<h4>Chapter 115: Chapter 115 : Cold Blooded Truth</h4>


    Ba.


    I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Or better yet, what Neal and Allegra were up to. Their whispered conversations behind closed doors over the past few days while we were on vacation were confusing. It wasn’t like them to hide things from me.


    It wasn’t like them to act this way in general.


    “Sorry about that. I had to take a phone call.” Allegraughed as she walked over with her very alcoholic mixed drink and a strawberry virgin daiquiri for me.


    “No problem, you and Neal seem to have a lot going on thest few days.”


    She gave me a quizzical look with a small confused smile as she took her seat on the lounge chair next to me on the back deck. “What are you talking about? I haven’t been any different than I always am.”


    “Is that so? Then what’s up with all the secretive conversations with your brother behind closed doors?” As if she had been found out. Her lips parted, and she looked around, slightly worried.


    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”


    “For someone who is rather good at lying, you were doing a very horrible job right now, just so that you know,” I replied with a scoff asughter left my lips.


    Allegra, however, didn’t seem to find myment very funny. Instead, she sat back in the chair, slowly sipping on her drink as she used her finger to fiddle with the straw, making it go round and round in circles as she looked off into the distance.


    “I’m sorry if we’ve seemed a little off. It has nothing to do with you. There’s just some stuff back home that’s kind of blowing our mind right now.”


    If it didn’t have anything to do with me, and things were going on back home, part of me wondered if it had something to do with how she and he had busted into the Valentino mansion trying to save me when Sergei held me captive.


    “There has been something on my mind that I wouldn’t mind asking you.”


    Turning her head, her gaze fell upon me. “Oh yeah, what would that be?”


    “Well, you and Neal never exined to me what it was that you were doing there that day. You rescued me. I saw a side of you, Allegra, that I have never seen before. You werepletely different, and with everything that happened, I didn’t bother asking you then, but I’m asking you now.”


    With her mouth wide open, she seemed deep in thought. “It isn’t that easy to exin.”


    “What isn’t easy to exin?” Neal said cheerfully as he walked over,pletely shirtless, his rippled abs on disy for anybody in the house to see in nothing but his swimsuit, with a beer in hand.


    He was definitely a depiction of being on vacation, and with thoserge yboy sunsses on his face, I couldn’t help but chuckle, admiring the view I had.


    “She was just about to go into detail about why it is that you two busted into the Valentino mansion as you did. I mean, I’ve never seen two people use skills and precision the way that you did, and I was half in and out of it.”


    It was obvious that the conversation I was attempting to have with them was not exactly the conversation that they were hoping for today. However, I was never one to actually do things as they should.


    “You’re going to tell her?” he replied in disbelief as he turned his gaze toward Allegra.


    “I actually hadn’t said that I was going to, but now that you’ve made thatment, I guess we better exin everything to her,” Allegra snapped, hermentced with venom over the fact that Neal had basically given it away, that there was something up.


    “Yeah, you both might as well go ahead and exin to me. I mean, we’re on vacation, and if we’re going to all get to know each other just a little bit better, now would be the time to do so.” Parts of what I’d said seemed to have some type of effect on Allegra, and with a heavy sigh, she pointed to the chair next to her and forced Neal to sit down.


    “Our lives weren’t always as easy as people seem to think they are now. We weren’t raised in the states, Ba. We were raised overseas. Our father was a very important man, once upon a time, and while everybody thought him to be a wonderful father and a wonderful leader, he wasn’t—”


    “He was aplete prick,” Neal muttered, cutting off Allegra mid-sentence as he turned and sipped on his beer, acting as if he hadn’t said anything at all.


    “As I was saying, he wasn’t a good man, and growing up, he had certain expectations from both Neal and me, even though our lifestyles were much different. Hand-to-handbat training was a must, and learning how to use weapons was another must. While I was forced to stay home with tutors to prepare myself for the future, Neal was sent off to boarding school.”


    As soon as Allegra had mentioned the words boarding school, I watched as Neal tensed up. It was clear that what had ever happened there had been a very traumatic experience for Neal. Realization of the nightmares that I had witnessed him have made me wonder if perhaps these were the reason for those nightmares.


    “I think you didn’t like the boarding school, Neal?” I asked softly, not wanting to pry too hard but wanting to know the truth.


    He hesitated to reply to me as he took another long sip of his drink. I couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark sses that he wore, but I could feel the tension radiating off of him. “It was impossible to like considering the situations that urred.”


    Part of me screamed not to ask what had happened, but the curious part of me wanted to know. “What do you mean?”


    “Ba, right now, this isn’t actually the kind of conversation that we need to be having—”


    “Shut the f*ck up for once, Allegra,” Neal snapped at her, his personalitypletely changing as she turned her head with parted lips, seemingly taken back by his response.


    “Neal, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” I muttered softly, not wanting to upset him. But I quickly stopped mid-sentence when he turned his stare to me.


    “Leave it alone,” he replied as he stood, walking off in the distance.


    I had never really seen this part of him, and now that I had, I was slightly concerned that there was a lot more about Neal that I didn’t know and probably should. Not that it would really change my view on him entirely. But it was things like that that made me wonder if he was hiding much more than I could cope with.


    *****************


    As the sun set, I gradually found myself making my way back into the house, eager to take a long hot shower and rx in bed with a cup of tea. It had been absolutely amazing, and spending time with Allegra poolside, and then walking down the beach, had been more enjoyable than I originally thought it would be?


    Expected, though, is that when I passed Neal’s room, making my way towards my own, I would hear him on the phone inside, arguing under his breath to whoever he was talking to. “It doesn’t matter. Just make sure that it’s done.”


    These words sent cold shivers to my heart. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, or possibly even what he was nning to do, but the problem was, there were more secrets that he was hiding and unwilling to share than I wasfortable with.


    Pushing open the cracked door to his bedroom, I watched as he quickly turned to face me, narrowing his gaze before hanging up the phone. “How much of that conversation did you hear?”


    “What is with the attitude, Neal? I’ve never seen this side of you. Why are you acting like this towards me?” I asked him,pletely ignoring his question because it wasn’t about what he wanted to know. It was about why he was acting the way he was towards me. I had done nothing to him.


    “Don’t avoid my question. I want to know exactly what you heard.”


    With a scoff, I shook my head, crossing my arms over my chest. “I didn’t hear anything other than you wanting something done. I literally was walking to my room when I heard you, and everything about the way you’re acting right now ispletely off.”


    A long, heavy sigh escaped him as he ran his hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes closed, taking in the situation. “Look, I just have a lot going on right now, and I don’t have time to answer all these questions.”


    “Well, you need to f*cking make time, Neal, because I’m sick and tired of you acting the way you are, hot and cold, emotional. It’s almost like you’re the one that’s pregnant and going through the hormone changes than I am.”


    Taking two steps toward me, he stopped and stared down at me with a narrowed gaze. “I think it’s time that you retreat to your room and go take a shower and get into bed. It’s been a long day.”


    “Excuse me?” I gasped in disbelief. “Are you seriously going to treat me like I’m f*cking twelve? You’re not gonna tell me what I am and am not going to do! I’m a grown-ass adult.”


    Seemingly taken aback by my outburst, he began tough. “Then maybe you should start acting like one. The world isn’t all pretty like you seem to want to believe that it is. Things aren’t going to just get better, Ba. Things will take a lot of work, and if anything’s ever going to be aplished, you need to start listening to what I tell you to do.”


    It was my turn tough as I stared, wide-eyed, lips parted in shock. “Are you being serious right now?”


    “Why would I joke?” he eximed, shrugging his shoulders. As if my question was idiotic, and I wasn’t listening to anything that he said.


    “Okay, I’m going to chalk this up to you being a little over-emotional about the conversation that we had earlier, and when you decide that you want to start being honest and tell me what the f*ck is wrong with you, or better yet, what happened to you in your past thatpletely has turned you into a f*cking prick, thene find me because the Neal that I’m looking at right now is not the same man that I was slowly falling in love with.”


    As if I had dumped a bucket of cold water upon him, he turned pale, staring at me in silence. What I had said had obviously jolted him. I had admitted that I was falling in love with him, something that I hadn’t actually really talked about before, and then on top of that, I pointed out how he was acting was uneptable in my eyes.


    I didn’t care, though. It was obvious that with his current attitude, he needed a quick dose of reality because if he thought that he was going to act that way to me, and I was going to ept it, he was sadly f*cking mistaken.


    “You want to know what happened?” he said softly, the tone of his voice dark and sinister. Clearing the space between us, he backed me against the wall, his hands mming against the wall next to my head.


    “Neal, what are you doing—” I said, hesitantly, as my nerves slowly set on edge. I was uneasy about the current situation I had put myself in, considering that Neal had never acted like this before, and it was obvious that something in him had quickly snapped.


    “No. You wanna know so bad, you can shut the f*ck up and listen,” he snapped with a cold gaze. “I’m a killer, Ba. We grew up in a Russian family who did nothing but took care of the problems that nobody else f*cking wanted to. I was raised to be a f*cking cold-blooded killer, and when they sent me away to boarding school, things got worse. A cocky ass prick thought he could take advantage of my name, and so I f*cking ughtered him in front of a group of boys without hesitation.”


    Shock and fear flowed through my body like a raging river at Neal’s words. Not only had he killed people, but he was also Russian, just like Sergei, and to top it off, an assassin.


    One that was bred to do the kind of work most people only talked about.


    One that was bred to kill for fun.