To ruin an Omega

Chapter 153: A just goddess

HAZEL

The world had gone quiet.

Not the kind of quiet where you could hear yourself think. The kind where every whisper felt like a shout. Where every eye that landed on me burned through my skin.

My hand throbbed. The broken one. Pain shot up my arm in waves but I barely felt it. I couldn’t feel anything except the weight of what had just happened. What I’d just lost.

The recording. That damned recording.

Alpha Julius stood near the doorway. He hadn’t moved since my father dropped to his knees. His arms were still crossed. His expression was still carved from ice.

Father knelt there on the tiles. On the blood. His knees had caught some of the glass. I watched it bleed. As his blood and Fia’s mixed together in some sick metaphor I didn’t want to think about.

“I think you should tend to the tear that is within your family.” Alpha Julius’ voice cut through the silence. Clean. Final. He looked at Father like he was something small. Something beneath notice. “No tragedy happened. So we should be grateful for that.”

He then turned and walked out.

Just like that. No punishment. No demands. Just dismissal.

Somehow that was worse.

The crowd shifted. They still whispered. But now they were moving. They started to disperse slowly, reluctantly, like they didn’t want to miss whatever came next but knew they couldn’t stay.

But I heard them. Goddess help me, I heard every word.

“Did you hear what she said?”

“She killed someone. She actually killed him.”

“It is crazy how she deceived everyone. How pathetic.”

“I always thought she was too perfect. Too sweet.”

“Well, now we know it was all fake.”

My chest tightened and squeezed. I couldn’t breathe right. I couldn’t think right.

This was worse than punishment. Worse than anything Fia could have done to me. Because now they all knew. Everyone would know. The story would spread like wildfire through the packs. Through the territories. Hazel Hughes, the perfect Luna daughter who framed her sister into marriage and murdered her sister’s ex mate.

They would talk. They would whisper. They would form opinions.

Bad opinions. Horrible opinions.

My reputation was gone. Shattered just like the mirror behind me. Just like my hand.

It would be worse if the elders of the pack decided to try me for murder. My body shook at the thought.

Father finally moved. He stood slowly, joints creaking like an old man’s. He didn’t look at me. Not yet. He just stared at the space where Alpha Julius had been.

Then he turned.

“Stand up.” His voice was flat. Empty. “We should go home.”

I looked up at him from where I sat crumpled against the broken tiles. My good hand still cradled my broken one against my chest. Mascara stained my cheeks. Blood dotted my dress.

“Father.” My voice came out small. Broken. “You don’t believe any of the lies that they are spewing, right?”

Please. Please say you believe me. Please say you know I would never do those things. That the recording was fake. That Fia manipulated everything.

He gave me a quick look. His eyes swept over me once. Then away.

“I am begging you, get up and let us leave before the embarrassment covers us whole.”

The words hit me like a physical blow.

Something inside me cracked, then splintered before it shattered completely.

“That means you don’t believe me.” The realization burned through my chest. “You actually think I did it.”

Father’s jaw tightened. “Hazel. Not here.”

“Why would you kneel before them?” My voice rose. Pitched higher. “Why would you make yourself small? Beg for mercy from them when your daughter, your true daughter, is the one who was attacked?”

I scrambled to my feet. Pain shot through my hand but I ignored it. Pushed past it.

“This is why Silver Creek is the way it is!” The words tore out of me. Hot. Angry yet true. “You have no drive. No ambition. You are just a small minded man and a disappointment as a father!”

His face went red. Mottled with anger or shame or both.

“Why wouldn’t you force Fia to apologize?” I took a step toward him. “Why wouldn’t you make her take it all back and retract her statement! She is lying! Can’t you see that? She has always been lying and you just let her walk all over us because you feel guilty that she is an Omega! Because you feel bad that her mother died!”

The slap came out of nowhere.

My head snapped to the side. The crack of his palm against my cheek echoed in the bathroom. In my skull. In my chest.

I stood there. Frozen. My face burning where he’d hit me. My good hand flew to my cheek, pressing against the heat that bloomed there.

Father had never hit me. Not once in my entire life.

“Joseph!” Mother’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears.

She pushed through what was left of the swiftly diminishing crowd. Her face was pale. Her eyes wide with shock.

Father turned to her then back at me. His hand still raised slightly. Still trembling.

“Oh, she was right about you all along.” His voice came out harsh. Raw. “You snake.”

Mother stopped. Blinked. “What? Joseph, this is our child.”

That seemed to annoy father. He said; “You have a fault in this too. Plenty in fact.”

“Joseph—”

“Everything Fia said. Everything she accused your daughter of.” Father took a step toward Mother. Then another. “It was true, wasn’t it? You are responsible because you poisoned our daughter against her sister. You fed this jealousy. This hatred. You made Hazel into this. An ugly beast full of wickedness.”

He gestured at me. At the mess I’d become.

Mother’s mouth opened. Closed. Her composure cracked just slightly around the edges.

“Joseph, she is your daughter regardless.”

“She is no daughter of mine.”

The words hung in the air. Heavy. Final. Absolute.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t process what I’d just heard.

Father pushed past mother and stormed toward the exit. His footsteps echoed on the tiles. His harsh steps slowly fading.

Mother stared after him for a moment. Then she turned to me. Her eyes swept over my broken hand, my tear-stained face, the wreckage of the bathroom around us.

“What pushed you to even do this?”

The question landed wrong. Twisted. Like somehow this was my fault. Like I’d planned for everything to fall apart.

Then she turned and rushed after Father. Her heels clicked rapidly on the floor as she chased him down.

“Joseph! Joseph, wait!”

I stood there alone.

The bathroom was empty now except for the broken glass and the blood and the shattered pieces of my perfect life scattered across the tiles.

My cheek still burned where Father had slapped me. The red was probably blooming there now. Spreading across my skin like evidence.

’She is no daughter of mine.’

The words played over and over in my head. A loop I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t escape.

I walked to one of the mirrors. The glass was spiderwebbed with cracks from where I’d hit it earlier. From where Fia had been slammed against it. My reflection stared back at me in fractured pieces. Dozens of Hazels, all broken in different ways.

I pulled my fist back and drove it forward.

The glass shattered. Cut into my knuckles. Pain exploded up my arm, mixing with the agony from my already broken hand.

But it didn’t help. It didn’t make anything better. The anger still burned in my chest. The humiliation still clawed at my throat.

“Taking out your anger on that mirror will do no good.”

I spun around.

A man stood in the doorway. Tall, with salt and pepper hair and darker eyes. He looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place him. One of the wedding guests maybe. Someone who’d witnessed my complete and total destruction.

“If you want to do it right, you should let the feeling count.” He took a step into the bathroom. His voice was smooth. Almost pleasant. “Hurt who hurt you if you catch my drift.”

I stared at him. Blood dripped from my knuckles onto the floor. Both hands ruined now.

“You.” The word came out flat. Recognition sparked. I’d seen him. He has been the one to hold Alpha Cian back when he wanted to take my life. Cian had even called him uncle.

He smiled. The expression didn’t reach his eyes.

“The name is Aldric.”

He moved closer. Careful. Like he was approaching a wounded animal. His gaze swept over me, taking in every detail. The broken hands. The mascara stains. The blood on my dress.

“You’ve had quite a night.”

I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up. Everything had closed up.

“Your sister really did a number on you, didn’t she?” Aldric tilted his head slightly. “Played you like a fiddle. Made you look like a monster in front of everyone who matters.”

“Shut up.” My voice cracked.

“And your father.” He clicked his tongue. “That had to sting. Being practically disowned in front of people who matter. In front of Alpha Julius himself.”

“I said shut up!”

“But you know what the worst part is?” Aldric’s smile widened. “She gets to walk away from this. She gets the powerful mate. The Luna position. The respect. Everything you wanted. Everything you worked for. All because she had a recording.”

My hands shook. Blood and pain and rage mixed together until I couldn’t tell them apart.

“She took everything from you.” Aldric’s voice dropped lower. Softer. Like he was sharing a secret. “Your father’s love. Your reputation. Your future. All of it. Gone.”

I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he was wrong. But I couldn’t.

Because he wasn’t wrong.

Fia had destroyed me. Completely. Thoroughly. She’d waited until the perfect moment and then she’d pulled the trigger. And I’d walked right into it. Played right into her hands.

Just like she’d played into mine.

Except she’d won.

“What do you want?” I finally managed to ask.

Aldric’s smile shifted. Changed into something else. Something sharper.

“I want to help you get back what you lost.” He extended his hand toward me. “I want to help you hurt the people who hurt you.”

I looked at his hand. Then at my reflection in the shattered mirror. At all the broken pieces of myself staring back.

She is no daughter of mine.

The words echoed again. Louder this time.

“Aren’t you family with Alpha Cian? Why would you want to help me? Why would you want to hurt Fia?”

“Do you care?”

He was not wrong. I did not.

So I took his hand. “No.”

His fingers closed around mine. Firm. Sure. Like he’d been expecting this all along.

“Good girl.” Aldric pulled me slightly toward him. Away from the mirror. Away from the blood and glass. “Now let’s talk about what comes next.”

The bathroom door swung shut behind us with a soft click.

“What exactly do you know about Fia?”