A Life Betrayed (Montreal #2)

Chapter Seven

B elkov had cleared out Chateau Suzdal for the evening, and he and Mathias sat together at a table in the corner of the empty restaurant. Periodically, a woman in a white uniform would come out of the kitchen, ferrying various dishes to their table. Mathias didn’t often meet the Bratva boss out front. They typically conducted their business in the office behind the restaurant. But when Mathias called to set up the meeting, Belkov insisted he join him for a meal.

After the Russians had assisted in ousting Piero Russo and solidifying Giovanni’s bid for succession, Mathias had found himself on better terms with Viktor Belkov. In the subsequent years, the two of them established somewhat of a working friendship, which consisted mainly of mutual back-scratching and the odd late-night bender. Mathias would not quickly forget that the Russian had come to his aid when he was adrift and desperate, following his transfer to Hamilton. At the time, he’d felt almost abandoned by the family and had leaned heavily on his alliance with the Bratva.

Mathias poked at a piece of questionable-looking meat on his plate and wondered how much he’d be expected to eat without offending the man. Belkov had heaped his plate full, pushing meat and boiled vegetables into piles on his fork.

“There’s plenty here,” the Russian remarked. “Why not bring him in?”

They both turned to the window overlooking the parking lot, which was empty except for Mathias’s Bentley, where Jacques waited behind the wheel. Mathias had brought his second to drive him home in the rare event that he found himself incapacitated. With Belkov, that was difficult to predict. Mathias refused to let the man one-up him when it came to holding his liquor, and Belkov seemed to appreciate that he was up for the challenge.

“He’s fine where he is.”

Belkov gave him a knowing look. “You don’t trust him.”

“I’d be an idiot not to trust my own second,” Mathias retorted.

“Then why does he always wait outside?”

Mathias didn’t reply. He brought a forkful of potatoes to his mouth and chewed the claggy mess quickly in an effort not to gag.

“I liked the other one better,” Belkov said.

So did I.

“You never said what happened to him,” the Russian complained. “All of a sudden—” He splayed the fingers of his left hand. “Poof! He’s gone.”

“He stopped being useful,” Mathias replied shortly. Abandoning the pretense of eating, he placed his fork down and picked up his glass.

“How cold-blooded.” Belkov tutted. “To get rid of such a loyal dog.”

“I don’t run a fucking charity.”

Belkov nodded. “I understand, though. Once you’ve been shot, you’re never the same.” He raised the bottom of his shirt to reveal three circular scars below his ribs.

“Now it makes sense why you’re such a crazy bastard.” Mathias downed his vodka.

Belkov grinned and poured them each an ample refill. “I suppose you came by so we could regale each other with tales of success.”

“There’s something you can assist me with,” Mathias said, pushing away his plate and getting to the matter at hand.

The Bratva boss chuckled. “Why is it I only see you when you’re in trouble?”

“I seem to remember receiving a rather panicked call from you last month, after the FBI detained four of your men across the border,” Mathias said. After the call, Mathias had reached out to one of his contacts stateside to facilitate an amicable resolution.

“And your assistance was appreciated,” Belkov said, raising his glass in salute.

“Time to return the favor.”

“Does this have anything to do with the reshuffle at the Quebec divisional office?” Belkov asked coyly.

Mathias narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about that?”

Belkov shrugged. “Only that they’ve sent someone new from HQ. And that they’re very interested in certain members of the family. Might one of those be you?”

“I need intel on Inspector Frances Allen. She’s the one they’ve pulled in from the capital. She’s taken over the investigation from Lapierre. I’ve got feelers out among my people here, but Gurin’s better connected in Ontario. I want to know who she’s talking to and where she’s going.”

The Russian took a swig of his drink. “That can be arranged. You’re welcome to our eyes and ears. I’ll let Gurin know.”

“There’s something else,” Mathias began cautiously. “I’ve got a leak. Wondered if I might find it out there.”

Belkov raised his eyebrows and turned the glass in his hand. “Are you saying…?”

“The man’s got a big mouth.”

Belkov laughed. “No doubt, but surely he’s got more sense than that.”

“Does he?” Mathias countered. “The more clout he gets, the bigger his head becomes. He’s cocky, thinks the rules don’t apply.”

“Truman’s been burned by the family before. He knows what that tastes like.”

“Gets harder to recall the longer it’s been.”

Belkov gave him an amused smile and threw back the remainder of his drink. “You want to see if you can catch him with his fat fingers in the cookie jar.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to find out what he’s been up to.”

“Consider it done.”

Mathias raised his drink in acknowledgment and knocked it back.

“After all,” the Bratva boss said cannily, “where would we be if we didn’t look out for each other?”

It took Rayan leaving the family for him to truly understand how different his life had been. He shared none of the hallmarks of adolescence that had shaped the cohort of fellow students bustling around campus. No school dances or sports games or keg parties. No parents who gifted cars for birthdays and helped with college applications and attended graduation ceremonies. While he didn’t pine for these experiences, he felt the way that their absence had shaped him. Then there were the things he had done, which forced Rayan from the other students’ naive little world altogether. He might as well have come from outer space for how little he shared with the kids sitting next to him in class.

Rayan was packing up after his last tutorial on a Thursday afternoon when the tutorial leader, a master’s student named Lily, announced that the group was heading out for drinks.

“That means you, too, Ayari,” she said, stopping by where Rayan stood, pulling the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “You’ve been suspiciously absent from our Thursday-night socials. Come chat with the group about something other than philosophy.” She cocked her head, waiting expectantly, and Rayan felt he had no choice but to nod.

It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy their company. For the most part, everyone in the group seemed able to form coherent, sometimes even compelling arguments. But he still wrestled with the need to remain invisible. The more involved he got, the more likely he was to be seen.

He was also impossibly lonely. He ached for Mathias in a way that seemed shamefully juvenile, and he thought constantly of what the man was doing and where he might be. Though small, his apartment seemed cavernous when Mathias wasn’t there—which was still the majority of the time. Throwing himself into his studies helped some, but more often than he cared to admit, Rayan found himself unable to concentrate and itching for Mathias’s touch.

When they’d worked together, he’d spent most of his days with Mathias and had been privy to his sparing yet withering observations on how the world operated. Now, surrounded by idealists, Rayan missed his pragmatism—the way he distilled even the most daunting situation into practical, manageable action. Mathias had taught him to work hard, keep his head down, and trust his instincts—tactics that had saved him from being swallowed by the circumstances of his past.

Rayan followed the rest of the tutorial group to a popular dive bar a block away from the university. On the walls hung signed photos of mildly famous Canadian celebrities and banners for local sports teams. They found a booth, sat down, and passed around a stack of beer-stained menus. While they were waiting for their drinks to arrive, a young man dressed in a burgundy smoking jacket approached the table, and Lily leapt from her seat to kiss him on the mouth. He was short, with close-cropped blond hair, and his blue eyes were rimmed with black eyeliner.

“This is Noah, everyone,” she announced, and they all shuffled over to make room.

Noah raised a hand in greeting and slid into the booth across from Rayan.

As promised, philosophy was off the table. Instead, the group jostled from one topic to the next—college parties, faculty gossip, music concerts. Rayan sat nursing a soda he didn’t want, while in front of him, Noah was knocking back beers like they were water. He kept looking at Rayan like he was sizing him up, and it was starting to get annoying.

“Rayan,” Lily called from down the table. “Give us a reality check here. We could use a non-Anglo take on this.”

Rayan shrugged. He hadn’t been following the conversation. “I don’t really have an opinion.”

“I didn’t pick you for a Quebecer,” Noah said with a coy smile. “That is, until you opened your mouth. Love the accent.”

Funny how it was the same assumption no matter where Rayan went, only presenting in different ways. In the family, the prejudice had been overt. There was a name for his otherness— estraneo . Here, they all thought it—they were just better at hiding it.

The conversation bounced past them, and Rayan met Noah’s probing stare. “Why’s that?”

Noah gestured at Rayan’s face. “Just expected something else, I guess. Not that it’s a bad thing or anything. I mean, you’re stunning.” He gave Rayan a rakish grin that didn’t seem out of place among this group of mouth-kissing, bohemian-looking kids.

Rayan didn’t reply and instead turned his head to listen to the increasingly tedious prattle at the other end of the table. Discussion had turned to politics, and Lily was spearheading a spirited takedown of the new government. He knew the right-leaning party in power had been making things difficult for the country’s criminal groups, even in Quebec—a province that typically avoided the full scope of federal attention.

“It’s cyclical,” Lily was saying, punctuating the air with her hand. “They crack down on crime through a series of dubious measures until the next government gets voted in and repeals everything, and then we’re right back where we started. You need to get to the root of why people offend.”

“Why do people offend?” Rayan asked, unable to remain silent. Her confidence had rankled him.

The table turned its attention to him, and Lily grinned. “I promised no philosophy.”

“It’s not philosophy.”

“Sure it is. Look at Nietzsche’s view—that criminals are the result of society’s suppression of man’s animalistic drives. Society domesticates man, inflicting itself upon him, and the criminal is simply ‘the strong man made sick.’”

“Or he’s just hungry or poor,” Rayan countered. “Less a philosophical tug-of-war and more basic economics.” After he spoke, he realized how hard his voice sounded.

Lily gave him a curious look. “You seem pretty passionate about the subject.”

“Excuse me,” he muttered, getting to his feet. “I need to find the washroom.”

In the men’s room, Rayan stood in front of the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. When he and his brother had conned kids at the group homes out of their money, or when they’d started stealing cars, or when Tahir began using, people like Lily had sat around theorizing about why they did it, turning to Nietzsche to justify their moral failings. But then, he’d told Professor Hofstein that a good argument could explain any number of sins.

The door opened, and Noah slunk in, giving Rayan a slow smile. “I figured it was code.” Eyes glazed, he stepped over with a drunken wobble and placed a hand on Rayan’s chest. “I can’t keep my fucking eyes off you.”

Then Noah was kissing him, and it was as though Rayan was observing himself from across the room. The movement was oddly mechanical, flesh against flesh. He’d never really thought about how strange the act was when utterly devoid of feeling. With Mathias, it always felt like he was being swallowed whole, stripped to nothing but sensation.

Rayan jerked his head back. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Noah laughed softly and jutted out his chin. “I have a pretty good read on these things.”

Rayan shoved him backward. He had to focus carefully to rein in the instinctual clench of his fist, ready to make impact. They still caught him off guard, these ingrained reactions wired to another reality. When someone cut in front of him in line or bumped into him as they passed, he flared with the need to correct the slight and ensure that he wasn’t seen as weak. But this world was different. In this world, confrontation was to be avoided at all costs.

“You don’t,” he growled and moved to the door.

Rayan strode out of the bar. As he stalked down the street, he scoured the last hour for clues that he might have given the man, ways in which he’d inadvertently outed himself. Maybe Noah, drunk and arrogant, had simply projected whatever he wanted onto Rayan. A familiar fear gripped him. After a life spent being so careful, when had it started to show on his face?