A Life Betrayed (Montreal #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

“ S urprised to find you here.”

Mathias glanced up to see Giovanni coming down the cemetery path with a newspaper tucked under his arm and the air of a grandfather who’d wandered off from his handlers. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for the sentimental type.”

Beyond Giovanni, Henri stood at the entrance gate, watching. The boss’s car idled in the parking lot, his driver waiting behind the wheel.

“He liked the stocks,” Giovanni said, holding up the newspaper, which was folded to the financial section. He stepped past Mathias to drop it on top of Tony’s grave. “Liked to play the market. He was a dumb old bastard sometimes. Never really knew what he was doing.” The boss laughed. “But that’s all of us, isn’t it? Dabbling in things we don’t fully understand.”

The remark hit upon something, disturbing a smattering of thoughts that moved too quickly to capture.

“Heard you pulled the pin with Truman.”

“As promised,” Mathias replied. “I was waiting to tie up a few loose ends, but now’s as good a time as any to tell you. I’m leaving.”

Giovanni made a small grunt of acknowledgment. “So, you finally came to your senses, then. And what—you’re here for the old man’s blessing?”

They both looked down at Tony’s grave.

“Collections is yours. Do what you want with it,” Mathias said. “Far be it for me to fight you on progress with things as they stand. Tony wouldn’t have liked it, but we’re beyond that now.”

“That’s the difference between you and Tony—he was happy where he was, but you, Mathias, could never seem to climb high enough. You were never quite satisfied with your lot.”

There’s more hands on this than you think.

Mathias’s blood went cold. The tip-off. If there was one person insidious enough to manipulate the federal police like a puppet on a string… He was a fool not to have seen it. But for some time now, he’d been sorely off his game.

“It was you.”

Their eyes met, and Mathias saw in them the cold steel of a giant with the power to move mountains and crush unsuspecting men beneath his feet.

Giovanni sighed. “I can’t fault you. It’s in your nature and—I’ll admit—was a very useful tool to have at my disposal. Until I realized it was only a matter of time before that ambition was used against me.”

“Why didn’t you—”

“Have you clipped?” The boss gave a low chuckle. “Where’s the fun in that? I saw what happened with Piero. I didn’t want to make the mistake of unleashing your particular brand of revenge if that failed.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks and rocked back on his heels. “Besides, it’s a little uncouth for the boss to whack one of his own council, don’t you think? Wouldn’t exactly send the right message.”

“But enlisting the Feds to take me down—that hits the right note?” Mathias sneered. “And that bullshit with Collections… That was about covering your own ass. With me gone, there’s no one even remotely qualified to run the fucking thing, so you figured you’d outsource.”

Giovanni cocked his head and smiled. “See, this is why you made this difficult for me, Beauvais. Because I see myself in you. I admire your grit, your competence. You would’ve made a good boss—would’ve been my first pick, if we’re being honest. But I could never shake the suspicion that you’d take it from me with a knife to the back.”

Mathias had trouble recognizing the feeling that seized his chest, unsure why the boss’s words pierced him like they did. He was no stranger to treachery, but this was a man he admired and had never thought to deceive.

“I wouldn’t have taken it from you,” Mathias said, the words stripped down so only the truth remained.

“Who knows what our future selves are capable of?” Giovanni said. “But I’ve survived this long by anticipating danger before it comes. I couldn’t risk having you challenge me for the position. You can thank your second for the inside wire.”

Mathias reeled. Who else is in on this? Enzo, with his well-timed warning? Did I really think, after being blindsided once, it wouldn’t happen again? He remembered how he’d practically begged the boss to give him one last chance. The thought made him sick.

There was a flap of wings as a pigeon launched from the tree above their heads. Giovanni reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his cigarettes. He offered the pack to Mathias, who refused to take it—an honor slighted. They stood before each other, no longer boss and subordinate but two men.

“You and the Quintino hatched this little plan?”

“The Quintino weren’t involved.” Giovanni placed a cigarette between his lips and lit it. “This was personal, between you and me.”

“After everything I’ve done, you would let me rot in prison?”

“Or rot in the ground. It’s up to you. Those are the only options left if you’re not gone by tomorrow.”

Mathias’s mind skipped ahead, the runway he’d given himself immediately contracting. It was as though the walls around him were closing in. “And Truman?” he asked, buying himself time, his thoughts moving at lightning speed. “You put the heat on him to cover your tracks.”

“I did you a favor there, Mathias,” Giovanni replied, exhaling smoke through his teeth. “Look how quickly he turned on you. Glad you cleaned up that mess before I had to get involved.”

Mathias shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve done many things, Bianchi, but roll over on one of my own?”

“I hardly rolled over on you. I gave them crumbs, a few details to get you noticed. If you move fast, you might even escape a conviction. And don’t pretend you haven’t used the Feds to your advantage. You’ve had someone on the inside for years.”

“I used them, not the other way around,” Mathias spat.

Giovanni squinted out across the maze of headstones. He raised the cigarette to his mouth and took a slow drag. Above them, the wind sent the clouds racing across the sky. “Your father buried here?”

Mathias remained silent.

Unfazed by his impudence, the boss continued. “Of course he is. Every Italian in the city ends up in this place. You know, he and I had something to do with each other back in the early days. Not much—he liked to find a comfortable spot where he could sit back, whereas I was forever chasing forward. Never made a real impression, but Christ, was he stupid. Knocking up his goomah, for one.” Giovanni gave a short laugh, shaking his head in awe. “I mean, how fucking stupid can a man be?” His words were like salt in an open wound. “And two, overlooking the son with the most potential. The only one who’d go on to accomplish anything.” Giovanni stared at him evenly. “Do you know what your brothers do?”

“No.” Mathias had never been curious. The less he knew about the men who shared his blood, the better.

“One’s the manager at a car rental company, and the other coaches high school hockey.” The boss splayed his hands out before him as if that information was some code to be unspooled. “But there’s the rub—if you’d been handed everything, Mathias, you’d be as dumb and useless as the other two.” The man took another drag, a thin stream of white curling from the corner of his mouth. “You know how this game plays out. You saw it when Piero tried to have you whacked and you took the fall. This isn’t the fucking schoolyard. There are no rules. Nothing is fair.” Giovanni gave a rueful smile. “And yet here I am, laying it all on the line, attempting to do right by you. I must be getting old.”

“Do right by me?” Mathias snarled. “That’s rich.”

The smile disappeared, and Giovanni’s face hardened. Mathias felt the cold unfurling of things unsaid passing between them. He could be indignant, but if the boss wanted him dead, he stood now in the old man’s good graces. That could change in an instant, depending on how he proceeded.

“Don’t be like your father, Mathias. Don’t be stupid. Do us both a favor and leave.”

It rose like a beast inside him—the instinctive urge to eviscerate those who stood against him. Yet Mathias had followed that path and seen where it led, and that kind of wrath didn’t belong to the life that lay beyond, a life that terrified him, in which he no longer recognized himself, but in which there existed someone who recognized him.

“Why would you let me leave?”

Giovanni gave a shrug. “Maybe I owe you. Without you, I wouldn’t be sitting where I am today. I’d like to settle that particular debt.”

Mathias took the ring from the finger on his right hand and dropped it onto the paving stones at his feet. “Consider my oath renounced,” he said in a low voice. Then he strode past Giovanni and down the path toward the cemetery gate.

“Mathias,” the boss called over his shoulder. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t come back.”

After leaving the cemetery, Mathias got in his car and drove to the Collections office, his mind tunneling into a singular focus. He’d once been convinced that in life, everyone was out to get him and if he didn’t remain constantly vigilant, he would be eradicated. He wondered when he’d stopped believing that. It felt as though he was looking down to discover parts of himself missing, unsure exactly when they’d disappeared and who the fuck he was without them.

Mathias found his second seated behind the desk in Tony’s office. The sight of him there lodged a dark splinter of fury in his temple. He felt the creep of realization—unwittingly, in his increasing absence, he’d phased Jacques out of a job, refusing to have him sit in on meetings, leaving him to clean up messes at the office while Mathias went off on his own. No wonder Jacques had gone in search of something more—the position and the recognition he thought he deserved.

Jacques stood up quickly when Mathias appeared, rearranging his face a half second too late to hide his surprise. “Didn’t know you were coming in,” he said, either completely unaware of the situation or entirely confident in his ability to read it.

Mathias was pretty sure it was the former. “I need to be in Sherbrooke for a meeting. Get moving,” Mathias said, turning and walking out of the office as his second scrambled to keep up.

In the parking lot, Jacques got into the passenger side of the car, and Mathias pulled out onto the street. They drove in silence as Jacques gazed absently out the window. Mathias couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was about the man that had always seemed so unremarkable. He’d never been curious about what Jacques was thinking or whether he had anything to contribute to an unfolding situation. Mathias had simply registered him as a presence—he was either there, or he wasn’t.

When they were far enough out of the city, Mathias turned off the highway and navigated the car along a series of back roads. It began to snow, tiny wisps of white that smeared against the windshield. Mathias waited until the road was empty of other cars before pulling the Bentley into a concealed driveway that led to a small produce farm. He cut the ignition.

“I heard a noise from the engine,” he said, flicking the button beside the steering wheel to pop the hood. “Go check the oil.”

When Jacques was outside, Mathias reached into the glove compartment, where he’d stashed the gun he’d taken from Rayan. He checked the chamber, got out of the car, and walked around to where his second stood peering under the hood.

“Boss, doesn’t look like—” Jacques stopped when he saw Mathias with his pistol raised.

“Back up,” Mathias instructed quietly. “Gun on the ground.”

Jacques took a few steps backward, slowly extracted his weapon from the holster beneath his jacket, and tossed it onto the ground between them.

“Phone.”

The man’s phone soon followed.

With the gun still trained on his second, Mathias bent to retrieve them. He slipped the phone into his pocket and tucked Jacques’s gun into the waistband of his slacks. Then he lunged forward and smashed the side of his pistol against Jacques’s face. Jacques let out a pained grunt but otherwise remained silent, watching Mathias carefully as the blood streamed from his nose.

“Did you go to him, or did he come to you?”

Jacques frowned. “Who?”

“Bianchi.”

“The boss?”

“Who the fuck else?” Mathias barked.

“What’s this about?”

Mathias aimed his gun and fired a shot at the ground by the man’s feet.

Jacques jumped back. “He asked to see me once,” he said quickly, the words catching on one another. “He asked about you.”

“What about me?”

“Whether I knew anything, whether you’d said anything.” Jacques swallowed. “About your ambitions.”

Mathias felt a coldness slide down his spine. “And what did you tell him?”

Jacques looked at him, and Mathias could see the fear growing in his eyes, as though it had only now dawned on him. “What you told Piero that day we found him at the safe house. Before…”

Before I blew his brains out. Mathias had little recollection of that day. The memory had grown fractured and hazy. He recalled the anger and the relief when it was finally done, mixed with a gnawing concern for Rayan’s condition and the fog of grief at losing Tony.

Take a good look at my face…

Then Mathias remembered the throwaway threat—his pledge to one day head the family, a way to stick the knife in one last time and send Piero off with a bitter taste in his mouth. He’d only half meant it. The words were a lofty brag, to kick Russo’s son where it hurt. And now they had come back to bite him.

“Fucking fink.”

Jacques recoiled. “It was the boss. I’m supposed to lie to the boss?”

“You’re a grunt! The boss asks you a question, you say you don’t know,” Mathias growled. “You don’t talk behind my back.”

“I didn’t think—”

“What was he offering?” Mathias cut in. “A title, your own team? Or if I know Bianchi, the chance to replace me and run the whole fucking division.”

Mathias had handed the office over to his second enough times for him to be well-versed in how things operated. Jacques had even taken charge on several occasions while he was out of town, and Mathias had mistaken his eagerness for obedience while the man plotted against him.

“Well, it’ll be a disappointment to hear the old man’s handing Collections to a bunch of suits offshore. You never had a fucking chance.”

Jacques stared at him blankly. “He didn’t offer me anything.”

Mathias snorted, but his second’s expression didn’t change. Is it possible he gave that information freely, with no consideration for who it would be used against and no thought for what he might extract in return?

“Bullshit,” Mathias snapped. “And when you met again, what did you tell him?”

Jacques shook his head. “He never asked to meet again.”

Mathias almost laughed. Somehow, he believed him. Jacques Laberge, ambitious but lacking the brains to get ahead. Easy prey for Giovanni, who’d gotten what he wanted from the man without having to lift a finger. A master at playing people for his own gain—look how well he’d played Mathias.

He saw how toxic Giovanni’s paranoia had become. He’d risen to the head of the family only to be choked by constant suspicion, a life lived looking over his shoulder. That fear must have come with the territory and would explain Giorgio Russo’s sudden purges and his reluctance to widen his inner circle. Mathias had experienced something similar in the months following Junior’s attempted hit, when staying alive had meant preempting disaster. Maybe there had been a time when Mathias had wanted his shot at the top, when advancement was all he had.

“Take off your shoes.”

Jacques flinched and then, as though resigning himself to his fate, kicked off his shoes and tossed them at Mathias’s feet. Mathias threw them into the open car and moved to slam the hood closed, his gun remaining fixed on Jacques.

“You’re leaving me here?” Jacques cried. His teeth began to chatter, and his socks were sodden with icy sludge.

“Why not?” Mathias said coldly. “You running your mouth almost put me six feet under.”

Once, he would have simply knocked him off. Quick, easy, a single shot between the eyes. But the window was narrowing fast, the opportunity to escape diminishing by the second. Mathias could not afford to make a mistake. It was always the last hurdle that tripped you. When you were tired and losing focus, errors were made. And the discovery of his second’s bullet-ridden body in the Quebec countryside would be a surefire way to send the full weight of federal law enforcement down on him.

Mathias got in the car and gunned the engine, leaving Jacques in the snow on the side of the road. By the time the man made it back to Montreal—if he made it back—Mathias would be long gone.