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“Ithadto happen? You make it sound inevitable.”
“It was! Kreshnik was going to get him one way or another. Doing it meant that I could at least save myself. Isn’t that better than meandthe baby being collateral damage?”
I feel nauseous. I would assume it’s pregnancy hormones, but Noelle’s complete and utter lack of humanity is definitely the root cause.
“You could have gone down with dignity. Instead, you threw a tiny baby to the wolves. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Noelle tosses up her hands. “Here we go. St. Piper is going to point out all of my sins. Just because you’re prepared to throw yourself on the sword at a moment’s notice doesn’t mean the rest of us are. I have something called ‘preservation instinct.’ It’s an evolutionary trait. You should try it.”
Timofey has accused me of the same thing too many times to count. But this feels different.
Noelle is suggesting everyone outside of herself is dispensable. But Timofey is loyal. He looks out for himselfandthe people important to him. He’d rather die than let someone he counted as a friend suffer in his place.
He’s a better person than she will ever be.
“Maybe I am too quick to help people who don’t deserve it.” I gesture to her. “Take yourself as the key example. You have been so busy kidnapping babies and hiding in your own filth that you never once stopped to consider that maybe you didn’t have to do everything on your own. Do you realize that Timofey could have gotten your case at the FBI tossed out?”
At that, finally, Noelle seems to blanche.
“Timofey could have protected you, the same way I asked him to protect Ashley and Gram. He could have shielded you from the Albanians and kept you out of prison. All you had to do was ask.”
Her mouth opens and closes in sheer shock. The realization seems to deflate her. “He wouldn’t have done that for me.”
“Yes, he would have. Because he wouldn’t have been doing it for you. He would have done it forme.”
There isn’t a single lie in what I just said. No bending of the truth. No exaggeration.
I know Timofey would do anything to keep me safe, to make me happy. Including protecting a woman I thought was my friend.
“Then help me,” Noelle begs, suddenly teary-eyed. The emotion looks real enough, but I’ve peeked behind the curtain now. I know who she really is behind it all.
I shake my head. “It’s too late for that.”
“The fuck it is!” she screams. “You’re lying. You couldn’t have done a damn thing to help me, and now you’re trying to make me feel bad about helping myself.”
“I’m not the liar, Noelle. You are. But you can make things right. You can tell me where Benjamin is.”
She arches a brow. “I tell you where Benjamin is and then you’ll help me escape?”
Again, nausea twists inside of me. How did I not see Noelle for who she truly is?
“The only way you’ll tell me where they took the babyyoukidnapped is if you get something out of it?”
“That’s how the world works, Piper. Stop acting so fucking naive. It’s not believable. I mean, you’re shacking up with a Bratva don, for fuck’s sake. Are you going to stand there and pretend he’s some pillar of honesty and sacrifice? The only reason you can ignore his sins is because he’s hot and flooded with cash.”
Timofey has done bad things. I know that. But why?
That’s the difference. Timofey does bad things to protect the people he loves. But he doesn’t hurt good people. He doesn’t kidnap babies.
I’ve always thought that to be a good person, I had to sacrifice myself. I had to give everything I had to protect the people in my life and take care of them. But Timofey is right: there’s a way to do good and still take care of yourself.
I’m learning that now. I just hope it isn’t too late.
“I’m with Timofey because I love him,” I tell her. “The same way I was friends with you because I loved you. If you needed help, you could have asked me, Noelle. I would have done anything to help you. But now… now, that time is over. You deserve to be punished for what you’ve done.”
39
TIMOFEY
