Page 10 of Pascal and the Forger

“They knew. Who else knows?” He struggled to hide the panic in his voice but didn’t quite make it.

Mathieu shrugged. “That’s not for you to worry about.”

Win laughed at his stupidity. “You keep forgetting I have more to lose now than I did back then. And I won’t let it be taken from me so easily this time.” He was the only one Mathieu ever allowed to get away with talking to him like that and he took full advantage of the privilege.

Mathieu’s lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. “Watch yourself.”

“Fuck you,” Win shot back. It felt good to say that, but also…wrong in ways he didn’t dare examine closely. He slumped back while still holding Mathieu’s gaze.

Mathieu didn’t blink, it was as if he couldn’t. His cologne teased at Win’s nostrils, familiar and calming when that was the last thing he wanted. Everything about Mathieu irritated him.

But everything about Mathieu was the reason he was alive today. Win resented the hell out of the gratitude filling his chest. The warmth rushing over his neck. The air that seemed to crackle and pop the longer they held their positions, staring at each other.

“How was New York?” he asked, just to break the silence and shift the tension a bit. Even though he didn’t see Mathieu face-to-face like he used to once upon a time, whenever Mathieu left the city, state—or even country—for any reason big or small, he would ensure Win got notified. He’d been in the dairy aisle of Publix recently when a faceless someone had sidled up to him and dropped a folded note into his cart. He’d recognized Mathieu’s scrawl right away and read the few lines informing him the other man would be in New York for an extended period of time, and who to contact if he was in need of anything, then he’d shredded the note and tossed it.

He still didn’t know what to make of shit like that. Did Mathieu do it because he still thought of Win, still worried about him? Still cared? Or was he doing it because Win was part of his business that required tending to?

He hated that he wanted to ask.

“New York was…revealing.” Mathieu’s voice rumbled in the quiet stillness of the SUV’s interior. “Lee is dead.”

Win gaped. Lee had been Mathieu’s—and his father’s before him—executioner for years. Win had never liked the guy, but he’d always viewed him as indestructible. “How? Why?”

“Betrayal.” Mathieu didn’t say more, but that was enough. Win knew how he felt about betrayal. There’d only ever been one man who’d been spared his notorious wrath.

Win didn’t want to think about him and what his presence in Mathieu’s life had meant for Win and Mathieu. “And Chantal, how is she?”

Mathieu grunted. “Widowed. Remarried. Done with me.”

Win had never approved of the way Mathieu treated his little sister, but it hadn’t been his place to speak on it. Instead, he’d cheered silently when Chantal disappeared from the mansion one day. Word eventually came that she was in New York and married, out of Mathieu’s reach. He missed her, though, Win knew that. And in his cold, practical way, Mathieu adored her.

It struck him then that even as he tried so hard to distance himself from Mathieu, he could never stop caring about him. About the things and people that affected him.

For someone like Win, that was beyond dangerous. He cleared his throat and grasped the door handle with his left hand. “I have to go.” He pushed the door open and turned to exit, but Mathieu grabbed his right shoulder.

Win froze.

He wasn’t looking, couldn’t, but it felt as if Mathieu did the same. As if their breaths stopped working and their hearts stopped beating, and Win—

Mathieu’s hand moved, sliding down his arm. Low. Circling his wrist. Reminding Win of another life.

Another place.

Before it all shattered.

“Win.”

His fingers spasmed around the door handle. His name fell from Mathieu’s lips like a battering ram to the chest and Win glanced over his shoulder. There was a reason he didn’t let Mathieu touch him anymore. A reason he didn’t normally stare too deeply into Mathieu’s eyes anymore. He wouldn’t be the same if he succumbed to the plea Mathieu would never vocalize.

At one time, Mathieu’s touch, his gaze, had been all Win lived for. Back when he recognized the man sitting next to him. When they lived in their own bubble, a time that used to have him floating, bloated on happiness and love. One prick burst that bubble and sent him crashing back to earth, to a reality that saw him alone, shattered, unable to do anything but act as witness as Mathieu moved on with someone else.

It had been a rude reminder that nobody could be trusted, not even his savior. A reminder that he needed to protect himself because no one else would.

“I need to go,” he made himself say. “I need to deal with Jairo.”

The mention of his husband did what it always did, turn Mathieu into a block of ice while hatred flickered in his eyes like orange flames. His hold on Win slipped away, his hand falling to his side. He curled his fingers as he said, “Be safe. You know what to do if you need me.”

He did, but Win wasn’t sure if he’d ever reach out to Mathieu for help. He made a noncommittal sound and refocused on the door.

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