Page 19 of A Life Betrayed

“Thought you’d be happy to be rid of the division. It’s no secret you can’t stand it,” Gabriele said, cracking the layer of caramelized sugar in his bowl with the side of his spoon.

“Giovanni has always had grand plans. Some of them are worth indulging—others not so much,” Armando said with a snicker.

“And this one…?” Mathias asked, raising his cup of coffee to his lips.

“I say let him go down this fanciful path for now. He’ll figure out soon enough that you can’t run a successful division without boots on the ground,” Enzo said.

Mathias took a sip of coffee. He hadn’t had the impression that Giovanni was chasing a dream—it had sounded like he’d already thought all of this through. “There’ll be pushback,” he conceded. “Not everyone in the division’s going to blend seamlessly into a swanky office.”

“That’s for fucking sure,” Armando crowed, and the men around the table chuckled.

Mathias swallowed another mouthful of coffee and thought of the boss’s warning—soon Quebec will be expected to fall back in line.

In the face of the unfolding situation with the Feds, he was beginning to think Giovanni’s prudence might be justified.

Frances couldn’t stop looking at the infinity tattoo on the underside of the man’s left wrist. She’d first noticed it when he’d raised his hand in greeting after arriving at the restaurant for their ill-fated date. It was garish, like Chinese characters on someone’s lower back, and laughably small, as though he’d wanted to be edgy but unobtrusive.

If you’re going to get a tattoo, commit, God dammit.

“They offer these excursions in Bali where you can swim with dolphins,” Louis was saying, and his green eyes lit up as though he was reliving the experience right there in the vegan tapas place he’d suggested over the phone. “It’s incredible. You’ve got to try it.”

She nodded and took another sip of her beer. They sat at a small table by the window, and she found her gaze wandering to the far more interesting people strolling by outside.

“Have you traveled much, Frances?”

“No,” she said truthfully.

After graduating from university, she’d spent a month in Europe before starting cadet training at the RCMP academy. It had been an attempt to reclaim some of the fun she’d missed as a straitlaced student fixated on a future in law enforcement. But instead of partying and sleeping with foreign boys, she’d felt homesick and spent her time eating supermarket pastries in cheap hostels. This was the part where she was supposed to say that she would like to travel and planned to one day backpack through Asia or go bungee jumping in New Zealand.

“I feel like I haven’t even done Canada justice yet.”

“Tell me about it. Skylar and I—” Louis flushed and looked embarrassed to have mentioned his ex again. He’d done it twice already, and their food hadn’t even arrived.

Frances pretended not to notice. She mentally cursed Diana and her own inability to say no. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of having someone to share her life with, but she hated the process of getting there—marketing herself, the endless disappointing dates, all her own insecurities mirrored back at her. Because if she was honest, Louis was a perfectly nice person. He was friendly and enthusiastic and had worked in asset management at a well-known national bank for the good part of a decade. She was the one with the problem.

She imagined what Louis would say if she told him she’d once exposed a group of insurance brokers who ran an underground torture club. Or that last year she’d busted an international drug ring that spanned four countries and had led to the seizure of over eight hundred kilos of meth destined for the street. Frances lived in a world that most people would find abhorrent, filled with questionable characters and even more questionable motives. And she liked it—more than she liked the idea ofswimming with dolphins. That probably made her what Ethan had so affectionately called her—a freak.

“So, you live in Montreal?”

“Temporarily,” she said. “Just while I’m working this investigation. I’m originally from here. I plan on moving back to Ottawa once everything’s wrapped up.”

“How long does that usually take?”

How long is a piece of string?“Depends. Some investigations are more cut-and-dried than others.”

“And this one?”

She thought of the hostile welcome she’d received at the Quebec office and the glint of intimidation in Mathias’s eyes. “Not so cut-and-dried,” she admitted.

“I’ve never met anyone who worked for the RCMP,” Louis said with a grin. “Bet it’s mostly guys, huh?”

Frances shrugged. He was right. She’d always used it to her advantage, though, as a way to stand out and push herself harder. “Mostly, but it’s changing.”

Fortunately, a young woman in a black apron appeared beside Louis and began setting out a series of small dishes on the table between them. Frances wasn’t confident she could determine what any of them contained.

“Diana mentioned you’d recently come out of a long-term relationship.” Louis handed her an empty plate as the server left. “I know how tough that is.”

Frances could have killed her sister.Recently?It was going on a year since Ethan had ended things. Her transfer to Montreal had actually come as a relief. Ottawa was a small town, and she’d grown tired of bumping into Ethan at places they’d frequented while together.

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