Page 70 of A Life Betrayed

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’ssudden 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.

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