Page 27 of Sergi
“It was on orders. If your father wasn’t here, I was to kill his bitch and whore daughters.”
His father wasn’t there? Sergi pressed down on Felix’s throat, ignoring the blood that trickled out of the male’s mouth.
The male gurgled a laugh. “You didn’t know? He ran with his cadre. He left his entire Family behind. Your House is a disgrace. You were such a disappointment that your Father traded his only son rather than keep him as an heir.”
Sergi closed his eyes. He didn’t want to believe the words, though he didn’t doubt them. And it grieved him to know his traitorous father’s blood filled his own veins.
He stepped back and brought the blade down, severing Felix’s head from his body. If nothing else, the male looked him in the eye the entire time.
His attempt to save his mother and sisters had been for naught. He’d raced from his House and became a rogue, and in the end, he hadn’t been able to save them.
A piercing stab made him cry out. It was unexpected.
His eyes flashed open to the unforgiving eyes of his tormentor.
Gheata smiled. At least the savage interrogator had pulled him from his nightmare.
And when the next stab of the dagger was shoved into his kidney, he laughed.
Gheata paceda tight path in the confines of the cell. Sergi hadn’t spoken a word since his capture, and his interrogator was showing signs of agitation. He tried to remember how many days ago that had been. Long enough it seemed that the loss of blood had decreased his body’s ability to heal quickly. Sleep was his only means to conserve energy.
His beast scratched at its barrier, pushing to be released. If he thought he could control the beast, he’d unleash it for the most brutal part of the interrogations. In his weakened state, and with the beast’s rage, Sergi didn’t think he’d be able to rein it back.
“Perhaps we need to start from the beginning.” Gheata locked his hands behind his back as he strode back and forth. His gaze focused on the path of his boots as he considered the situation.
Gheata was a cleaner. What some called a fixer. He came in at the end of a mission with carte blanch to handle unforeseen problems. That didn’t make him a useful interrogator. Whoever ran this place, or perhaps it was Venizi himself, thought size mattered for a successful interrogation. But torture rarely worked. At least not by itself. Mind games were more likely to render a favorable outcome. And to this point, it appeared to be a skill Gheata hadn’t mastered.
“I don’t need to know your true purpose,” Gheata said as he stopped at the table of torture instruments. He selected a scalpeland lifted it for inspection as if he could see its gleaming edge in the dim light. “You were searching for the lab with the intention to infiltrate. Perhaps with the intention to steal our formulas or find information to use for blackmail.”
He laid the scalpel down and returned to his pacing. “At first, I thought you were sent by one of Venizi’s competitors. Now, I’m not so sure.” He stopped in front of Sergi, who refused to meet his torturer’s gaze.
Gheata pulled Sergi’s head back by his hair, his eyes glowing an intense yellow. “Tell me who sent you.” Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. His frustration had to be unbearable. If he let his captive lose too much blood, he could force Sergi’s beast out with only one thought—to feed. Worst case, he’d be left with a dead vampire. That might be the eventual outcome, but the male’s determined gaze told Sergi one thing.
They weren’t ready to let him die.
Gheata dropped Sergi’s head. He returned to his pacing and spent the next minutes calming his own beast, the glow leaving his eyes. “Let’s try something simple. Your name. Surely that isn’t so difficult to share.”
They were too early in the game for Sergi to discern if Gheata had switched to mental interrogation. Providing his name sounded like a simple request, but there was power in a name, and he was unwilling to hand that over to Gheata. All he had to do was check the House rosters for anyone with Sergi’s name. He would search the largest ones first and would quickly discover that his name matched one of Devon’s cadre. He’d been surprised no one had taken a picture to send to Venizi. Maybe they had, and they were waiting for orders.
A motion at the door made Gheata turn around. “You’re early, girl.”
“Sorry, sir,” the guard said. “She’s actually a few minutes late, and the lab is asking when she’ll be done here.”
Gheata struck fast and hard, slamming a fist into Sergi’s gut. It was unexpected, and he blew out a large breath of air as he winced from the pain. Not from the blow but from the open wounds that were still bleeding.
He seared Sergi with a glare and stormed to the door, where he paused and glared down at the female who cleaned the cell. “Feed him and clean him up. I want his skin fresh to start again tomorrow.”
“You won’t be back this afternoon, sir?” the guard asked.
“No. I’m involved in another project that will require my attention for the next few afternoons. We need to make these morning sessions more meaningful. I’m not ready to lose him to his beast quite yet.”
Sergi would have laughed but didn’t need any more punches. He’d learned more today than Gheata did, and it validated Devon’s quest to find this lab. Something important was going on here.
He would only be interrogated in the mornings, at least for a few days, and they were going to feed him. This all worked in Sergi’s favor. And the odds improved if Rafael had gotten away.
Devon would come. He had to hold on.
Chapter Eleven
