Page 68 of A Life Chosen

“If they’ve turned, we make an example. But when Piero’s men start falling one by one, they won’t stay that way for long.” Mathias pulled two slips of paper from his pocket and handed them to Truman and the Russian.

“Now you have your own list,” the Bratva boss remarked wryly.

The irony wasn’t lost on Mathias.

“Names and addresses—where they live with their wives, where they keep their mistresses, grandma’s room at the nursing home. You turn over every stone. Hunt down each one.”

Giovanni had not spent the past six months idly. While Mathias had been greasing the wheels with Truman, stamping down sedition in Hamilton, the old man had built up a database of information on all of Piero’s loyalists.

Truman tossed his unfinished burger onto the pavement, glancing at the paper briefly before shoving it in his pocket. “Easy enough. I thought you had a challenge for me, Mathias.” He laughed. “Been a while since I’ve gone headhunting.” Truman turned and strode toward his men, who were gearing up on their bikes. “We’re moving out, shitkickers!”

Beside him, Belkov looked on with scorn. He muttered something in Russian, rocking back on his heels. “They make too much fucking noise.”

“Works in our favor,” Mathias replied, pulling on his cigarette, the smoke rising white against the blackened night sky. “The bigger the distraction, the more cover it gives us.”

“Look at you, Beauvais. Thought of everything.” The Bratva boss slipped his hands into his pockets, fixing Mathias with a disquieting stare. “Heard they shot your dog.”

Mathias’s jaw clenched.

“That part of the plan too?” Belkov asked.

Mathias stared back, refusing to let the man see how his remark had rattled him. The mask hung on by a thread. All of him was hanging on by a thread.

“You hold up your end, Belkov,” Mathias said in a low voice, “and I will mine.”

Mathias sat beside the makeshift hospital bed Martin had put together in the spare room of his apartment. Jacques was asleep on the living room couch, and the doctor’s assistant had excused herself to make coffee. Rayan lay beneath a thin sheet, his chest bare except for the layers of thick padding that encircled his right shoulder. His skin was alarmingly pale, the sheet rising and falling as he took long, labored breaths. Even in sleep, his face flickered in pain. Mathias glanced up to check the bag of morphine on the standing IV.

It was now the early hours of the morning, but Mathias was having trouble leaving the room for his own bed. After briefing Truman and Belkov, he and a handful of soldiers had crawled the city from Saint-Marie to Longue-Pointe for clues as to Piero’s whereabouts. An eerie silence had descended over Montreal. Everyone seemed to be ducking for cover, afraid of getting drawn into the conflict.

He laid a hand on the inside of Rayan’s forearm and traced the line of muscle to where the bandages began. Staring down at his softened features, Mathias wondered how lasting the damage would be. He reached for the man’s hand and felt it shudder, the fingers gripping his.

Rayan’s eyes fluttered open, his mouth creasing into a grimace. “You’re here.” He spoke with considerable effort, his voice sounding as if it came from far away. He was barely lucid, cloudy with morphine.

“I’m here.”

Rayan managed a weak grin. “Good.”

They sat in silence, Mathias waiting for him to drift off once again.

“I saw him,” Rayan murmured.

Mathias frowned. “Who?”

Rayan blinked as if he’d forgotten Mathias was in the room. “My brother. Said it’s not so bad.”

A weight pressed against Mathias’s chest. When he’d first seen Rayan on the ground, blood pooling beside his body, he had been confronted by an image of the young man, whose death still managed to play out clearly in his mind.

“I used to think I wouldn’t mind it,” Rayan said, staring at him with a strange intensity. “Then I met you.”

Mathias froze, the words lodging in his head. He looked at the battered man and felt the thud of his pulse beneath his fingertips. “Tell me about him.”

“Tahir?”

Mathias nodded. In all their time together, they’d never talked about his brother—never acknowledged what they’d both seen.

“I idolized him. He looked out for me, and I did everything he asked,” Rayan said. “Sometimes I wonder how different my life would’ve been if I hadn’t.”

Mathias said nothing, his gaze falling to the faded scar along Rayan’s throat.

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