A Life Betrayed (Montreal #2)

Chapter Three

R ayan had just stepped out of the lecture hall after his morning class when he heard his name being called. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Professor Hofstein threading his way through the mass of departing students.

“Glad I caught you. Can we speak a moment in my office?”

Rayan hesitated, pondering his escape. He could make an excuse and say he didn’t have time. Something about the philosophy department’s wood-paneled corridors and plush faculty offices made him feel uneasy, like he was out of his depth. But he didn’t have anywhere else to be, and whatever this was would be better dealt with now than later.

Rayan nodded.

The professor smiled. “Great, I’m down this way.” He fell into step beside Rayan, and they headed along the hallway to his office.

Once inside, Professor Hofstein gestured toward the armchair across from his desk and closed the door behind him. “You always seem in a hurry to leave,” he teased. “Got much else on?”

Rayan’s eyes flitted about the room, taking in the shelves of books and the framed certificates on the wall behind the professor’s head. His mind filed away the details, the way it had for very different reasons in his former life.

“Not really.” Rayan didn’t see the point of lingering in the department building with the other students who stood around, making small talk about grades and upcoming assignments.

“Looks like you’re on the accelerated stream. So you’ve only got your thesis left before graduation,” Hofstein said, taking a seat behind the desk and pulling out a folder from one of the drawers. “Quite impressive. Not many students complete their bachelors’ in five semesters.”

Studying had proven an efficient activity to absorb the time, and with the money Mathias had left him, Rayan didn’t need to hold down a job. He’d spent the summers taking courses instead.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked, evading the professor’s praise.

Hofstein chuckled. “A man of few words, it seems. I got an email from the faculty admin informing me that you’d requested I act as your supervisor. To be honest, I was a bit surprised. I hadn’t noticed you much in tutorials. But then I went and read this.”

He opened the folder and took out Rayan’s thesis proposal. Rayan had been instructed to attach it to the supervisor request so they could determine whether he was a good fit. He’d only selected Hofstein because he was taking his class on virtue ethics and admired his thoughtful observations. Otherwise, he didn’t really have a preference.

“Circumstantial morality.” The professor shook his head with a grin. “It reads at a PhD level.”

Rayan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He hadn’t meant for the proposal to be so long, but he’d found himself caught up in the subject, entangled in a compelling web of reason.

“What are you, mid-twenties?”

Rayan nodded. He would be twenty-six in two months. The number seemed ancient. There had been a time when he’d thought he would never make it this far.

“Older than most of the undergraduates in the program,” Hofstein continued. “Bit more life experience, I’d imagine. What were you doing before this?”

Rayan stiffened. “Nothing, really. Odd jobs.”

The professor nodded. “And what brought you to philosophy?”

Rayan had struggled with that question. He remembered staring at the list of degrees and feeling nothing. He’d considered something practical, but he had done enough with his hands. He figured it was time to do something with his mind.

“A good argument can explain any number of sins,” he said finally.

Hofstein laughed. “That it can, but what it can’t do is change how we feel about them. That’s the whole dilemma, isn’t it? We can use the logic of philosophy as an explanation, but do we really believe it…” He lightly tapped his fist against his chest. “In here?”

Rayan crossed his arms, suddenly defensive. “You don’t agree with the thesis?”

“No, that’s not it. I didn’t mean to get off track.” He laughed again and absently thumbed through the pages of the proposal. “Nagel certainly does, as did Williams. The idea that morality comes down to an element of luck can be appealing to certain people.”

Like me?

“You’ve made some good points about the fallacies of the argument, as well as subsequent theories that it’s spurred. I’d like to see you bring in more practical examples, maybe touch on a few modern musings of redemption to add color to the concept.”

“Redemption,” Rayan echoed. “What do the scholars have to say about that?”

Professor Hofstein was silent for a moment, observing him with a kind smile. “Well, Mainl?nder argued it could only be achieved through death or complete annihilation, which I think is a tad heavy-handed. Nietzsche’s idea of redemption takes the form of an altered understanding of past events. Personally, I’m rather fond of the Hebrew model, where redemption is pursued through mitzvahs—good deeds. Whether they cancel out prior misconduct, that’s another argument.”

“ Sadaqah ,” Rayan said quietly, the word materializing on his tongue.

“That’s right, the equivalent in Islam. Religions tend to position themselves more leniently on the subject than philosophers.” Hofstein sat back and pressed his thumbs together reflectively. “What are your plans after graduation? Where are you headed?”

The question set off a flicker of panic. He had no idea where he would go or what he would do after this. Rayan still felt like he was in limbo, as though he was waiting for something—perhaps for his life to truly begin. He shrugged.

“Because you might have a pretty decent shot at academia if that’s something you want,” Hofstein said.

Rayan didn’t know if it was.

“This is compelling stuff, Mr. Ayari. I think you’ve got a few ideas here. I’d be more than happy to supervise if you’ll have me.”

“Thank you,” Rayan said, relieved that the professor hadn’t pulled the thing apart. It felt personal somehow, a piece of himself woven in amongst the dry scholarly language.

“Wonderful. I’ll go ahead and put my name down, get that signed off.” Professor Hofstein picked up the proposal and handed it to him across the desk. Then he clicked his fingers. “Utilitarianism,” he announced triumphantly and caught Rayan with his high-beam smile. “Bentham’s theory on utility. Look that up.”

Tony and Mathias’s father were buried in the same cemetery, not by some strange coincidence but because the Italians of Montreal had long considered Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges to be their preferred final resting place. While Mathias had never bothered to seek out his father’s grave, he’d come by Tony’s a few times to pay his respects.

He made his way through the wrought iron gate and walked slowly down the rows of tombstones. Not one for maudlin gestures, Mathias had found his sense of obligation to do right by the former Collections boss unsettling, yet more than two years after the man’s sudden departure, it lingered.

The office remained a virtual shrine to all things Tony. Mathias was still finding notes in his illegible scrawl, crammed at the backs of drawers and under piles of paperwork that had taken him months to organize. Tony had employed his own system, which, while lacking in order, had apparently made perfect sense to him. Mathias had done what he could to decipher it, but anything he couldn’t figure out, he’d gotten rid of.

While technically responsible for the division, Mathias was not so precious—as Tony had been—as to refuse outside help. The thought of spending his days poring over the minutiae of each contract and chasing up incremental amounts of money was nauseating to Mathias. Once he’d gotten his head around the basics, he’d brought in Lucio Gammin—one of the Betting division’s talented bookkeepers—to run the administrative side of things. He still spent more time than he cared to at the Collections office but only as a nominal head. He wanted baseline numbers, intel on difficult clients, and oversight on a few high-profile contracts. The rest he left to Lucio, who then delegated the work to Franco, Sonny, and the remaining team. Despite the time that had passed, it felt unnatural to occupy the role Tony Giraldi had guarded like a mutt with a bone, so Mathias came here occasionally as a nod to Tony and the space he’d left behind.

The grave was well tended. The headstone was clear of weeds, and a small glass vase with flowers had been placed on top. Mathias stood before it and reached into his jacket for his cigarettes. He waited for the tobacco to light before drawing a pull of smoke into his lungs.

Arrogant little bastard. Those had been Tony’s words when Mathias had first shown up at the Collections office all those years ago.

The words hadn’t been far off the mark. Mathias had been turned away from every other division and hadn’t realized getting a job in Giorgio Russo’s army would prove so difficult. He’d assumed they would want all the muscle they could get. But it was his first introduction to the layers of tradition that existed beneath the face of the criminal organization.

He’d been adamantly against using his old man’s connections—however tenuous—and wanted to get the job on his own merits. Mathias had found out very quickly that, in the scornful eyes of the family elite, he had none. By the time he made it to Tony’s office, he knew there was nowhere else to go, so he refused to take no for an answer. If Tony was stubborn, Mathias was even more so. And he was smart—he knew what he was getting into and had no qualms about what was required of him. This had been Mathias’s opportunity to finally prove himself, and he would not let some graying old goat deny him that.

Of course, now he knew what a gamble Tony had made on his behalf. Mathias’s background was a magnet for all the wrong kinds of attention. That was where Tony had differed from the rest of them—he hadn’t given a shit what people thought. Not that the old man didn’t put him through the wringer. Mathias’s initiation of Rayan was nothing compared to what Tony had made him do. Baptism by fire. But Mathias had been ready for it. Hungry, even. Back then, he’d felt like an agent of chaos, as though the accident of his birth had somehow granted him immunity. It was by a fluke he had this life in the first place, so what did it matter what he did with it?

Mathias took another drag on his cigarette and peered at the inscription on Tony’s headstone: Beloved by all who knew him.

He smirked. Graveside humor. There must have been a book of epitaphs, vague and sentimental, a catalogue of niceties to choose from. Beloved was one thing Tony most certainly wasn’t. He remembered a time, shortly after Tony had officially brought him on, when Mathias was still some grunt the Collections boss would have liked to be rid of. Mathias had been called into Tony’s office, and the man had slapped a piece of paper down on the desk between them. He began berating Mathias for changing the terms of a client’s contract without his permission. The thing read like it had been written by a monkey and then passed from hand to hand without ever being corrected.

“It’s trash,” Mathias said in his defense. “I’m not peddling shit someone’s been too lazy to fix.”

“That someone is me, smart-ass,” Tony growled, his face turning redder by the second. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, college boy? It’s not the contract—it’s you who’s the worthless piece of shit. Don’t forget you’re only holding onto this job through my good graces—”

Mathias slammed a hand down on the desk, and Tony’s eyes bugged with fury. “Now I’m going to talk, and you listen,” Mathias said quietly. “You haven’t accounted for statutory interest. It should be cumulative based on time in arrears. My version brought in six percent more than the outstanding amount. That’s five grand, on a throwaway client. Think about what that looks like for our regulars.”

Tony stared at him, no doubt with a torrid of insults brewing behind his closed lips, but Mathias could practically see the gears whirring in his head. It wasn’t an overly complicated accounting concept but something that had occurred to Mathias when he’d attempted to decipher the gibberish that had been handed to him.

“If you want a shot at snaring the heavy hitters, at least make it look professional,” he continued.

When his boss finally spoke, it was clipped and matter-of-fact. “Professional, huh? Go on, then. Let’s hear it.”

That was the moment Mathias went from being a troublesome lackey to an asset, someone worth listening to. He’d proven his value not with how eager he’d been to get his hands dirty or because he’d shown up each day despite the stream of crappy jobs but because instinctively, he knew how to make things better and if he had something to say, he wasn’t afraid to say it.

Mathias tapped the ash from his cigarette, and it sprinkled across the pavers at his feet. Tony had taught him to trust that instinct and to use it for his and the family’s benefit. The man might not have been beloved, but he’d had a lot to do with Mathias’s success—far more than Mathias had given him credit for.

His eyes moved from the epitaph to the dates engraved below, that fateful day carved forever in stone. Sometimes, when his fingers brushed the dimpled scar on Rayan’s chest, Mathias thought about what he might have done differently. He wondered if there was some decision he could have made that would have changed the course of that night.

Mathias brought the smoke back to his lips. The answer still eluded him.