Page 28 of A Life Imagined
“I thought that already.”
Mathias was granted the whisper of a smile.Then he’d toweled Rayan off and walked him to bed.They lay there, neither of them sleeping, waiting for the night to be over.
The office was empty when Mathias arrived at the warehouse early the following morning.After the night he’d had, it was a relief not to have to dodge any of Elise’s small talk.
In truth, he’d been reluctant to venture from the house.He would have preferred not to leave Rayan, who’d eventually fallen into a fitful sleep, but he had this business with the import license to straighten out.The sooner he got his case in front of the stiffs at the trade office, the sooner he could get things resolved.
Mathias was flipping through the filing cabinet at the back of the room and had just located the folder with their current license certificate when the phone on his desk began to ring.He stared at it, wrestling with an unmistakable sense of foreboding.Then he tossed the folder onto the desk and lifted the receiver to his ear.
“Oui?”
“Evening, Beauvais.Or is it morning over there?I forget.”
Mathias ground his teeth together.The gall of the man.“Think you can woo me like one of your side pieces?First love notes.What’s next—flowers?”
De Luca chuckled.“When I heard your name come up, I couldn’t help but be curious.You did just up and leave, after all.”
“Why don’t you ask Bianchi about that,” Mathias said savagely.“See what he has to say.”
De Luca’s tone shifted.“The boss is proving less than accommodating these days,” he said cryptically.
Has something happened?Perhaps life wasn’t looking so rosy for the king in his kingdom.Then Mathias recalled the hot sting of betrayal that had accompanied his exit from the country and reminded himself that he didn’t give a shit.
“Heard through the grapevine that you’re working with the Albanians,” De Luca said.
Mathias thought of Marsela sitting across from him with that self-assured smile, her tinkling laugh more ominous than amused.It was no coincidence that merely a week later, he’d found himself on the Ministère de l’Économie’s blacklist.“Then you heard wrong.”
“Careful with them.They’re a shifty lot.”
“What makes you think I have any interest in what you have to say?”
This seemed to dampen the man’s peppiness.“Mathias, there’s something we’d like to discuss—”
“Back off, De Luca,” he warned in a low voice.“I’m done with the family.”He dropped the phone back in its cradle and exhaled through his nose.
It wasn’t as though Mathias was in hiding.He’d heeded Giovanni’s warning and cut his ties.He didn’t owe the family anything.But now—thanks to Charles’s loose lips—they knew exactly where to find him.
De Luca’s call hadn’t been about retribution.In fact, he’d sounded almost deferential.They wanted something from him.And as far as Mathias was concerned, there was nothing the family wanted that he was willing to give.
He straightened, and his aching limbs grumbled in protest.It felt like he’d been flung through a spin cycle.He closed his eyes, and it took more effort than he expected to open them again.In addition to the restless night, he’d left the house without his morning shot of caffeine.
Mathias threw on his coat and headed to the café across the street.He ordered and stood to one side as he waited for his coffee.The smooth swell of jazz coming from the radio behind the counter faded abruptly and was replaced by the clanging intro music of the local hourly news bulletin.
“Last night, in yet another instance of its kind, a boat filled with illegal migrants setting out for Dover capsized not far from Calais beach.One woman is confirmed dead and another missing.Five people were transported to hospital with minor injuries, including three children…”
Around him, several people began to murmur.
“Another one?”
“What were they thinking, attempting a crossing like that with children?”
“They should just send them all back where they came from.”
The woman behind the counter handed Mathias his coffee, and he stepped out onto the street.Instead of returning to the warehouse, he made his way to the promenade and took a seat on one of the benches facing the beach.Before him, the ocean stretched blue and tranquil along the coast.Gone were the giant swells they’d battled through the previous evening.
Mathias raised the cup of coffee to his lips.There had been a broken edge to the girl’s voice as she’d screamed for her mother, a universal fear encapsulated in the sound.He wondered what the people in the café would have said if they’d heard it.
Chapter Eleven
