[BL] Bound to My Enemy: The Billionaire Who Took My Girl-Chapter 137: A Trap

NOAH

Through the window, I saw him.

Alex.

He was standing in the center of the garden path. He wasn’t the man I had danced with.

He was standing with his suit off, his sleeves rolled up, surrounded by at least half a dozen men.

They were moving in an organized search pattern, blocking every gate and every exit route. It was a trap. A perfectly executed perimeter.

We huddled together just inside the door, the stone wall providing a slim barrier. The glass was old, and as a guard approached Alex, their voices carried through the frame, muffled but audible in the quiet night air.

"We lost her, sir," the guard said, his head bowed. He hesitated, then added with a disgusting, nervous chuckle, "We just wanted to have a little fun with her first. We didn’t think she’d be that strong and fast."

The implication was a physical blow to the gut. They hadn’t just been capturing her; they had intended to rape her before doing whatever Alex had intended for her.

I turned to look at Maya. She was trembling so violently her teeth were chattering. I saw the sheer hell she had been running from, the absolute terror of a woman who knew exactly what happened to people who got caught by Alex Hendrix’s "security." I felt a level of loathing for Alex that I didn’t know I was capable of.

For a long, stretched moment, there was silence. I found myself desperately trying to hold onto a shred of the "Good Alex." Maybe he didn’t know, I thought. Maybe he’ll be angry at the guards for what they tried to do. Maybe he’ll punish them for being monsters.

The silence was shattered by the sound of a heavy, wet punch to a jaw.

Then a sickening, loud CRACK of bone.

It didn’t stop. We heard the sound of a body hitting the gravel, followed by the dull, rhythmic thuds of a boot hitting flesh. Wet, crunching sounds echoed through the night... the sound of ribs snapping, of a face being dismantled.

I was too terrified to peek. I pressed my back against the wall, my eyes squeezed shut. Beside me, Maya had both hands clamped over her mouth to stifle her whimpers. The violence continued for what felt like an eternity, a brutal, visceral symphony of rage.

Finally, the sounds of the beating stopped.

"You thought you could have some fun on the job?" Alex’s voice cut through the air. It was calm. Lethal. It was the voice of a man who was bored by the blood on his shoes. "Did I give you permission to think?"

There was a muffled groan from the ground.

"Because of your stupidity," Alex’s voice rose, vibrating with a cold, sharp frustration that sent chills down my spine, "she is still somewhere in this building! If she runs into the wrong person... if she gets to the press or the wrong investor... I might be fucked! Do you understand the stakes?"

He began to curse them out, a stream of controlled, high-end vitriol that stripped away every last ounce of his "charming" persona. The mask wasn’t just off; it was shredded.

"Triple the search party," Alex commanded. "Find her. Now. Search every room, every closet, every goddamn toilet stall. I want her found in the next ten minutes, or you can join your friend on the ground."

I heard the sound of cloth moving. "Give me your handkerchief," Alex said casually. I imagined him wiping the blood off his knuckles as if he had just stepped in a puddle.

Then, his voice changed. It became light. Amused. "Noah’s taking quite long in the bathroom, isn’t he? Clumsy thing. I should probably go check on him."

My body froze. Total, absolute paralysis. He was looking for me.

Outside, the garden went silent as the guards dispersed to carry out their orders. Maya and I began to back away from the door, moving with agonizing slowness, our feet barely touching the floor. We needed a new exit. We needed to run. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Suddenly, the silence was shattered.

The ringtone of my phone... the one I had forgotten to silence... blared through the dark corridor. It sounded like a siren.

Alex Hendrix.

I fumbled for the device, my fingers turning into useless clubs. I hit the wrong button, the ringing continuing for two more agonizing seconds before I finally managed to kill the call.

The silence that followed was heavier than anything I had ever experienced. It was the silence of a predator who had just heard a twig snap.

"Run," I hissed to Maya.

We turned to flee back the way we came, but we only took three steps before shadows emerged from the darkness of the intersecting hallway. Three guards, their faces grim, blocked our path. We spun around to go back to the garden door, but the locks were already turning from the outside.

We were trapped.

The garden door swung open. Alex was standing there.

I hadn’t heard him move. I hadn’t heard the gravel crunch. He was just... there.

His face wore a sickening smile. It wasn’t the warm, dimpled smile from the dance floor. It was predatory. His eyes were too bright, his teeth too white in the darkness. It was like seeing a shark break the surface of the water.

"There you are," he said, his voice saccharine sweet. He took a slow, deliberate step forward into the hallway. "And I was starting to wonder if you’d hurt yourself in the bathroom. You tend to be so clumsy, after all."

He took another step, his eyes never leaving mine, completely ignoring the bruised and trembling woman standing beside me.

"But it’s what I like best about you, Noah," he whispered, his smile widening until it looked like a wound. "You’re so easy to find."

I stood frozen, Maya pressed against my side, as the guards closed in from all directions. There was nowhere to run. The monster was here, and he wasn’t playing pretend anymore.