To ruin an Omega

Chapter 253: People you know

CIAN

I couldn’t sleep.

The bed was comfortable enough. The sheets were cool against my skin. The room was dark and quiet. Everything should have been perfect for rest, but my mind refused to shut down.

I stared at the ceiling, watching shadows move across it. The truth sat heavy in my chest, pressing down on my lungs until every breath felt like a deliberate struggle. Gabriel’s business card kept appearing behind my eyelids every time I closed them. That bloodstained white surface with its black lettering. Evidence that felt too damning to ignore and too devastating to accept.

Ronan.

The name echoed in my head like a curse I couldn’t shake.

My fingers curled into the sheets. I wanted to get up. I wanted to march down the hall to his room and demand answers right now. The goddess had to know how bad I wanted to confront him and make him explain. Make him deny it so I could either believe him or watch him lie to my face.

But I stayed where I was.

Because charging in hot would ruin everything. If he really was working with Gabriel, if he really had betrayed me, then tipping him off now would only give him time to cover his tracks. To prepare. To disappear into whatever network of lies he’d built around himself.

So I waited. I forced myself to stay still even though every instinct screamed at me to move.

I’d known Ronan for so long. Years. More than a decade of trust built between us. He wasn’t just my Beta. He was my friend. My brother in everything but blood.

Or so I’d thought.

The memory surfaced without warning, pulling me back.

***

I was maybe sixteen and hiding behind the massive oak tree at the far edge of the garden. The cigarette between my fingers burned slowly as I took another drag. Smoke curled up into the branches above me.

I hated these gatherings. Small or big… it didn’t matter. They all felt the same. Like I was being paraded around for inspection. My father called it a “small brunch,” but I knew exactly what it was. All the invited guests had brought their children. Future heirs mingling together. Networking. Building alliances that would supposedly matter when we all took over our respective packs.

I wasn’t interested in any of it.

Being Alpha held no appeal for me. The weight of that responsibility, the expectations, the politics. I wanted none of it.

I finished the cigarette and crushed it under my heel. It was time to head back before someone noticed I’d been gone too long. At least the cigarette gave me the strength to pretend these gatherings didn’t kill me a little.

I turned to leave and when I did so, I froze.

Someone was standing behind the tree. They had probably been watching me and when our eyes met, they let out this jolly smile that just came across as creepy.

The expression on his face was too bright and far too eager. To say it creeped me the fuck out was an understatement of the century.

I stumbled backward. My foot caught on a thick root jutting out from the base of the oak. My balance went sideways and I was falling, arms windmilling uselessly.

A hand shot out and grabbed my arm.

The grip was firm. Stronger than it should have been for someone our age. He pulled me upright easily, like I weighed nothing.

I yanked my arm free the second I had my footing back. “What the hell are you doing here, creep?”

Then I actually looked at him. Really looked.

He was dressed well. Button-up shirt, dress pants. The kind of outfit you wore to a pack gathering when your parents wanted you to make a good impression. I recognized the style even if I didn’t recognize his face immediately.

Wait.

He was at the party. One of the guests’ kids. My brain caught up and supplied the information. The son of my father’s Beta.

What was his name again? Roman? Something like that.

Still, it didn’t matter. He’d probably sought me out on purpose. Trying to get chummy with the future Alpha. After all, when the time came, we’d be expected to work together. An Alpha and his Beta. What a repulsing thought.

“You could say thank you,” he said. His smile hadn’t dimmed. “You were about to eat dirt.”

“I had it handled.”

“Sure you did.” He leaned against the tree, completely at ease. “I’m Ronan, by the way.”

“Roman. Got it.”

“Ronan.”

“That’s what I said.”

His smile twitched but held. “Right. Well, I thought I’d come find you. Everyone’s been wondering where the Alpha’s son disappeared to.”

I pulled out another cigarette even if I didn’t want to. I needed to show I was busy in a way and cigarettes always seemed to bother people’s spirits. “And you appointed yourself as the search party?”

“Something like that.”

I lit the cigarette and took a drag. “You can head back and tell them I’m fine. Or don’t. I don’t really care.”

I’d be damned if he got himself some gold stars by somehow selling the adults the idea that he was the reason I was wheeled back into that plastic gathering.

He didn’t move. He simply kept watching me with that same earnest expression. It was annoying and I couldn’t place a finger on why.

“Look, Roman.” I exhaled smoke toward him. “I get what you’re doing. Trying to build rapport with the future Alpha. Smart move, I guess. But you’re wasting your time.”

“It’s Ronan.”

“Whatever. Point is, I’m not interested in being Alpha. So you should probably focus your networking efforts elsewhere.”

He tilted his head. “Who said anything about networking?”

“Come on. Your father’s the current Beta. My father’s the Alpha. You and me?” I gestured between us. “We’re supposed to be the next generation of that dynamic. But here’s the thing. I have zero intention of taking that role.”

“Okay.”

I blinked. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” He shrugged. “If you don’t want to be Alpha, that’s your choice.”

This wasn’t the response I’d expected. Usually when I told people this, they either tried to convince me otherwise or looked at me like I’d committed some kind of heresy.

“Every Beta in the Skollrend Beta line was made for their own Alpha,” Ronan continued. His voice was steady, matter-of-fact. “If you don’t want to be Alpha, then that’s fine. I just want to serve you.”

I nearly choked on smoke. “That’s even worse.”

I leaned back against the tree, studying him. He looked completely serious. There was not a hint of irony or sarcasm in his expression.

“Is that the noble shit your father told you to say? Make my head swell with pride so I’ll fall in line?”

“I’m merely stating my duty.”

“Well, I don’t need a servant, Roman.”

“Ronan. And your Beta can be anything.” He stepped closer. “I can be your right hand. Your friend. Whatever you need.”

Those words made me pause. I met his eyes. They did not hold a lie in them. This creep meant it. I could see it in the set of his shoulders, the openness in his expression. He wasn’t playing a game. He was making an offer.

A genuine one.

I chuckled. The sound came out rougher than I’d intended. “You know what? You’re fucking good.”

His smile widened.

“I’ll take you up on that offer, Ronan.” I said his name correctly this time, let it roll off my tongue properly. “I’m Cian.”

The smile he gave me then was bright enough to light up the shadows under the oak tree. “I think everyone knows that.”

***

The memory faded but the feeling of it stayed with me. That moment when something had shifted between us. When Ronan had stopped being just the Beta’s son and became someone I could trust.

Or thought I could trust.

I rolled onto my side, punching the pillow into a better shape. The fabric was already warm from my body heat. Everything either felt too warm or too tight or too itchy.

I did not feel right in my skin.

How could someone I’d grown up with be a traitor? Someone who’d been there through everything. Who’d stood by my side for years. Who knew me better than almost anyone.

It didn’t make sense.

I didn’t want it to make sense.

But Garrett’s words kept circling back. The business card. The way his words felt like evidence themselves. And there was also Fia’s warning before that. It wasn’t the first time. The concept of fool me once was starting to make so much sense in my life right now. Fia and Garrett’s certainty that something was wrong with people close to me.

Fuck!

She’d been right about too many things already for me to dismiss this.

The only thing that calmed my restless heart now that the fact that the trap had been set. Tomorrow, when Garrett gave Ronan that bloodstained card, we’d see what happened. How he reacted. What he did with the information.

The truth would reveal itself one way or another.

I closed my eyes and tried to find some kind of peace in the darkness behind my eyelids. It didn’t come. Instead, I found myself forming words I hadn’t spoken in years. A prayer. A quiet and desperate one might I add.

Please let me be wrong.

Please let Fia and Garrett be wrong.

Please let Ronan prove us all wrong.

Let him be the friend I thought he was. Let this all be some terrible misunderstanding that we’d laugh about later. Let the bond between us be real and not just another illusion I’d been fool enough to believe in.

The silence of the room offered no answers.

Tomorrow would come whether I was ready for it or not. Tomorrow I’d know for certain if the person I’d trusted most in this world had been lying to me all along. If the foundation I’d built my life on was solid or if it had been rotting from the inside out this entire time.

And after that? After I knew the truth about Ronan?

If it wasn’t what I was parting for. What then?

I hated that I didn’t have an answer.