They Regret Throwing Me Away

The sob died in my throat before it could escape.

I bolted upright in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might burst. Cold sweat soaked through my nightgown, and phantom pain shot through my left arm—the arm that had been broken, the arm that Cole had snapped like a twig against his marble fireplace.

But when I looked down, my arm was whole. Unbruised. The silk nightgown I wore was pristine white, not the blood-soaked rag from my final moments.

My hands flew to my throat, searching for the bruises from Cole's fingers, the marks that had turned purple and black before I'd made my desperate escape. Nothing. Just smooth, unmarked skin.

The room around me swam into focus, and my breath caught. This wasn't Cole's mansion. This wasn't the cold marble floors and oppressive darkness of Black Hollow Pack territory.

This was my childhood bedroom in the Hart mansion.

Sunlight streamed through the familiar cream curtains, casting golden rectangles across the hardwood floor I'd walked across thousands of times. The walls were still painted the soft lavender I'd chosen when I was sixteen—before everything went wrong, before Ava's manipulations took root, before my brothers' coldness became a permanent fixture.

I scrambled for my phone on the nightstand, my fingers trembling as I unlocked the screen. The date glowed back at me in stark white numbers:

*March 15th, 6:47 AM*

My twenty-sixth birthday.

The morning of the day that had started my final descent into hell.

I stared at the screen until my eyes burned, willing the numbers to change, to make sense. But they remained stubbornly the same. Two years. I had somehow traveled back exactly two years.

The memories crashed over me like a tidal wave—Cole's wedding proposal that afternoon, delivered with all the warmth of a business transaction. Liam's satisfied nod as he accepted on my behalf. Rhett's silent approval. Ava's perfectly timed tears of joy, her arms around me as she whispered congratulations that felt like poison in my ear.

And later, much later, the wedding that felt more like a funeral. The first night in Cole's bed. The first time his hand struck my face when I flinched from his touch.

But that hadn't happened yet.

None of it had happened yet.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to process what this meant. The brutal marriage, the years of systematic abuse, the final desperate flight to my family's door—it was all still ahead of me. Unless...

Unless I changed it.

The thought hit me like lightning, electric and terrifying and absolutely certain. I knew what was coming. I knew every trap, every manipulation, every moment of pain that awaited me if I followed the same path.

I didn't have to be a victim this time.

The bedroom door creaked open, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Ava peered around the edge, her face arranged in the same mask of sisterly concern I remembered from that morning two years ago.

"Mia? I heard you moving around." Her voice was honey-sweet, just as it had been before. "Are you alright? You look pale."

Looking at her now, knowing what I knew, I could see the calculation behind her wide brown eyes. The way she positioned herself in the doorway to appear smaller, more fragile. The slight upturn of her lips that she probably thought looked sympathetic but actually resembled a predator's smile.

How had I ever fallen for this act?

"I'm fine," I managed, my voice steadier than I felt.

Ava stepped into the room, closing the door behind her with deliberate softness. "You don't look fine. You look like you've seen a ghost."

If only she knew.

"Just a bad dream," I said, watching her carefully. Every gesture, every micro-expression was exactly as I remembered. She moved to my dresser, straightening the bottles of perfume that didn't need straightening—a nervous habit she'd had since childhood.

"Well, you'll want to pull yourself together quickly." She turned to face me, and there it was—that flash of satisfaction she couldn't quite hide. "Liam wants to see you in his office after breakfast. He has some exciting news about your future."

My future. The word tasted like ash in my mouth.

In my previous life, I had gone to that meeting with butterflies in my stomach, wondering what surprise my brother had planned for my birthday. I had been so naive, so desperate for any scrap of affection from my family that I'd walked straight into the trap.

Not this time.

"Does he?" I kept my voice carefully neutral, but inside, something cold and sharp was crystallizing. A resolve harder than diamond, forged in the fires of everything I'd endured.

Ava's smile widened, mistaking my calm for the same docile acceptance she'd always exploited. "You should wear the blue dress—the one with the high neckline. It's so modest and appropriate. I'm sure our guest will appreciate that."

Our guest. Cole Maddox would already be here, waiting in Liam's office like a spider in the center of his web. Ready to claim his prize.

But I wasn't a prize anymore. I was a woman who had died once already, who had felt the cold earth of my family's territory beneath my broken body as life ebbed away. I was a woman who had nothing left to lose and everything to gain.

"I'll choose my own clothes, thank you," I said quietly.

Something flickered across Ava's face—surprise, maybe even a hint of unease. In the original timeline, I had thanked her for the suggestion and worn exactly what she recommended.

"Of course," she said, but her voice had lost some of its sweetness. "I was just trying to help."

"I'm sure you were."

The silence stretched between us, and I could see her trying to read my expression, to understand this new dynamic. Good. Let her wonder. Let her worry.

After a moment, she turned toward the door. "Breakfast is in an hour. Don't be late—you know how Liam feels about punctuality."

When the door closed behind her, I finally allowed myself to breathe. My hands were still shaking, but not from fear this time. From anticipation.

I rose from the bed and walked to my closet, pushing aside the blue dress Ava had suggested. Instead, I pulled out a black blazer and matching slacks—professional, authoritative, nothing like the submissive Omega daughter they expected.

As I dressed, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. The face looking back at me was younger, unmarked by Cole's brutality. But my eyes... my eyes held the weight of everything I'd endured, everything I'd learned.

I was no longer the naive girl who had died on this territory two years from now.

I was someone else entirely.

Someone who would not be sacrificed again.