To ruin an Omega

Chapter 146: Small Rooms, No More

FIA

“What?”

I stared at my father’s face and waited for something to change. For the shock to deepen. For guilt to finally settle in once he realized how callous those words had been. It did not. Whatever was there would never be enough, and I realized that with a calm that scared me.

“What I did?” The scoff tore out of me before I could stop it, sharp and ugly and honest.

“Do not make a scene here.” His voice dropped, tight and warning. “This is our first time at a gathering like this, and bringing your…”

He stopped. The word he did not say lingered anyway, heavy and obvious. I heard it as clearly as if he had shouted it.

My eyes slid past him to where Isobel and Hazel stood together across the room. Isobel looked composed, serene in that way that always meant she felt victorious. Hazel’s mouth curved slightly, like she had already collected something she came for.

They started to walk towards us.

“My what?” I asked, steady even as my chest burned. “My Omega ways? Crass, low, degenerate ways?” I let each word land. I wanted him to hear them. “The ones I used to steal Hazel’s man. That is still the story you are clinging to, right?”

“You could admit it,” he said. His jaw tightened, the familiar line forming along his cheek. “Ask for our forgiveness. I would welcome you with open arms.”

A laugh threatened to spill out of me, but it died before it could take shape. It would have sounded hysterical anyway.

“HazeI still cares for you, regardless of what you have done,” he continued, as if he were offering mercy instead of rewriting the past. “She still speaks so highly of you.”

“You are still deluded,” I said quietly. “And blind.”

His hand clenched at his side. It was a small thing, almost nothing, but I saw it. The way his fingers curled inward like he was holding something back, like anger lived there and needed permission.

“This is a big gathering, father,” I said, keeping my gaze locked on his. “You might want to rein in that temper before you remind everyone what unchecked Alpha privilege looks like. You are all the same. Arrogant. Blind. But no one wants to stare too long at their own ugly reflection.”

I turned away from him, already moving, surprised by how steady my legs felt. I was halfway gone when his voice reached me again.

“How could I not see the way you were?” There was bitterness in it, regret twisted the wrong way. “The love I had for your mother must have blinded me.”

Something inside my chest cracked open. There was nothing gentle about the pain. It was not clean either. Heat rushed in where restraint had been.

“You cannot see people,” I said, turning back to face him. “Not me. Not your perfect wife. Not Hazel.” My voice rose despite myself. “How dare you talk about love? You did not love my mother. You never did. She was convenient for you. She was stable. She smoothed down every sharp edge she had just to fit into your life.”

Memories surged up without asking permission. The small rooms. The careful smiles. The way we learned to disappear when needed. He didn’t have to be vocal. We just knew.

“We hid,” I said. “Like the open secrets you wanted us to be. We avoided events like this because you were ashamed. The worst part was all you ever had were small spaces anyway. Your events… parties… there was not nothing grabs about them. That was before Cian. Before my mate.”

I looked straight at Hazel when I said it. Her expression tightened, the sweetness cracking. That small reaction felt like something earned.

“I do not need your love or your forgiveness,” I told him. “I thought I did. For a long time. But I was wrong. I am not my mother. I do not want to live the way she did. I refuse to be content in a hole.” My throat tightened, but I kept going. “I want to be seen. I want to be loved loudly. And I will have that.”

The certainty startled me. It rose up anyway, solid and real.

“I think I already do,” I added, softer now. “So keep your picture perfect family. Let me stay dead in your heart. That sounds like heaven to me at this point.”

His face drained of color. His eyes went wide, unfocused. Then his knees buckled.

Isobel caught him before he hit the floor, her hands gripping his arms as she steadied him. She looked at me then, her gaze sharp and poisonous.

“How can you be so cruel?” she demanded.

“I was honest,” I said, and did not look away. “His guilt is what made his knees weak, not my words. He claims he loved my mother, yet he was not there when she took her last breath. He was with you.”

I turned and walked away. My heels echoed against the floor, each step lighter than the last, like I was shedding weight I had carried too long.

Fingers suddenly closed around my arm. Tight. Claiming.

“Are you lashing out because your prince charming left you halfway through the dance?” Hazel asked, her voice sugar sweet and rotten underneath. “I saw it. We all did. We just chose to be polite about it by not bringing it up because we wanted a semi cordial reunion.”

I looked down at her hand gripping me, then back up at her face. She hadn’t changed one bit. Calculating. Eager. Hungry for a reaction.

I slapped her hand away.

“If anyone gets to judge me, it will not be an insecure narcissist digging for drama like it owes her money,” I said. My voice was cold, finished. “I know you are disappointed I did not wear pink. Try harder next time. You might actually get the fight you are begging for.”

I did not wait for her answer. I walked out of the ballroom, down the hallway, my vision blurring at the edges. I kept moving until I found a bathroom, until the door shut behind me and the noise of them all finally fell away.

It felt wrong, like the room had sucked all the air out of itself and left me standing there with too much space and nowhere to put what I was feeling.

I braced my hands on the edge of the sink. The porcelain was cold beneath my palms, solid enough to remind me that I was still here, still upright. I turned the tap and let the water run until it was icy, then splashed my face. Once, then again. The cold stung, chased the heat away from my cheeks, left my eyes burning in a way that felt deserved.

I did not like the words I had used out there. They sat heavy in my chest now, sharp even in memory. True, yes. Earned, absolutely. Still ugly in the way honesty often was when it stopped asking for permission.

But what had I been meant to do. Smile and nod while lies were pressed into my skin like labels. Apologize for something I did not do just to make my father more comfortable with the story Isobel and Hazel had built for him. Bend myself smaller so he could keep believing I was the problem instead of the convenient scapegoat they needed.

No.

I would not do that. Not anymore.

I lifted my head and stared at my reflection. My makeup had somehow survived everything, lashes still dark, lips still neat, like my face had not been dragged through every version of grief and fury in the last ten minutes. My eyes told the real story. They looked worn, bruised in a way powder could not hide.

I wondered, not for the first time, why my father refused to see me. Why Hazel’s voice carried more weight than mine. Why my mother’s memory could be twisted into something useful, sharpened into a blade instead of treated like the fragile thing it was. The questions kept circling, biting at each other, offering no answers and no relief.

The door opened behind me.

I saw her in the mirror before I heard the lock click into place.

Hazel stood there with her back against the door, one hand still on the lock, her expression stripped of sweetness. There was no pretense left on her face now, just calculation, which was the moniker I knew her for.

“What do you want?” My voice sounded tired even to me.

She studied me instead of answering, eyes moving slowly like she was taking inventory. Measuring what was left.

“You think you’ve won something,” she said at last, her tone almost casual. “You think because Cian chose you that everything is settled. You think you have power now, so you let your tongue run loose and do some heavy lifting with me.”

I turned around fully, pressing my back to the sink. “I don’t think anything is settled.”

“Good.” She stepped closer, heels clicking softly against the floor. “Because it isn’t.”

“Why are you here, Hazel?” I folded my arms, more out of instinct than defiance. “What do you actually want from me?”

Her smile curved, thin and sharp enough to cut. “An apology would be nice. I want an honest apology, on your knees, for daring to exist. But I know I won’t get that. Not from you. You’re too proud now.”

“Proud?” The word tasted wrong in my mouth, bitter and unfair. “Is that what you call it when someone refuses to confess to crimes they didn’t commit. When they finally stand up to madness and call it what it is.”

“You took him from me.”

For a second, I wondered what the fuck she was talking about. Then it clicked.

“Cian? He was never yours,” I said, steady despite the way my chest tightened. “And he wasn’t mine to take either. You’ve built a story in your head because reality stopped serving you. Now that he isn’t the monster you wanted him to be, now that you see me surviving, even thriving, you’ve created this fantasy about what you think you could have had.”

I met her eyes and did not look away.

“But Cian never wanted you. He never chose you. And weren’t you the one who pushed him toward me in the first place. He is with me now. That truth is not mine to soften for you.” My voice stayed calm, almost gentle. “You can choke on that if you want.”

Hazel smiled and then went on. “I haven’t finished talking yet.”