“There are a couple of different ways we could go about it.” Sidian glanced around the room, though the moment his eyes lit on the silver tray of tools set off to the side—untouched, as far as Roman could tell—he broke away to approach it, shrugging off his flannel as he did. “Are these free to use?”
Roman suppressed a smile as he leaned down to pick up the shirt, folding it over his arm before setting it aside to shed his own. Whatever they wore was likely going to be ruined, and he had no genuine desire to lose more clothing than was reasonable. “Of course, darling.”
The implements were familiar enough to Roman; such kits had been handed out to everyone and were likely stocked at the Pit as need be, seeing as none of the instruments were special or noteworthy. Sidian picked up what looked like a scalpel and all but bounced over to the beta, who stared at him with a manic look in that one good eye. Roman kept his distance but walked a slow circle around the beta, noting that his wrists were zip-tied to the back legs of the chair he sat in, right beneath the stabilizing bar. That was good; it would be most unfortunate if the idiot tried to take a swing at Sidian because then Roman would be forced to kill him.
“Heard you keep some pretty nasty company,” Sidian chirped, waving the blade in front of the beta’s face with a little snicker. “Traffickers, huh? You know, I wasn’ttraffickedin the traditional sense, but all the fucked-up shit that happened to me resulted from people like you who think omegas are just toys you can sell to the highest bidder. So I’m not very sympathetic, so to speak.”
Roman’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t considered how Sidian might feel about that topic, but he had to admit that his omega was correct. The breeding centers were much the same as the trafficking rings, if much easier to brute force and destroy. “What will you do to him?”
Sidian smiled, but he never took his eyes off of their target. “Every single day I was in that place, it felt like pieces of my soul were getting cut out of me. But I get that’s not so easy to understand, so I’m gonna demonstrate how it felt, fucker. Roe, I want one of his hands.”
“Wait,” the beta said, squirming in his seat, though he did not even come close to squirming free. “Wait, wait, don’t—”
Roman clapped a hand over his mouth, leaning over him to whisper in his ear. “Are you going to tell us what we want to know?”
He removed his hand, and the beta clamped his jaw shut so tight his chin trembled with the effort, his teeth all but grinding together. That was not surprising; people with powerful allies also made powerful enemies the moment they misspoke. Roman wondered if Hadeon might have convinced the beta he had a chance of survival if he spoke soon enough.
So be it, though. Everyone wanted to do things the hard way.
He snapped the zip tie with ease, his hand clamping down on the beta’s elbow and wrist to keep him from flailing free. Without letting up so much as an ounce of pressure, he drew the beta’s arm around in front of him, feeling the bones grinding together as the beta tried to free his vulnerable right hand. The odds of his being right-handed were good; he might take this a little more seriously if he knew his dominant hand was on the line. Or he might not. Roman never knew which way someone might lean until they were backed into a corner with no other option for escape.
It was easy to hold the weak beta in place, though. “Here you are, darling.”
“Good dog.” Sidian caught the beta’s index finger before it could curl towards his palm, bending it back with an exaggerated slowness until the beta’s quivering lips parted around shrill, panicked noises. “Nah, quit sniveling. You wanted to do this the hard way, didn’t you?”
He paused, then snapped the finger the rest of the way back, the crack of bone and the hoarse, pained shout of their target echoing off of the concrete walls. Roman allowed his eyes to drift shut for a moment, drinking in Sidian’s joy, the way his pheromones spiked hot and mouthwatering as he let out a delighted little cackle. When the beta’s pained sounds raised an octave, Roman opened his eyes, unwilling to miss so much as a moment of what his mate was capable of.
“You gotta see it from my perspective,” Sidian said as he pressed the sharp edge of the blade to the beta’s first knuckle, just enough force behind it to dent the skin. “You fuck around with guys like the sick fucks who ruined my life, then you get what’s coming to you.”
And then he began to saw through the beta’s finger.
Chapter Twenty-One
There was euphoria that came when causing pain to another person.
Sidian had known this for most of his life. It wasn’t just the rush of control but the joy he gained in someone else’s suffering, in bringing another person down into the pits he’d been struggling in for most of his life. He didn’t give a shit who it was; anyone who crossed him was good enough. But the man who would take money from peopleworsethan Pack Kincaid deserved a special hell that he knew he couldn’t inflict on just anyone. He had to make it count. He wanted to make it last.
Even once he and Roman had the information the Mambas wanted, Sidian knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.
The flesh gave way beneath the blade of the scalpel, the scrape of metal against bone sending a bolt of pleasure straight to his clit that struck him so hard it punched the air out of his lungs. The beta wailed and squirmed in his seat, but Roman held his arms steady while Sidian set the scalpel down and went to retrieve another tool from the tray. He wasn’t sure they would dothe job at first glance, but it had been a long time since he’d seen tools like these. The compact bolt cutters were heavy in his hand, the tool solid metal, the rubber grips pristine. Never used before.
“Do you know what it feels like to have someone touch you without your consent?” he asked, keeping his tone light as he returned to position. Blood sluiced over the metal blades, dripping down the jaws. “You remember every single hand on your body. You remember every single finger. Can you even imagine what that’s like?”
The beta jerked legs zip-tied to the stabilizer at the front of the chair he sat on, but he made no progress. His head whipped from side to side as he screamed, spittle bubbling in the corners of his mouth, but that did him no good. There was no escape; he would suffer and die, and the only respite he might receive for his transgressions was a quick death rather than prolonged torture.
If he had spoken to Hadeon, that was. Sidian waited until the beta looked up at him before he squeezed the handles of the cutters, the blades slicing through ligament and bone.
The anguished howl made slick flood his underwear so fast he was dizzy.
Sidian braced himself, bent over, hands on his knees as he sucked in a deep breath. The beta’s severed finger thumped onto the floor, the small pink tip of it resting in its own miniature pool of blood. Groaning, Sidian pressed a hand between his legs, rocking the heel of his hand against his clit until he felt a semblance of control. And then he picked the scalpel back up.
He sliced into the white flesh of the beta’s finger, relishing his choked cries as he cut his way through to the second knuckle. “I know you can’t. Pigs like you don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like to be used and abused and then forced to wait for the monsters who did it to come back and do it again.”
He picked up the bolt cutters, the thick steel sliding into weeping flesh to settle against bone. The second chunk of flesh tumbled to the floor below, the small stump left behind jettisoning blood. It was a good look, and it was exciting to know there wereninemore fingers to go before Sidian was content.
He would cut off every single one just to prove that he could.
“Who paid you?” Roman asked, the velvety richness of his deep voice brushing down Sidian’s spine like the touch of a lover.
