Chapter 43 Noah
NOAH
I hauled Napoleon through the tree line, half-dragging, half-shoving, until we reached it.
The cliff. A sheer drop into a mess of boulders and brush. Dense forest stretched beyond, quiet as the grave. This was the exact spot he’d left Maya for dead.
“Remember this?” I asked, ripping the eyemask from his face.
He squinted into the sunlight. Finding him hadn’t been hard. He tagged every spot he visited. This time, it was a cigar lounge in Bozeman. One grab of his collar, and he shut up quickly. I dragged him out the back and shoved him into my car.
No time for games. No room for mercy.
“You know you tried to kill my wife, right?” I said coldly.
“What? No! No!” he blurted.
“Try again.” I pushed him closer to the edge. Loose dirt shifted under his loafers.
“I…I’m sorry. It was an accident!” he begged. “I didn’t know…she was, um—”
“She screamed for help, and you walked away.” My voice didn’t rise. I didn’t need it to. “So now it’s your turn to feel what she felt. Alone. Helpless.”
He started shaking. “Please, I didn’t mean—”
“You think I won’t kill you?” I stepped forward, closing the gap between us. “Nobody would hear it out here. You’d just be another name in a headline that doesn’t make it past the local paper.”
His knees buckled. I caught him by his shirt.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he begged.
“Good. Because you’re going to take Annamaria Belrose’s phone and deliver it to me.”
“I…what? I don’t even know who that is.”
The guy had exactly one brain cell. And apparently, it never fired when he posted all over the internet that he’d been glued to her side every day like her brand-new shih-poo.
“Careful,” I said, nodding toward the cliff. “Think before you answer.”
“I can’t…she’ll know…she’ll kill me.”
“No.” I leaned in. “I’ll kill you.”
“I swear, I can’t—”
I shoved him so fast that he teetered. One shoe slipped on the edge, and he shrieked.
“You can. And you’re gonna figure it out. Or you’ll find out how long it takes bones to rot in a place like this.”
Silence. Then—
“Okay! I’ll do it. I’ll get the phone.”
“And the passcode,” I added.
He hesitated, his eyes darting as if weighing his odds. “I…I don’t know it.”
I tilted my head silently. Waiting.
He quavered, “But I’ll figure it out.”
I raised a brow.
“Fine!” he snapped. “I’ll get it.”
I dragged him back from the edge and brushed invisible dust off his wrinkled shirt. “Smart man.”
Then I tossed him back in the car.
“Last but not least…” I leaned in against his crumpling face, close enough that even my silence had teeth.
“You’re going to take down every fake review you posted about the Lazy Moose.
Every single one, even the ones you got other people to write.
If I find so much as a period that reeks of you, I’ll be there.
And trust me, Napoleon, you won’t see it coming. ”
I drove him right back to Bozeman. No other words. Just the promise of what would happen if he screwed this up.