Chapter 47 THE INTERROGATION
The pliers Rafael had requested for earlier finally arrived and his men were quick to set the torture instrument into position, ready for immediate use.
They forced Luke's hand open while he struggled against the men handling him, but he was too weak to fight against their strength— after all, they were able bodied men unlike him who was already battered up.
Eventually, his hand was placed in the hand template, sealing it tight by his wrist which would make it impossible for Luke to pull his hand away.
Cold sweat rolled down Luke's forehead as he was made to face the cruel interrogation which would be directed by Santiano Rafael Devereaux— his very own boss.
“Luke,” Rafael called keenly. “I will ask you for the last time and I want nothing but an answer that will settle the scores you have with me. Where is Vanessa?” He asked, his voice calm and the emotion on his face serene like he was not moved or disturbed— exuding a slow poison aura, but deep down beneath the surface, a lot more was going on within Rafael and Luke was more terrified at this.
Santiano Rafael Devereaux exuding a calm, gentle and dove like demeanor was trouble— more deadly compared to when he shows his anger— how furious he was and the wrath he could incur.
Tears rolled down Luke's eyes because he knew whatever he says to Rafael that does not give you where Vanessa was would mean nothing to him— nothing he could attempt to say would help prove his innocence, nothing at all.
“I really do not know, Santiano,” Luke said, his bruised lips quivering as he spoke. “I do not know where your woman has disappeared to and I wish I did, I swear it.” He cried.
Rafael gave a signal to the man with the lever and he quickly registered the boss's order without him breathing a word of command.
The henchman pulled the lever at once, making the pliers fall on one of Luke's fingers, pulling out the nail of his thumb that the sound of the skin of Luke's finger squelching became deafening to him.
Luke's scream of agony at the pain of his nail being extracted from his finger rented the old cellar, but it never made it past the walls and into the corners of the mansion.
The pain from losing his thumb nail was extremely excruciating and his blood began to drool on the table, smearing into the surface of the wood which pooled out of his newly incurred wound.
“I swear in the name of the godfather, Santiano, I really do not know where Vanessa is. I have no idea where she could be.” Luke continued in agony, his voice cracking at each attempt he took to speak out loud even though Rafael could hear him regardless of what tone he chose.
But despite this, his cry fell on deaf ears, like he had never uttered a single word to Rafael.
Suddenly, a cryptic grin formed a line on Rafael's lips, the tip of his ears turning red faintly. With his eyes locked on Luke's, he said,
“Of course, you wouldn't know where she is, I believe you.”
Luke was suddenly thrown into a pandemonium of confusion as he heard Rafael say these words.
He suddenly began to wonder what type of game Rafael could be playing or what he was trying to get out.
He knew his boss as someone who doesn't forgive sins against himself so easily nor believing the words of someone who had allegedly sinned against him, but Rafael declaring that he suddenly believed his words was frightening.
The thought of this sent a cold wave of chill through Luke's bones that could feel himself struggling to dangle out of a cold storm.
'What could he be up to?’ Luke had asked himself in his thoughts, his mind flashing with the possibilities of what could be going on in Rafael's mind at that moment.
The thought of this thing made him forget the pain from the torture he had been out under. All that was pounding in his head which he was also pondering on was what card Rafael was about to pull and it wasn't long before he ticked all his boxes.
“Why don't we invite your girl— Leah for a brief chat?” Rafael said with the smile of a masochist playing on his lips.
“Leah…” Luke called as he suddenly got swallowed in cold sweat. “No, not her, please.” He begged, his heart sinking deeper past the bottom of a deep ocean.
He knew it at once, Rafael was about to use the greatest means of torture against him; the one that required the blood of the soul one held dearly like his own.
“Do whatever you want to me, but not her, Santiano. She knows nothing about this. Listen, I did all of this on my own.”
Rafael raised an eyebrow, expressing his surprise at Luke's ploy of foolishness just to protect his own woman— Leah from him.
“Oh, is it?” He questioned with a slight scoff.
“Yes, it is true. Leah is very much innocent, don't let her in here, please, I beg you.” Luke continued to cry out his plea to Rafael endlessly, hoping he would listen, but he knew it to be too late.
Rafael was already bent on making him cough up where Vanessa was and if it meant he had to take someone else's life to find Vanessa, he wouldn't hesitate to do that.
Soon, Leah was whisked into the room, Luke's heart tightening within his chest as he finally laid eyes on Leah— his beloved.
It had been days since he last saw her as he had been preoccupied with the Devereaux family business concerning the business deal with the Martini DeLuca family that had gone down the drain, painting a cold hue of failure against the Devereaux family.
The last time Luke had heard from Leah was through the letter she had sent as regards her change of mind towards Vanessa's escape from the mansion, away from Santiano Rafael Devereaux and that has been it.
But now that he thought of it, the letter he had received, was it truly from Leah? The wordings of the letter had a different bearing from his; Leah would have made her plans known to him. It made slight sense to him that he had missed something really important which he should have considered first and that was the existence of a letter in the first place which shouldn't be.
No! He had overlooked a variable from that moment. Leah had never for once written him any letter. And why does the tender woman he loved from the moment he set his eyes on her look like a different woman?
Leah was already less the woman he used to know, her skin shriveled up and her eyes sinking into their sockets. Her lips were dry and her entire body seemed to have shrunk and then, a single thought crossed his mind as he beheld the woman before him.
‘Where had Leah been all these days? The letter, who had sent it?’