"Burn the suit," Maxwell reminds again, throwing his own drab beta uniform onto the back seat.
Victor nods. "Of course, Alpha."
They drive back in silence. The sky is darker than before, thick with clouds that promise rain. In his hands, Maxwell holds Gina's file again.
The girl has nothing.
But she doesn't beg. She doesn't break. She simply survives.
And in a world of harpies and polished parasites, that alone is enough to catch his eye.
***
Day Four
The morning of the fourth day breaks cold and gray.
The scent of sterilized air and tension clings to the facility like a second skin. Gina stands among the other women, spine stiff, eyes cast downward.
Her feet feel rooted to the pristine white tile as if the building itself is reluctant to let her go. She doesn't look at the others. There's no point.
Their eyes are sharp, filled with the kind of barely restrained cruelty that has become routine over the last several days.
The bruises on her arms speak their names better than introductions ever could.
The announcement is imminent. The final list. Her chest is hollow. Empty, save for the echo of her own failure. Of course, she wouldn't be chosen. She never had a chance. Not with the way they crowded, Maxwell.
Gina had watched from the periphery, arms crossed, eyes haunted and her bones tired.
She hadn't fought for his attention enough, the only time she had ever talked to him was when he was leaving and had lost a button from his coat which she had found and returned, and now she would pay the price for her self-preservation.
Her hands tremble, tucked beneath her armpits for warmth. She'd barely slept, haunted by remembering her grandfather's tired face, the final notice of the debt collectors.
They would take everything.
They could kill her grandfather.
They could hurt him so bad that not even the doctors could save him. If she failed here, there would be nothing left.
She'd watched the other women throw themselves at the Alpha.
They bared their throats, painted on smiles, laughed at nothing.
Gina had stayed quiet. Still. Invisible.
By the goddess…. Why didn't she fight harder?
The lab attendant from her first day enters, clipboard clutched tightly, voice clipped. "You will be called by name. If chosen, step forward. If not… you know what to do."
The silence that follows is absolute.
"Beta Clarisse Morran." A sharp gasp of relief echoes through the room from the bronze beta, the woman's face going slack before she schools her expression and walks forward, trying and failing to suppress her smug grin.
"Omega Daliah Verge." The doe eyed omega with sharp teeth. Daliah flutters her lashes, glowing as she steps forward.
"Beta Norah Stent." Norah, who sharpened every word like a knife against Gina's pride, nearly preens.
"Omega Regina Lowell."
Time stills.
The air seems to press against her ribs, squeezing tight.
She doesn't move. Surely she misheard. But the attendant repeats it: "Gina Lowell. Step forward."
Her legs feel unsteady, weak beneath her.
Eyes burn into her from every direction, feeling like knives on her skin.
She takes a breath, then another, then moves.
Disbelief ripples through the ranks of the remaining women.
A stunned silence ripples through the hallway. Then one of the omegas, one of the ones not chosen, a tall statuesque woman with sleek black hair and a permanently curled lip, lets out a sharp, mocking laugh.
"You've got to be joking."
But the attendant doesn't flinch. He clicks the pen against the clipboard. "The rest of you are dismissed."
The room erupts in disbelief.
Protest rises like a wave, but before anyone can speak, the door at the far end opens.
And he walks in.
The beta attendant... that now she remembers never told her his name.
The man looks so different, not dressed in the muted beige of an attendant.
Nor in a lab coat.
But in a razor-cut black suit, the kind that speaks of absolute power. The room stills. Even the guards draw back.
Gina has a bad feeling about this.
His eyes, dark as ink, scan the women without warmth, like they are just things to him.
(He hadn't looked at her that way, had he?)
The tall beta, Clarisse Morran, frowns at him. She seems to be the only one in the room brave enough to question what is going on.
She takes a tiny step forward, then stammers out, "I—I thought that was the Alpha—" she jerks her chin toward the man that had been pretending to be Maxwell these past three days.
Maxwell tilts his head, his smile slow and cruel. "You thought wrong."
Then the air erupts. There's no other way to describe it.
His alpha pheromones lash across the room like a whip.
Every woman drops instinctively, bare necks exposed.
Gina flinches but cannot stop herself. Her knees buckle. Her head bows. Her entire body shudders under the weight of his aura.
Maxwell says nothing. Doesn't need to.
He nods once toward the guards. "Take the selected candidates to the labs."
Just like that, it's done.
The failed candidates are dragged out, their screams echoing down the corridor. Gina doesn't look up.
The walk to the lab is a silent march. White walls. Cold air. Technicians and doctors moving like ghosts, sterile gloves snapping into place.
They are told to strip and lie down on medical beds, their bodies strapped in place.
Gina's heart pounds as cold gel is applied to her abdomen.
She doesn't know what to expect.
The others had hinted at something different—more… primal.
An expectation that the Alpha would claim them in the most basic way. It scared her.