Page 56 of A Life Betrayed

Frances lurched toward him, and he led her swiftly out of the room and toward the barred fire door on the other side of the corridor. She threw a glance over her shoulder, expecting the Reaper to come charging after them, but he remained kneeling on the floor, red-faced and wheezing. Rayan lifted the metal bar that had been wedged across the door and dropped it to the floor at his feet. He attempted the latch, and the door shook slightly but wouldn’t give, appearing to be stuck. He muttered a string of curses in Quebecois before stepping back, turning on his side, and ramming the full force of his shoulder against the door. It shuddered open, and they burst into the freezing night air. Rayan picked up the metal bar and jammed it through the handles of the door from the outside.

When she’d first seen him, Frances had been confused by the flood of relief she’d felt. Rayan was likely just as dangerous as the man they’d left behind in that empty room, yet he’d appearedto her as a savior. For all she knew, he could be taking her to Mathias to meet a similar fate.So why aren’t I afraid?

They strode along the side of the building and toward the empty lot out front. There came a loud thud from behind them, and her hand shot out and gripped Rayan’s arm. It was the door, still held fast, refusing to buckle. Frances released her grip.

“What are you doing here, Nadeau?” she said finally.

“Making sure you don’t end up dead,” he said, the slight hint of an accent pulling at his English. He walked her to the road where her car was parked under a nearby streetlamp. “You all right to drive?”

“Of course I can drive,” she hissed, raking a hand through her hair to hide the shake. She must not have looked all right, if he’d asked the question. “Truman… what was all this? What did he have planned?”

“What do you think?” Rayan replied stonily. “You’ve got dirt on him, and you’re trying to exchange it for complicity. It won’t work. If Truman’s cornered, he’ll go down kicking.”

Her eyes flicked to his face. “And you came to make sure that didn’t happen?”

“No,” Rayan said, looking back at the warehouse. “He did.”

“Mathias?” Frances scoffed. “He wouldn’t do anything that’s not for his direct benefit.”

“Maybe,” Rayan said cryptically. “But wouldn’t he benefit more if you disappeared?”

A chill ran through her.

“You’re in too deep, Allen. Dig any further, and you won’t make it out.”

Frances didn’t want to imagine what might have happened if Rayan hadn’t stepped through that door. She swallowed hard. Mathias Beauvais had saved her fucking life.

Rayan moved to go but stopped. He turned, his expression conflicted. “You need someone to go down, right? What do I do to make sure it’s not him?”

“Believe me, if Mathias wanted to throw you under the bus, you’d be locked up already,” Frances said, still perturbed by that particular fact. If that wasn’t confusing enough, Mathias’s interference in that night’s scheduled activities had really thrown her for a loop. “He’s shielding you. I’d take that and run.”

Rayan shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Look, Rayan,” she said with a sigh. “If we’re being honest—and hell, after tonight, I owe you that much—you’re a ghost. Try as I might, there’s little I’ve found with your fingers on it. It’ll be hard to tie you to anything substantial.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small brown envelope. “I want to make a deal.”

“I told you, you’re not a priority.”

“Not me. I have something of value to the RCMP. But in exchange, I want you to back off Mathias. Find someone else to sink your teeth into.”

He held out the envelope, and she took it, shaking her head as she reached inside to pull out a stack of photos. “There’s nothing that’ll get him off that easy—” Frances stopped when she realized what she was looking at. “Holy shit…”

“I know Piper’s staunchly anti-crime, but I’m pretty sure what the public hates more is a dirty cop,” Rayan said. “And not just any cop—a police chief.”

She flicked through the photos, each one more incriminating than the next. And what was worse, by viewing them, she had now implicated herself. Because if she were to shrug and hand them back, she’d be willfully ignoring a gross breach of professional conduct. She would be placing her investigation above what was potentially a more concerning crime—one that came from the inside.

“I’d need to bring this to my superior before agreeing to anything,” Frances said, the consequences fanning out before her.

“No,” Rayan said, his mouth a flat line. “I want your word now, or I take them and leave. Then we’ll see what happens when it gets out that the Feds knew about this and tried to sweep it under the rug. My guess, you’ll be out of a job.”

Frances glared at the man, silent.

“The way I see it,” Rayan continued, and there it was again—that flash of quiet intelligence—“you can keep trying to catch the one that got away or actually land something.”

It would be a huge case, on par with bringing in one of Montreal’s notorious mafiosi. Rayan was right—she was no closer to pinning Mathias down, whereas this had been handed to her on a silver platter. She thought of the funding, already at risk. If she didn’t act, there was a high chance both opportunities would slip through her fingers.

“Or maybe I should take you back in there,” Rayan said, his tone suddenly menacing. Like a switch had flipped, the sincerity from before having vanished. “We wouldn’t want to keep Truman waiting.”

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