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My vision swam, the room tilting dangerously. A favor? Is that what she called it? A favor? I nearly shouted. “You paraded me like an object to be sold. You had no right!”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “Please. Save me the self-righteous drivel, Delcy. You should be grateful. For you, this could be a stepping stone out of your mundane barista life. Didn't you always dream of more?”
Her words were like a slap, stinging sharply. “Dreams don't justify betrayal, Lydia! I thought you were my friend.” My voice broke on the last word.
Lydia laughed then, the sound bitter and grating. “'Friend'? Delcy, you were always just a project. A charity case I kept around to remind me of how lucky I am not to be born an omega.”
Her admission was like a knife to the heart. “You never cared...” I whispered in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself, Lydia?”
“Oh, I hear myself loud and clear, Delcy. What about you? You think you’re something special? Well, let me clear away that dreamy fantasy you have in your head, Delcy. You’re nothing to Colton and Jaxon. Just a toy, an amusing little diversion until they toss you aside, like they do with every omega they get tired of.” Her words were laced with venom.
I recoiled in disgust. “Even if that were true, it doesn’t give you the right to make choices for me.”
“You think you have choices, sweet omega?” Lydia purred mockingly. “Wake up! In our world, you play the cards you're dealt. And you, dear, were dealt omega.”
Anger surged within me, hot and fierce. “I don't care that I'm an omega! At least I'm true to myself. Not like you, always pretending—”
Lydia cut me off sharply, face flushed with anger. “You don't know anything about me! I'm a beta, Delcy. A beta surrounded by alphas. Do you have any idea what that's like?”
I stared at her, confusion swirling inside me. “What? But you always said...”
“You have no idea what it's like. In a family of alphas, being a beta is like living in a den of lions. Always second, never enough...” Lydia's façade cracked, a flash of vulnerability showing through. “It’s hard.”
My eyes narrowed, resolve steeling my voice. “Hard? You don’t know what hard life truly is. Try living my life for a day without your family’s name and see how you fare!”
Lydia's lip curled back in a snarl. “My name is all I have. You think you're better than me because you struggle? Because you're a hard worker? That's all you'll ever be, Delcy. Hard work won't change what you are—an omega.”
I held her gaze steadily. “You know what, Lydia? I’d rather be a hard-working omega than a spiteful, hollow alpha-pretending beta who betrays her friends. Our friendship is over.”
Lydia's words were venomous. “Good riddance, Delcy. You'll come crawling back sooner than you expect.”
I stood up from Lydia's plush velvet sofa, my hands trembling slightly even as I held my chin high.
“I want no part in this,” I said, my voice steady despite the storm of emotions within. “I'll return the money to Colton and Jaxon. The whole amount.”
Lydia watched me with a smug tilt of her lips, lounging on the sofa like a cat surveying a cornered mouse.
“Oh, Delcy,” she cooed, her voice laced with feigned sympathy. “You truly are innocent if you think it's that simple. I won't be refunding my thirty percent commission. You are well aware that's exactly what you would do—try to give that back to our dear alphas.”
The air in the room grew colder as my resolve hardened. “It's only right. The contract shouldn't have included me without my consent.”
A cruel chuckle escaped Lydia's throat as she stood, stepping languorously toward me. “But it did, sweetheart. And nothing is going to change that. The Alpha Gold Club certainly won't be refunding the one point five million they received—”
I interjected, “But they should—”
Lydia continued over me. “—and you will have to prance through the exhausting hurdles of hiring lawyers to even attempt to dispute this. Even with that, where will you find the money, the connections? To fight the likes of the Sterling brothers and the Alpha Gold Club?”
My eyes flashed with a mix of fear and defiance, knowing the truth in Lydia's words but unwilling to accept defeat.
“I'll find a way,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, heavy with unshed tears and determination.
Lydia's smile was cold as ice. “I guess you'll have to,” she purred, her eyes glinting with malice. “Good luck, Delcy. You'll need it.”
With that, I turned sharply on my heel and left Lydia's luxurious mansion, each step heavy with the weight of the predicament that now entangled me.
Back in my apartment, the chill overtook me as I locked the door behind me, leaving Lydia's revelations and the echoes of our argument to dissipate into the city's din. I trudged over to my couch, a hand-me-down from a friend who had moved away, and collapsed into its worn cushions. The fabric, rough against my skin, seemed to scrape against my raw emotions.
Lydia's betrayal twisted inside me like a knife, her words a venomous soundtrack to my turmoil. I had trusted her—more than that, I had loved her like family. To think that she saw me as nothing more than a pawn in her desperate bid for validation was a wound deeper than any physical pain.
