2
The room was silent, except for my own ragged breathing. I sank onto the couch, my wedding dress wrinkled and soaked with tears, mascara streaked across my face like black rivers. I couldn't move. I couldn't think. All I could hear was the sound of that BANG! the church doors slamming open, echoing in my chest like a death knell.
I remembered the moment as if it were burning into me. Rowan, tall, untouchable, the Alpha everyone admired, standing there in the doorway. And Amelia. My sister. Leaning into him like she belonged there. As if I had never mattered.
I pressed my face into my hands and sobbed, the tears burning as they ran down my cheeks, smearing my mascara.
"Why... why Mom and Dad always pick Amelia? Even when she's not always right?!" I whispered brokenly, my voice shaking. "Why do they always choose her over me?!"
I remembered Eleanor's words from months ago, a memory flashing sharply like lightning:
"She's an Alpha's mate. You... you don't just fit him... at all."
I had laughed then, thinking it was ridiculous. I had trusted them, trusted Rowan, trusted my own heart. And now, the laughter felt like shards of glass in my chest.
I flopped back onto the couch, my mind replaying the nightmare. The gasps in the church. Rowan's cold, unreadable face as he said, "I already claimed my mate." Amelia's smug smile. My mother's silence, letting them humiliate me publicly without a word.
I reached for the remote and turned on the TV.
Every channel was on it. Social media was alive with it. "Alpha Rowan Engaged to Amelia! Bride Left Humiliated!"
"Wedding of the Year Ends in Scandal!"
"Bride-to-be Alina Cries at Church Rejection!"
I was the talk of the town. Every phone, every feed, every gossip site it all screamed my disgrace.
I buried my face in the couch pillows and cried harder, my sobs ragged, my mascara running, black streaks marking my sorrow like a warpaint of humiliation. My body shook, my chest ached, but the pain slowly began to twist into something else anger, fire, determination.
I remembered Rowan's words clearly, the way he had rejected me publicly, not even sparing a glance at the woman he humiliated:
"I reject you... in front of everyone."
That sting, that betrayal, turned into something dangerous inside me.
I pressed my palms against my temples and whispered through my tears:
"They broke me... They humiliated me... But this isn't the end. They will regret every single second of this. Every laugh, every glance, every insult... they'll pay."
I wiped my tears with shaking hands and looked around the luxurious room. My life, my wealth, my status they couldn't protect me. But they also couldn't stop me from rising.
I opened my laptop and began scribbling notes, lists, names, places, weaknesses. Every angle I could use. Rowan, Amelia, even Mom Eleanor had played her part in this humiliation. They had made the mistake of thinking I would stay broken.
No.
I pressed my fingers to the keyboard, fury burning in my chest. "I am Alina," I whispered to the empty room. "And they are going to watch me rise. They are going to see me take back everything they tried to steal."
Outside, the city buzzed. Rowan's face was on every screen, Amelia smiling beside him, the perfect Alpha couple. But the cameras didn't show the truth. They didn't know that the girl they mocked, the bride they laughed at... she was already awake.
The storm inside me had begun.
And when I came for them... there would be no mercy
