Page 28 of A Life Betrayed

In the bedroom of the safe house, Rayan lay under a thick pile of blankets. The small, minimally furnished apartment on the ground level of a brick triplex five minutes from Beaubien station was fully stocked with the requisite necessities one might need to remain temporarily hidden. He found the place comforting. Clean, austere, and functional, it had Mathias written all over it.

Rayan had left the boarding house shortly after Mathias came by. He hadn’t told Mathias, but the man’s offer had been the first decent thing to have happened in the past two days, the key pushed across the counter like a rope tossed into the dark well that Rayan had found himself in after the inspector had flagged him down on the street. Once inside the apartment, he’d gone straight to the thermostat and cranked it up as high as it could go. Still, Rayan hadn’t been able to shake the chill, so he’d gathered all the blankets he could find, headed to bed, and heaped them over himself as he lay beneath the covers, fully dressed. The ache in his stomach served as a reminder that he hadn’t eaten since the previous day, but getting warm was theonly thing that mattered, a singular focus that took him back to those long nights lying on concrete floors and grassy verges, staring at Tahir’s eyes in the dark and seeing the same hardened resignation staring back. They’d been awake and exhausted but too cold to sleep.

One winter, not long after they’d abandoned their last group home, when he was maybe sixteen and the drugs hadn’t yet found his brother, Rayan had fallen ill. The two of them had taken shelter in the interior corridors of the Guy-Concordia Metro station and curled up together on a flattened cardboard box. Rayan had a raging fever and was trembling with chills, and he found himself falling in and out of dreams that were so real he was sure he was awake. He must have been calling out in his sleep, because Tahir kept jostling him awake and telling him to keep it down. The other people holed up in the corridor had started to grumble, and some were becoming increasingly agitated as his delirious pronouncements kept them awake.

The last train on the Green Line stopped running just after midnight and didn’t start back up again until five thirty the following morning. It was the part of the night that Rayan dreaded most—when the stream of people dressed in their winter coats and scarves, chattering to friends as they walked, began to dry up and only the rest of them were left—the ones with nowhere to go.

“Shut him up!” someone shouted.

“Fuck you too!” Tahir hollered back, but he moved to Rayan’s side, wrapped the blankets around him, and helped him to his feet. “Come on—we gotta go.”

They left the Metro station and trudged aimlessly through the snowy streets. By this point, most of the good spots would already be taken. Tahir had once joked about robbing a nearbydépanneurso the police would take them in and they’d have somewhere warm to spend the night.

“I hate her.” Rayan swallowed back tears. He regretted his words immediately and was filled with a fathomless guilt. “Sorry, Mama,” he whispered.

“She can’t hear you, you know,” Tahir said viciously and turned to glare at him, his eyes black in the darkness. “Because she’s in hell. That’s where you go when you do what she did.”

Rayan drew back in horror.

“And even if she could, she doesn’t care. If she did, she’d have hung around to take care of us,” Tahir snarled. “So I wouldn’t get stuck having to drag a crybaby like you through the fucking snow.”

Rayan didn’t have the energy to protest. He could only focus on putting one foot in front of the other as he attempted to keep up with his brother. He must have fallen or simply lost the ability to stand, because the next thing he knew, he was lying on the pavement, his burning cheek cooling against the sidewalk sludge.

Up ahead, he saw Tahir stop. His brother swore, kicking at the drifts of snow piled by the side of the road. He picked up a nearby trash bin and sent it skidding across the sidewalk, litter spilling everywhere. Clenching his hands at his sides, he gave an almighty howl that echoed through the empty streets. Then Tahir made his way back to him, and Rayan felt his brother’s hands under his armpits, pulling him up.

“Come on,akhi,” Tahir said quietly as he hoisted Rayan onto his back. “I won’t leave you, no matter how bad it gets.”

And Rayan, dizzy with fever, had known in his bones that it was the truth.

Rayan heard a click from down the hall as the front door to the apartment opened, and he stiffened in learned fear. Then came the purposeful sound of shoes on the parquet, and he knew it was Mathias. His shoulders slackened in relief. It was strange to recognize someone from the tread of their feet alone. He knew alot about the man now—the way he inhaled sharply just before waking, the soft grunt of approval he made when Rayan took him into his mouth.

A paper bag rustled, the fridge opened and closed, and then footsteps came down the hallway toward him. Mathias paused at the entrance to the bedroom, a silhouette in the darkness. Rayan lay facing the door, the blankets gripped in fists by his chin, his jaw clenched to fight the unceasing shiver.

“There’s food in the kitchen,” Mathias said. “I’ll be back in a day or two. Don’t go anywhere.”

Rayan remained unmoving. If he opened his mouth to speak, his teeth would chatter and give him away.

Mathias gave a sigh. “Still cold?”

The floorboards creaked as he moved into the room. Then came the dull thump as Mathias kicked off his shoes and the swish of fabric as he shrugged out of his jacket. The bed gave a squeak, and he climbed in beside Rayan, still in his clothes. Rayan felt the man’s solidness against his back as Mathias’s arms wrapped around him and pulled him to his chest. Rayan let out a shuddering breath, and finally, the chill began to recede.

“Go to sleep, Rayan,” Mathias murmured into his hair. “Tomorrow it starts again.”

Unlike his mother’s sendoff, this one made no promise of the good.

Chapter Twelve

André Nadeau was nothing like what Frances had expected. She’d driven to Maskinongé to find out more about Rayan and how he’d ended up working for the family, entertaining the hope that she might discover the man hiding out at his father’s house. After all, the tiny town in rural Quebec seemed like the perfect place to disappear.

She still believed he was key to the case against Mathias. Not only had Rayan worked closely with the mafioso, but he was also implicated by his own involvement in the family and a string of prior crimes on his record. Then there was his brother’s murder. Frances had stretched the truth somewhat when she’d spoken with Rayan in Toronto. There was no open investigation into Tahir Nadeau’s death. However, the circumstances were suspicious enough to serve as a compelling weakness to exploit—maybe even convince Rayan to turn on his boss.

“About time you people did something about him,” André said after she’d introduced herself. He peered at her through a crack in the front door as she stood on the porch of the run-down bungalow where he lived.

“May I come in?” she asked. “I have a few questions.”

André appeared to consider her request for a moment before stepping back and beckoning her into the house. Frances had conjured the image of a man wracked with guilt about what had happened to his wayward son. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with a sour-faced alcoholic. She could smell the beer on his breath at barely ten in the morning. She glanced aroundthe mess of the living room. Filth covered almost every surface, and the distinct odor of mold clung to the air. She didn’t feel comfortable sitting, so she remained standing by the door, her notebook and pen in hand.

“He’s always been a bad apple,” André asserted, stumbling to his easy chair and lowering himself into it with a labored wheeze. “He and his brother.”

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