Chapter 173 173

Chapter 173 173
She nods, and I hold her until her breathing turns deep and even.

In the silence, the restlessness in my bones resurfaces. This time, it has direction.

My men are roving the streets looking for Benjamin. But Noelle is out there, too.

Piper may have been wrong about Noelle, but maybe she was right about one thing: Noelle might know a lot more than she has told us about my son.

If she does, I want to know what. Slowly, carefully, I peel myself away from Piper and tiptoe towards the door.

Once I’m in the hallway, I don’t hesitate. I head for the garage and grab my keys.

It’s time to do something.

44

TIMOFEY

I don’t even need to pick Noelle’s lock; the door has been poorly repaired from the last time I kicked it in. All it takes is a firm shoulder and the frame gives way with a groaning burst of dust and splinters.

The last time I was here, I thought Piper had betrayed me. Now, I’m here because she’s the person I trust most in the world.

Funny how shit changes.

The room is dim and the air is stale. Clearly, no one has been here for some time.

Still, I call the traitor’s name into the gloom. “Noelle.”

I don’t expect any response, and sure enough, there isn’t one.

“Good,” I snarl under my breath. If she’d answered, I’d have had to kill her.

I turn towards the desk where I found Piper hiding before. She thought I was the Albanians coming to slaughter whoever was behind the door, but it doesn’t quite wipe away the guilt I carry that she was shaking and afraid because of me.

I shove the thought aside and shuffle through Noelle’s desk drawers. Beyond bills, a stack of blank envelopes, and a half-used roll of stamps, I don’t find anything worthwhile.

Her laptop is in the center of the desk. I grab it and toss it onto the couch. I’ll take it with me and let the tech guys have a look at it. I doubt Kreshnik would be stupid enough to email Noelle about his kidnapping plot, but it’s always worth checking out.

Smarter people than him have made worse mistakes.

As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I hear the floor creak, and I realize—I just made a mistake of my own.

I manage just a single step towards the exit before a shadowy figure appears in the doorway. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

Noelle is holding a gun with both hands as she emerges from the darkness. Her finger is hovering over the trigger.

“Didn’t you hear me before? I asked if there were any traitorous bitches around,” I tsk. “You didn’t reveal yourself.”

“I make it a point not to throw out the welcome mat for people who break into my apartment.” She nods towards the door. “I found that hanging off the hinges when I got here. Was that you or should I be expecting Kreshnik to show up at any moment, too?”

“It was me both times. But don’t flatter yourself: I was here to find Piper the first time.”

She frowns. “Piper came here?”

“The night you kidnapped Benjamin. She was looking for evidence to get you thrown into prison.”

“What a friend,” she snorts.

“She thought prison would be a safer option for you, considering all the enemies you’d made. Though she didn’t even know you’d kidnapped Benjamin, at the time. When I told her, she couldn’t believe it. She didn’t think you were capable of something so horrendous.”

Even in the dark, I can tell Noelle is flustered. She isn’t comfortable with her role as the villain in this tale. “Desperate times and all that. My back was against the wall.”

“You walked into that corner with eyes wide open,” I growl. “You fucked up, you stole from your company, and then you handed a child over to his death to save what was left of your pathetic life.”

Noelle actually laughs. “You don’t understand what I’ve been through. You have no idea what I’ve had to do. You know what’s funny? Piper told me that I should have come to you for help. Can you believe that?”

I actually can’t. I’ve hated Noelle since before I even met her. It was clear as day to me that everyone in Piper’s life was a parasitic leech, sucking her dry. I would have happily cut every single one of them loose.

“Piper has always been an optimist.”

“That’s what I told her. But she seems to think you’d do anything to make her happy. Including helping me.”

If Noelle had come to me, I would have slammed the door in her face. But Piper… If she’d come to me, worried about her friend, and begged me to help, would I have done it?

I know the answer instantly. Without hesitation.

My mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Piper is an optimist, but she is also far too smart for her own good. She’s right. I would have done whatever she asked of me.”

Noelle’s mouth drops open for a second. Clearly, she didn’t believe Piper. But hearing the words from my mouth has changed her mind.

She blinks, her hold on the gun going slack. The muzzle shifts off-target, pointing over my right shoulder now. “You would help me?”

“What were you guilty of before you added kidnapping to your rap sheet? A little white collar crime?”

She nods. “I stole some—a lot—of money. Over a long period of time.”

I wave a dismissive hand. “Shit like that gets swept under the rug all the time. Pay off the right people and it all goes away. You would have been free and clear.”

She is pale now. Her face glows like a full moon in the dark, cratered with regret and disbelief. “Well, could you—”

“Careful, Noelle. If you ask me to help you right now, I’ll be sick.”

Her mouth twists into a scowl. “You and Piper are the same, dangling hope in front of someone just to wrench it away. I was right from the beginning. You never would have helped me.”

I hear Sergey’s words again. This is your problem. You want to be wholly independent, but a good don knows how to rely on the people around him. He knows how to use their strengths to his advantage.

Noelle doesn’t know how to depend on other people. She had the best friend she ever could have hoped for in Piper, and she tossed her aside for a life of forever running from her sins.

“I never would have helped you,” I confirm. “But Piper would. She still will right now, actually. That’s why I’m here.”

Noelle looks past me like she expects to see Piper in the doorway. “What?”

“You ran off the other night, and I found Piper laying on the ground, hurt.”

“I didn’t hurt her!” she blurts. “I was trying to get away, but she grabbed me and—”

I hold up a hand to silence her. I’m not sure I’ll be able to see my plan through to the end if I have to listen to her speak more than necessary.

“I told Piper I was going to hunt you down and kill you. But she begged me not to. She pleaded with me to give you another chance to make things right.”

Noelle was right before. I am dangling hope in front of her now. And I can plainly see that she is ready to bite.

“She asked about Benjamin. She wanted to know more about where he was taken.” The question lurks beneath the statement. She already knows what I want to know.

“Like I said, Piper is an optimist. She thinks Benjamin could still be alive.”

Noelle looks down at the floor. “I told her what I thought.”

“I don’t care what you think,” I retort. “I care about what you know. If you tell me everything that happened between when you took Benjamin from his crib and the last time you saw him, then…”