rayan was like a long breath out. In every other aspect of his life, Mathias rotated the pieces of himself out of view so that the full picture remained obscured. But Rayan knew it all: his work, his past, who he liked to fuck. He hadn’t realized how heavy the armor had been until he’d taken it off, and it was becoming harder to walk through the world as he once had.

In the end, Mathias had only himself to blame. Up until recently, he’d managed to navigate life by avoiding this. He’d thought the risk of getting close to someone lay in its ability to compromise him. Now he knew the real danger was how good it felt—waking to Rayan’s mouth, feeling the brush of his slick body against him in the shower, watching him appear uncannily with the exact thing Mathias needed a second before he needed it, whether it was food, coffee, or a hand around his cock. Something this good made everything else pale in comparison.

Still, Rayan remained a puzzle to him. There were long silences when he disappeared into himself, and Mathias could only guess at what he was thinking. In bed, the man was mercurial. He liked to be dominated but was equally roused when he was the one in control. His impatience meant he often wanted things fast and rough—yet he would sometimes melt into Mathias, pressing against him as though they shared the same skin. Then it had to be slow and all-consuming. Mathias didn’t possess the same ability to intuit what Rayan needed, unaccustomed to giving people what they wanted without expecting something in return.

“When are we going to see you up there?” Gabriele Giordano asked from across the table. He gave Mathias a tipsy grin and leaned forward in his chair as a waitress appeared beside him to refill his glass.

Mathias was seated with the remaining members of the Quintino and a handful of older family stalwarts. The boss had chosen not to attend. Giovanni retained the ability to opt out of various functions as he pleased, whereas Mathias was bound to them.

“I’ve negotiated enough deals to know a bad one when I see it,” Mathias replied coolly.

The men around the table chuckled. “Perhaps you could convince a nice Italian girl to take your name,” Armando Bernardi offered, gesturing at the room dotted with an array of young female guests.

Mathias was not oblivious to the attempts. Eligible girls from good families were sent to sidle by his table at events like these—all with the same empty faces and cloying laughs. Their fathers assumed his proximity to Giovanni Bianchi would boost their clout. Mathias had to be careful not to think too hard about the life these old men envisioned for him.

“Or you could take hers,” Gabriele quipped.

The mood at the table chilled, and Mathias turned to look at Gabriele. The remark wasn’t lost on him. Mathias’s tainted lineage was not exactly a mark in his favor on the marriage market.

Gabriele cleared his throat and reached clumsily for his glass. “A joke. Come on, Beauvais. It’s a fucking wedding.”

Conversation turned to the track numbers, and Mathias caught Enzo beckoning him from across the room. He stood and navigated his way through the maze of tables toward him. As he walked, a woman in a purple gown appeared at his elbow. He recognized her from the bridal party, a sister or friend, rabid with wedding attention.

“I’m not sure if you remember me—it’s Bianca,” she said with a bright smile. “We met at Carlo and Stella’s—”

He crossed in front of her without a word and rounded the head table to where Enzo was seated. The woman had enough sense not to follow.

“Congratulations,” Mathias said when he reached the beaming father of the bride. He pulled an envelope of cash from inside his jacket and handed it to the man.

Enzo took the gift and stood to shake his hand. He gestured for Mathias to sit in the empty chair beside him. “Might as well keep it for myself, what with everything I’ve spent on this fucking thing. Lace from France.” He gave a snort. “And you think we run a racket.”

“Anything for the happy couple,” Mathias said wryly, taking a seat.

“Ain’t that the truth. But it’s a relief, I tell you. Took the girl forever. We were afraid we’d be stuck with her.”

Mathias glanced over at the horse-faced woman clutching the arm of the exceedingly sweaty man sitting beside her at the table.

“Heard you just got back. What did Truman have to say about the latest seizure?” Enzo asked.

That had been the reason for Mathias’s trip to Hamilton. They’d had two shipments seized in the past six months, and he was growing tired of Truman’s indifference toward the increased scrutiny. Mathias had a feeling their shared success had gone to Truman’s head, and he was seriously considering pulling the plug on the whole operation. Over the past year, the volume of the Reapers’ shipments had noticeably dropped, and it was becoming apparent that the additional risk they were shouldering was not worth the decline in profit. It wouldn’t go down well with Truman, but with all the unwanted attention, Mathias couldn’t afford to have him distracted at the wheel.

“We’re going to have to do something on our end,” Mathias said. “I’ll speak with De Luca.”

Enzo clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Did you get stuck in that mess over the weekend? No worse place to be snowed in than Hamilton.”

Mathias shrugged. “A chance to catch up on my sleep.”

Enzo chuckled and raised his wineglass to his lips. Mathias cast his eyes around the room, thinking of the other things he’d caught up on.

The councilman took a long swig and set the glass down. Then he leaned in, his voice lowered. “I’ve got some news about the investigation. Lapierre is out. It appears they’ve brought someone in from the capital.”

Mathias frowned. They’d been aware of an ongoing federal investigation for some time, the divisional office making a show of sticking their noses into the family’s activities with renewed vigor, but so far, nothing had come of it. It wasn’t the first time either. The RCMP went through cycles like this, drawn into the group’s dealings in Montreal only to pull back when their leads eventually petered out. It helped that the family maintained several friendly connections at federal level—Inspector Philippe Lapierre among them.

“With our old friend given the boot, there goes our sway. I’ve looked into his replacement and put something together.” Enzo retrieved a folded sheet of paper from his jacket and slipped it to Mathias. “Figured you could use the info.”

“Who is he?” Mathias asked, pocketing it.

“He?” Enzo sneered. “They’ve sent a broad. Brownie points for this government—they think some tart in tights is going to topple us.”

Must be more to it than that. They wouldn’t take Lapierre—who’d been a well-regarded figure at the Quebec divisional office for the past twenty years—out of commission for some Girl Scout who looked good on paper.

“There’s something else,” Enzo continued, glancing around quickly. “Turns out the whole thing came about from a tip-off, not just bad timing as we’d suspected. No clue as to who or where it came from, but it looks like we have a leak.”

Mathias set his jaw grimly. “And the nature of the tip-off…?”

“No info there either.”

“I’ll look into it.”

Enzo’s face darkened. “Last thing we need’s some bitch from Ottawa poking around when we’ve got a squealer on our hands.”

Mathias looked out at the crowd of guests growing more inebriated by the minute. It could be anyone—in or out of this room. One thing was clear: they couldn’t afford to give the Feds any more ammunition. He needed to figure out where the leak was coming from and plug it.