Page 1 of A Life Betrayed

Chapter One

Frances Allen flicked through the photos, the glossy paper stock sliding between her fingers. Before her sat a stack of files she’d spent the last month poring over. The folders were stuffed so full they threatened to spill their contents across the conference room table at the RCMP’s Quebec divisional headquarters in Montreal.

As an inspector for the federal police in Ottawa, she’d been working a migrant-trafficking case linked to a Mississauga-based recruitment company when the deputy commissioner had tapped her to replace the head of a beleaguered investigation across the border in Quebec. The investigation had been running for almost a year, and the divisional office had little to show for their efforts. With funding dwindling and government attention beginning to stray, they’d brought her in from the Organized Crime Branch as a last-ditch attempt to help things shape up. Because if there was one thing Frances was known for, it was getting shit done.

“No one in the city will say anything. The municipal police won’t touch him with a ten-foot pole,” Sergeant Alexandre Gagnon said, sitting across from her at the table and fiddling with the adjustable armrest on his chair. “Montreal is insular. Everyone knows who runs the show. We can’t get decent informants because they fear the repercussions. I don’t think you understand the name the man has made for himself, Inspector.”

Frances stopped at the photo on the bottom of the pile. It was a close-up shot taken two and a half years earlier outside the church at Giorgio Russo’s funeral, the subject looking directly at the camera as if issuing a challenge. She tossed the rest of the photos on top to obscure the man’s piercing gray stare. She wouldn’t admit to it, but something about that stare made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

Frances was well acquainted with the Montreal mob—or the family, as they were more commonly known. Their dealings were the subject of lore at the OCB. Decades of exclusionary politics meant the RCMP—the country’s national police service—had been largely shut out of Quebec, allowing Giorgio Russo’s criminal organization to reign unchecked. But all that was changing. The recent election of hardline Anthony Piper as prime minister had put crime back at the top of the national agenda and given the federal police the backing they needed to start taking names.

“Then we need to look farther afield, find someone from outside the city,” she said. She reached for her cup of cold break-room coffee and took a reluctant sip. The provincial branch was located in a plain concrete building in the city’s Westmount suburb. Funded by taxpayer money, it was as stripped-down as the offices at the RCMP’s Ottawa headquarters and had few office perks—including decent coffee. “We know he’s got ties to the cross-provincial drug trade—we’ve intercepted shipments from the Hamilton docks, headed for the ports of Montreal. Surely, someone has a beef to pick with him.”

“Not one they’re willing to die for,” Gagnon said smugly, folding his arms. It was no secret that he resented her stepping on his turf.

The sergeant had been a long-standing fixture at the Quebec office and had followed the mob’s dealings in Montreal for years. Frances also had a hunch he’d been gunning to fill InspectorLapierre’s shoes before she so unceremoniously replaced him. He’d been thwarted by a big shot from the capital—and a woman, no less.

“Find someone,” she said, shutting down the conversation and swiping the photos back into one of the overstuffed folders. She ignored the sour look Gagnon gave her and tucked the stack of files under her arm before leaving the conference room.

A tip-off had launched the investigation, and despite her extensive research after taking on the case, Frances hadn’t been able to determine the source. That meant it had come from up high—the top brass obscuring any information that might lead to the exposure of their most valuable informants. The tip-off had provided details implicating several Montreal mob figures in a series of short narcotics sea shipments and the laundering of funds derived from the enterprise. But to date, the RCMP had succeeded only in apprehending a handful of smaller players: runners and dockworkers who were far removed from those calling the shots. What they sorely needed was to land a big fish. And Frances had one in her sights.

As she wound her way through the maze of cubicles housing the divisional office staff, her polite smiles went unreturned. She’d grown accustomed to their frosty reception. Her French was excellent. She had studied the language at university level and spoke it often in her dealings in bilingual Ottawa. But she was an Anglo and one of the suits in the capital who thought they had jurisdiction over the entire country. It didn’t help that she’d supplanted an existing manager who’d been well-liked by the tight-knit, fiercely Quebecois staff. Still, she couldn’t let office politics distract her from the chance to take down one of the most notorious criminal figures in the country.

Frances stepped into her small windowless office and dropped the stack of files onto her desk. She sat down and turned to the wall behind her, where she’d pinned a map of the provinceheavily marked up with intersecting red lines. Beside the map was a hierarchy she’d constructed—headshots of key players, accomplices, and allies arranged according to their purported clout. Giovanni Bianchi, the reigning boss, sat at the very top, and directly below him were the members of his advisory group—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

She narrowed her eyes at the newest addition to the mob boss’s council as he looked back at her from the photo. Intimidation, extortion, racketeering—Mathias Beauvais had spent the better part of a decade writing his own rules into law. But Frances was here to accept his challenge. When she was done with this investigation, the infamous mafia captain would be off the streets and behind bars, where he belonged.

Chapter Two

It 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’simmense 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.

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