Chapter 159: Telling her about his family’s death

His gray eyes turned distant as if looking back to the memories. "The first day he took me to his house, I’d thought he was going to give me food and a place to sleep after I’d suffered on the streets of Mirage Mesa for many days and nights, but David Wayner did no such thing, instead he locked me up in a damned cage meant for dogs!"

"Why would he do such a thing to you?" She asked, puzzled at the fact that his uncle would be heartless enough to treat his sister’s son like that.

"He was trying to ’discipline’ me because I was a Galverra and he believed that the entire Galverra bloodlines are arrogant, ruthless prideful men. He also told me that he hated my father for marrying my mother and turning her against him and her family.

"My mother was a Wayner and came from a long line of rigidly upright people with impossibly high standards for themselves and everyone else. They were against her marriage to a Galverra because they believe the Galverra’s to be reckless, irresponsible, charming and heartless, which was a complete opposite to the Wayners.

The most prominent trait of the Galverras, consistently evident in the male lineage was their reputation for being womanizers. This reputation for lechery was well-known in their community in Puerto Rico, and it was a trait that they took great pride in, except for my late father.

"However, the others all went through the same path. Including, and especially, my grandfather. I’m not sure a Casanova had anything on the Galverra men when it came to wanting women. To give you a nonoffensive example, when my father and his brothers each turned fourteen, my grandfather gave them a hooker for a birthday present. He had a little private birthday party at the main Galverra estate, and the hooker he’d selected was brought there to attend the party and then go upstairs with the birthday boy."

"What did your grandmother think of that?" Mia asked in disgust of such act. "Where was she at the time your grandfather did that to your father and his brothers?"

"I don’t know, I only knew of this when I dug into my family’s history after my uncle wouldn’t forget to remind me of how the Galverra’s disgusting blood runs in my veins, how heartless and ruthless I’d become just like my late grandfather."

Neil grew quiet, and Mia thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, and then he added, "My grandfather died a year after my father married my mother, and my father was finally able to move out of the main Galverra’s estate in Puerto Rico to Mirage Mesa where he’d studied and met my mom, he took over the company there and started his family. However, anyone who knew the history of the Galverra’s felt pity for my mom for marrying my father who’s already madly and blindly in love with another woman..."

"What? How?" Mia asked.

"It’s a long story I wouldn’t want to dive into because it will divert the topic away from my uncle," he said. "My uncle hated my father to the extent he made the Wayner’s disown his own blood sister. But then when he heard of their death, he immediately came in search of me to discipline me into a submissive obedient Galverra." He reached for his wine and tossed down the rest of it as if he were trying to wash away the taste of his words, then he stared absently into the empty glass.

"What else did he do to you apart from locking you in a cage?" she asked finally.

He glanced at her as if he’d almost forgotten she was there. "He beat me up for the slightest mistake with a barbwire, he never allowed me for once to lay on any of the beds in his house but in the servants room. For months, I went through hell in his hands before he finally decided to take me to the camp. I was taken to the camp with a torn body, I had several injuries from his beating, my entire torso was unsightly and I was so skinny for my age..."

He stopped again and his fingers tightened around the glass he was holding. Despite the years that had passed the pain was still fresh in his memories. The hate he’d received from his own uncle was still carved inside his heart, for years he’d feared the man and did everything that was asked of him. He had no fun memories of all his teenage years because he’d spent it going through intense training to get revenge from the Da Kroll. David Wayner had made sure he had nothing whatsoever to distract him from his path for revenge, and when he’d started to grow attached to Mia Harrison five years ago, he’d betrayed Neil and gave away the investigation of the mall incident...

When Neil didn’t continue to speak, Mia spoke in disgust and anger, "If he dislikes your father, what crime did a twelve year old boy do to receive such treatment?" She said, hating his uncle for what he’d made Neil go through as a boy. No wonder he had several injuries on his chest where he’d tattooed to hide them.

A sardonic smile tugged at his lips as he replied,"Because I happened to have been a dead ringer for my father, we had the same face, the same eyes and height, which, as you can imagine, did not endear me to my uncle in the least. He hated me as much as he did my father."

Mia thought that was the most ridiculously biased thing she’d ever heard, but she kept her feelings to herself and asked, "What was it like in the camp for you?"

"It was hard, but not as hard as my life in the Wayner’s estate," he said, keeping away the part where his uncle would always remind him why he’d joined the military, and how he’d gone there to train and get his revenge, "I spent most of my time training and striving to make my uncle see that I can do better than he’d thought but nothing I did was enough to make him see that I am not Noah Galverra but Xavier Galverra."

Mia had absorbed every word he’d said so far, more than that, she’d absorbed every subtle changes of his tone and expression. Even though he’d invariably included himself when he discussed the Galverra’s behaviors, she’d caught the disdain lacing his voice when he spoke of his late grandfather. She was also drawing some very interesting conclusions from what he had not said. "And what about you?" she asked cautiously. "How did you feel about your uncle?"

He quirked a challenging brow at her. "What makes you think I felt any differently about him than he did me?"

She didn’t hedge. "I sense you did."

He nodded silent approval at her acuity. "I admired him before, but not anymore. Now can we drop the topic of my past? It’s boring." He said, looking down at her but she shook her head, "Not yet."

"You mentioned that your family were murdered, can you tell me more about that part?" She asked cautiously.

"No," he said shortly.

Mia had a feeling she was treading into a forbidden territory with the tone of his voice, but she took the leap anyway. With quiet tenderness, she said, "Please, I want to know everything about you." So that I could completely melt the ice in your heart with my love, and break the walls in your heart with my care, she added internally.

"Please," she added again.

When Neil couldn’t deny the tenderness he felt in his chest from her pleading eyes, he said dryly, "You’re awfully adorable for a woman of twenty-six."

"Nice tactic," she replied, looking impressed and matching his tone perfectly. "If you can’t fool me, ridicule me."

"Well said," he whispered softly, bending his head to kiss her.

"And," she continued, turning her head away so that his only available target was her cheek, not her mouth, "if ridiculing me fails, try to distract me from the topic."

His chuckle was rich and deep as he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and firmly tipped her mouth up to his. "You know," he said with a slow smile, "you could become a real pain in the ass sometimes."

"Oh, please, no—don’t resort to flattery now," she laughed, swiftly preventing him from kissing her to distract her from the topic. "I know what you’re trying to do, and that isn’t enough to distract me from my question. Who killed your parents?"

He covered her laughing lips with his. "A first-class pain in the ass."

Mia went down in defeat as he whispered against her lips and plunged his tongue into her parted lips. Sliding her hands up his shoulders, she yielded to the demanding persuasion of his kiss, putting her heart and soul into it, feeling that no matter how much she gave, he gave back more, and no matter how many times they’d kissed and made love, she’d never have enough of him.

When he finally let her go, she expected him to suggest they go to bed and make love again. Instead he said, "Since I can’t outwit you, I suppose I owe you an answer about that. After that, I’d like to drop the subject of my background entirely, assuming your curiosity is satisfied?"

Mia didn’t think she could ever learn enough about him to be satisfied, but she understood his feelings about this particular subject.

When she nodded, he explained: "When I was a boy, I used to think my parents were the best because they loved each other no matter what, but I was proven wrong the day I discovered my father had another woman who he’d loved before marrying my mom. And that their entire happily married life was just a facade to trick their two children; Noah Galverra had never loved his wife, not even when they’d had a son and a daughter, however our lives had been just fine even with that until the day his lover moved to our City, he started to come home late every night and when he returns, he’d argue with my mom about Ella, his woman.

One night I walked into them arguing in the kitchen about her, my poor mom was so disheartened to discover that my father was still in contact with his lover despite being married, however Noah Galverra denied that fact and said he was only trying to help the woman and nothing else."

Neil fell silent for a moment and Mia looked up at his face with a puzzled expression, "Help her from what?"

"Her abusive husband," he replied with a detached voice, "it turned out his past lover ended up marrying the leader of the Mafia organization, Da Kroll, a complete asshole who’d beat her for whatever reasons, my dad tried to play a hero in her life but he ended up risking our own family’s life by doing so. The husband somehow found out about my father’s plans to get his wife away from him and he attacked first and killed my parents."

"What about his wife, what did he do to her?" She asked, disheartened by his parents deaths and the cause of it.

"Ella disappeared from the face of the Earth," he chuckled darkly, "she disappeared before I could get to her. She must had been frightened by my threat to end her life, or she couldn’t stand her husband, but I’ve searched everywhere for her and I couldn’t find her."

"Were you really going to end her life?" She asked, horrified that he’d even think of doing such thing to an innocent woman but then she understood what he must have felt by losing his parents because of her interference in their lives.

"Yes," he answered emotionlessly, "I was going to kill her the same way my parents were killed...but years later when I couldn’t find her, I gave up on that decision, however no matter the time that had passed, I will never forgive her nor forget what she’d done to our lives."

"What about her husband?" She asked cautiously.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read