Chapter 58: The Trap Springs
The garage was a cathedral of quiet industry after hours. Rhys sat on a rolling stool, the burner phone a cold, dead weight in his palm. He’d turned it off an hour ago.The bait had been taken, the hook set deep. The messages from ‘Lily’ had been perfectly pitiful, a story of a crumbling bond and a lonely omega seeking a powerful alpha’s… guidance. Elena’s responses had been instantaneous, dripping with faux sympathy and blatant avarice.She’d agreed to a meeting tomorrow night at a diner across town.
But Rhys knew her.She wouldn’t wait. She’d come here first, to his territory, to prowl and gloat.
He heard the faint scrape of a shoe on gravel outside the personnel door. It wasn’t the main bay door, but the side entrance, the one she’d used a hundred times when they were together.His jaw tightened.Right on schedule.
The handle turned, jiggled.It was locked.A moment of silence. Then a sharp, impatient knock.He didn’t move.He watched the door.Another knock, harder.“Rhys? I know you’re in there. Your truck’s out back.” Elena’s voice, filtered through the steel, still managed to sound like a serrated blade.
He waited three more heartbeats before standing, his movements silent on the oil-darkened concrete. He unlocked the door and pulled it open.She stood framed in the weak yellow light of the bug bulb overhead. She looked thinner, sharper, her eyes too bright.Her smile was a familiar, cruel curve. “Took you long enough.Letting the place go, huh? Smells worse than I remember.”
“What do you want, Elena.” It wasn’t a question. He blocked the doorway, not inviting her in.“To talk.You’ve been ignoring my calls.My texts. That’s rude, Rhys.” She tried to peer past his shoulder, her gaze sweeping the shadowed garage. “You alone? Or is your new little pet hiding under a car?”
“We have nothing to talk about.You need to leave.” He made to shut the door.
Her hand shot out, slapping flat against the metal.“I know where she lives, Rhys.That sad little apartment. I smelled her all over you that day at the supply store.Like powdered sugar and fear. It was pathetic.”
A cold, clean rage settled in his veins. He stepped back, opening the space. “Get in here.”
Her smile widened in triumph as she stepped past him, her heels clicking on the floor.She inhaled deeply, dramatically.“Oh, there it is. Under all the oil.Her scent.You’re bathing in it. How domestic.” She turned to face him, crossing her arms.“I want you to drop the bullshit. You think you can just replace me?With that? She’s a child.”
“You came to her home.” His voice was low, a vibration in the still air.“You left your card. You scared her.”
Elena laughed, a short, brittle sound.“I introduced myself. She should know who came before.The real thing. Not whatever timid mouse act she’s putting on for you.”
“There’s no fucking act.” He took a slow step forward, and she held her ground, though her chin lifted in defiance. “You’re done. You understand? You’re going to leave her alone. You’re going to leave me alone. You're gonna get the fuck out of town so she never has to think about her again.”
“Or what?” she sneered. “You’ll get rough? I know you, Rhys. You won't hit omegas. You’re too damn noble for that.”
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small, black digital recorder.He held it up, thumbed the playback button.
Her own voice spilled into the space between them, tinny from the small speaker but unmistakable. “…I know where she lives, Rhys. That sad little apartment… I smelled her all over you… pathetic…”
Elena’s face drained of color, her smirk dissolving into open-mouthed shock.Rhys stopped the recording.“I’ve got more.From tonight. ‘Lily’ sends her regards.”
Her eyes darted to the laptop glowing on the toolbox. Understanding flashed, followed by pure, undiluted hatred.“You set me up. You bastard.”
“You threatened my omega,” he said, the words flat and final. “I told you what would happen.This is what happens.You have two choices.Leave the city.Tonight. Change your number, vanish.Or, I send this file to your boss at the gallery. To your fancy alpha friends downtown who think you’re so refined. To your mother.”
She flinched at the last one.Her carefully constructed image, the cultured art dealer from a good family, shattered in an instant. “You wouldn’t.”
“Fucking try me.”
For a second, she just stared, her chest heaving.Then the rage took over. With a strangled cry, she lunged not for the recorder, but for his face, nails aimed at his eyes.He was ready. He caught her wrist mid-air, his grip vise-tight, and used her own momentum to spin her, slamming her back against the cool metal of a tool cabinet. The impact knocked the air from her lungs in a loud whoosh.
He held her there, his forearm pressed across her collarbone, pinning her. She struggled, kicking, her free hand clawing at his arm, but it was like a bird fighting a rock. She snarled at him, her lip peeling back and baring her teeth. He didn’t flinch, just watched the fury in her eyes twist into panic, then into a exhausted, hateful defeat.
“Let… go,” she gasped.“Do we have an understanding?” His voice was calm, deadly calm.She stopped fighting. Her body went limp against the cabinet, her head dropping. A tear of pure frustration tracked through her makeup.“Yes.”
He released her and stepped back, putting distance between them. She sagged, rubbing her wrist, avoiding his eyes. The silence was heavier now, filled with the hum of the fluorescents and the echo of her surrender.
“If I ever see you again,” Rhys said, slipping the recorder back into his pocket. “If she ever hears from you, or feels watched, or gets so much as a wrong-number call, it all goes public. Every fucking word. Now get out.”
She pushed off from the cabinet, straightened her coat with trembling hands, and walked to the door without looking back.The night swallowed her. He listened to the sound of her car starting, the tires crunching on gravel, fading into the distance until there was only silence.He locked the door. He picked up the burner phone and the laptop, carried them to the sink in the back, and methodically destroyed them both with a sledgehammer from his toolbox, reducing the electronics to unrecoverable plastic shards and cracked circuitry.He dumped the pieces into separate garbage bins outside.
Back inside, he stood in the center of the empty bay, the familiar scents of oil and metal grounding him. The adrenaline bled away, leaving a hollow, clean fatigue.It was over.For now.
He pulled out his real phone.The screen showed no messages.Aurora was still asleep, safe, under his roof. He typed out a text.All good.Be home soon.Sleep tight.
He waited a minute, watching the screen, but no typing bubbles appeared.Good.She was still out.
He turned off the lights, plunging the shop into darkness save for the red glow of the exit sign. As he walked to his truck, the night air cool on his skin, he felt no triumph, only a weary vigilance.She was gone. But the memory of her rage, the sharp odor of her betrayal, lingered like a stain.He started the engine, the familiar rumble a comfort. He drove home not to a victory, but to a promise he intended to keep, through any storm, for as long as she’d let him.