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“Medical student,” Riley calls out as he takes the last step down. “I don’t really care if you kill her, but I can keep you from making it happen too quickly.”

“I thought you were staying upstairs?” I ask, surprised as he makes his way to the front.

“I had to watch those doctors hurt her,” he says. “Now, I want to watch her mother suffer. I can enjoy that without ever having to cut her. Ethan is upstairs still. I left the door open so he could hear her scream. That’s as close as he wants to get.”

My son doesn’t enjoy the sight of blood, and I don’t blame him.

The alphas work together to release the chains enough that they can flip her upside down. Two alphas from Pack Alston hold Vivian’s legs up in the air to keep her in place, while Easton takes her shirt and wraps it tightly around her face.

Riley grabs an abandoned bucket that the housekeeper left on the ground and fills it up, and prepares to dump it on her face.

“Make her feel what Nina felt when she was trapped without us,” I growl.

Let the games begin.

Riley

The cold water flows out of the bucket and over Vivian’s face. At first, I can tell that she’s holding her breath, something that Nina was never able to do with the gag in her mouth. She even manages to keep the water from going up her nose somehow. However, she’s not going to be able to just wait me out the way she thinks she will.

Cassidy quietly fills two more buckets with water before standing to watch. Vivian sputters and coughs as she gasps for air once I drop one bucket for the next. Except, she miscalculates.

Vivian didn’t hear Cassidy bring me more buckets of liquid, because her hearing is dulled by the rushing water covering her ears. The sound of her screams as she swallows and snorts water up her nose makes me laugh.

I don’t care if that goes against any oath I have yet to take as a medical student. I’ve already broken them all at Weeping Willow. I’ve done a lot of harm, I may as well enjoy making the bitch I’m torturing scream.

Vivian writhes as she attempts to catch her breath, but there’s not a chance in hell of that. Cassidy keeps my buckets filled without a sound, basking in the warmth of Vivian’s discomfort.

“A little electrocution sounds nice right about now, what do you all think?” I ask, dropping a bucket onto the concrete floor.

We’re making a fucking mess with all of the water everywhere, but I can’t find a fuck to give about it. This isn’t my house, and I don’t live here.

Vivian is pulled upright, her eyes bloodshot and red when Cooper tears away the shirt over her face. Everyone steps backas she vomits up water and food, the alphas appearing disgusted. She’s no longer the put together ice queen now that she’s been stripped away of everything.

Instead, mascara runs down her face, and she appears pitiful in her matching bra and panty set. I think Cassidy has plans to strip off the rest of Vivian’s pitiful excuse for underwear, but I’m glad she’s saving my eyesight.

Abbott pulls out a car battery from somewhere, and I can’t help but bark out a laugh. The alpha just grins at me as he hooks Vivian up to it, making sure one of her feet is in the puddle of water.

“When you push someone too far, you break them,” Abbott says. “We would have taken her without a thought if she wasn’t already scent matched. Sorry, Cooper and Riley, but Cassidy adores her.”

“It’s hard not to,” I allow while Cooper scowls. I can be magnanimous about this because they are our allies. However, I hate that I know that Lyle had to alpha bark Nina to sleep as she cried on the plane ride home, or that so many of the alphas in this group are used to touching or hugging her.

They know she’s ours, but there’s a line that’s crossed in pretend dating. When you’re given the saddest omega in the world to protect, what alpha isn’t going to want to keep her?

This is something we have to live with, but I will gladly do it because it’s finally made her ours now. Not later, never again.

Vivian gasps as the liquid snot also runs down her face, and I raise my brow at her as she takes a really good look at me. It takes a minute at least before she recognizes me.

This is someone who doesn’t pay much attention to people that she believes to be the help. I was a medical student that she’s seen at the hospital, but she allowed herself to pay minimal notice to.

“As someone who took care of your daughter at Weeping Willow, I think living through some of the things she went through will be beneficial for you to realize how harmful thisbullshit reprogramming really is,” I say, stepping back with the other alphas as Abbott turns on the car battery.

None of us give her time to speak, but we stand and listen to her scream. The only break she receives is when the other alphas get tired of listening to her voice. They disconnect the car battery and begin to get their own licks in, and that’s when Cooper unleashes his anger.

His hands systematically begin to break her bones, and Lyle shoves her shirt deep into her mouth to muffle her screams and begging. We don’t care what she has to say now, just as she didn’t care about her daughter’s needs.

“Places like Weeping Willow should be illegal,” Lyle says, stepping back to watch Cooper’s systematic destruction. “Cassidy, would you like to shave off Miss Vivian’s hair? I brought an electric razor just for you.”

Cooper snorts out a laugh as he takes a catalog of Vivian’s broken body. There are burn marks along her feet, and multiple broken bones along her legs, arms, and hands. Asher from Pack Nisim and Easton from Pack Mayor have broken a few of Vivian’s ribs as well.