Betrayed (The New Yorker) (17 page)

Reno marched into his dreary
apartment. He could barely recognize it. Even though he had spent a week away
from it, it looked foreign. It did hold a moment of significance to him—the
night he had spent with Lisette cuddled in his strong arms. The memory caused
the stiff muscles of his face to twitch into a smile.

That night had started the chain
reaction of emotional instances for him—the night he found Lisette and Michael
in the hotel room, the day he found out his baby sister was indeed alive, the
earth stopping the second he’d found out Lisette was in the hospital, learning
Catalella
had cancer and the moment Lisette opened her
beautiful brown eyes for him.

After a marathon of emotions, rooms
that had hosted significant events in his life, hotels, the hospital, his dull
room felt empty. Yet he welcomed the hollow, void feeling it invoked inside
him. He wasn’t sure if his heart or his body could bear any more emotion.

He marched straight into his room,
pulling his clothes off piece by piece. In his bathroom he stood under the
shower. He didn’t wait for the water to heat up. The icy bullets drummed on the
aching muscles of his body, and as the water slowly warmed he sighed as his
body relaxed. He hadn’t realized how much he had needed the quiet, to do
nothing except listen to the sound of the spray beating against his flesh and
the tiled floor.

Reno sank down to the gray, white
and black tile mosaic. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in
his palms. Here and now he was free to shed his hard masculine exterior and let
himself weep. Part of him experienced a tremendous amount of guilt that told
him he had failed, as a brother, a son, and a boyfriend.

He hadn’t been able to find
Rhyne
. Once again he had abandoned an important female
fixture in his life. If he had stayed behind, he would have figured out that
Lisette had been drugged, he would have driven her to the hospital. Instead he
had deserted her at the hotel without a second chance and left for Hawaii on a
goose chase. He was a failure.

In his heart he had known that
Lisette could never betray him. She had saved herself this long, why would she
give up her virginity to the one man she loathed more than her biological
father. Even to secure
Catalella’s
freedom, Lisette
wouldn’t sink to the depths of the filthy vermin. His heart had been crushed,
it wasn’t listening to the ‘if’,
it
didn’t know
anything besides what his eyes were telling it. Now his heart was broken into a
million more pieces. Crashed against the hard rock that was his failure, it
shattered—and it wasn’t putting itself together.

Lisette,
his heart
wept.

Failure,
his mind
screamed.

Rage burned beneath his skin,
boiling his blood and making its rushing sounds vibrate in his ears. His hand
punched the wall, but it didn’t cave in. Instead his knuckles crunched against
it, but the pain didn’t register. He knew he would feel it, probably in the
morning…at that moment the only pain he could feel was Lisette’s.

Chapter Ten

Lisette felt movement at the side
of her bed. She had woken up in a nightmare a few hours before, and instead of
Reno, it had been her mother keeping vigil at her bedside. She knew that this
too wasn’t Reno. Her body didn’t react the way it normally did when she sensed
him near. Her pulse didn’t quicken, her palms didn’t dampen and she didn’t have
that levitating feeling. Her body was firmly on her hospital bed. She cracked
her eye open, but she missed her opportunity to play dead when those evil eyes
looked into hers.

“I was hoping you had died. After
the beating that ogre you call a boyfriend gave me, it would only be justice.”

Of course—Michael Mathews would
hold the world accountable and at fault for the justice it served him, and
think his actions to the world above reproach. She grinned wishing she had been
there to witness Reno bludgeon the fool.

“Twice!” he whined.
“Once when he found the two of us in bed together and then here at
the hospital.”

At that moment she wished the
accident had left her in a coma, anything not to see Michael’s triumphant glow.
She would have welcomed death if only she didn’t get to see Reno’s doubt. Reno
should know that she wouldn’t betray him. The day she decides to take her first
sip of alcohol in a while, she ends up foxed, too drunk to push Mathews off
her. She would tell Reno, and that would earn Michael another beating, and
hopefully AJ would join in too.
Anything to see Michael in a
coma.

“I know that look. You won’t tell
your boyfriend anything. In fact you are going to tell your boyfriend that I am
the best fuck you ever had.” Michael cackled, his eyes gleaming with revenge.
“You are going to dump him, and you know why?” He leaned in closer his blasted
smile not leaving his face. “You are going to do what I say because your sister
has cancer. I happen to be the only person legally allowed to make decisions on
her behalf. I could just decide to let her slip away in her sleep.”

Alarm racked Lisette’s battered
body. She wanted to scream at him, insult him. She wanted to say something, but
she couldn’t get anything past her throat except the word ‘no’.

“Blink twice for yes if you
understand.”

Lisette glared daggers at him,
before conceding. What was she to do?
Catalella
had
been her responsibility from the second she breathed life into her tiny body
when she was born. Lisette would give her life for her baby sister. By lying to
Reno and telling him the hateful things Michael had instructed, she was giving
up her life. Somehow her love would forgive her, or just understand her.
Michael’s laughter as he left her room chilled her blood, not even the devil’s
laugh could freeze her so.

Reno will
understand. He loves me. He’ll understand.

* * * *

By midday, Lisette could speak.
Thanks to AJ her throat didn’t hurt as much. She couldn’t sit up just yet. Her
eyes followed AJ and the other doctors and nurses as they moved around her bed.
They adjusted her IV, loosened the screws that held her body brace together and
massaged her limbs. Every couple of minutes they would ask her how she was,
probably to remind themselves they were working on a human being. When the
doctors huddled into a corner and a heated discussion ensued Lisette watched
from a distance, unable to fully focus on anything they said. The frown lines
that marred AJ’s forehead told her all was not well

“What is it?” she asked, but got no
response.
“AJ!
What’s the matter?”

AJ rushed to her bedside, his
‘devil may care’ grin plastered on his face. Lisette had learned years ago how
to look through AJ’s defense mechanism. His lecherous grin, the teasing and the
cavalier shrug of the shoulders tried to deflect what his eyes were saying.

“I’m your sister, not some
hoochie
you picked up at a bar and can’t remember her name
the next morning. Tell me what’s going on AJ. It’s my body and I deserve to
know.”

“Maybe we should wait for Reno to
come back.” AJ averted his gaze from her eyes. He was looking at her, at least
according to his definition he was. But AJ’s gaze was fixed at her forehead. In
his thinking, he was still looking at you, even though he’d try his best not to
see you. It was deceptive and would probably work, but only on someone who
didn’t know him.

“Reno,” Lisette said in
understanding. It had to be really bad. AJ didn’t say
wait for Dad or Mum. He said wait for Reno.
Lisette couldn’t. She
needed to know now. “I get to decide what Reno knows and what he doesn’t know.
If you won’t tell me, I will request a different doctor.”

“You didn’t respond,” he whispered.

“Are you crazy? I am responding. We
are having a conversation, Adrian Jackson Ross Junior.”

“I meant…” AJ swallowed hard.

Lisette felt a sliver of fear
course through her. Tears in her big brother’s eyes, she had never seen him
cry. As AJ held onto her hand as he struggled to find words to give her the bad
news, Lisette’s mind played the past two decades she had spent with AJ like a
bad re-run. Nothing—she had no memory of AJ crying. As difficult as it was for
her, she stilled the panicky emotion threatening to present itself as tears.
She smiled,
then
waited. “I meant your legs, piggy.
They didn’t respond to stimuli.”

“Are you sure?”

Keep calm,
just relax. Heart, please don’t beat out of my chest. One, two, three…

“We pricked the soles of your feet
with a needle. You didn’t flinch, piggy.” Lisette bit down as a lone tear
rolled down AJ’s cheek.

“I’m…you mean to say…I can’t walk.”

Four, five,
six…

“I didn’t notice I couldn’t feel my
legs. Everything else hurt. I just assumed…”

…
seven
, eight, nine…

“But—I can’t walk.”

“What do you mean you can’t walk?”
Reno’s bellow filled the hospital room, bouncing off the white walls and
settling deep inside Lisette’s heart. “You made a mistake, right, AJ?”

“No, Reno, it’s not a mistake. She
didn’t respond to stimuli.” With the two men staring at each other, Lisette
took a
well deserved
second to freak out.

I can’t
walk. I can’t walk. I’m paralyzed.
Disabled from the neck
down.
No, I can move my fingers, right?

Lisette wiggled her fingers and was
rewarded by movement. A startled look from AJ confirmed that she hadn’t dreamt
it.

“Repeat the test,” Reno demanded.

Reno took AJ’s place beside her as
AJ moved to the foot of the bed. She stared at the ceiling, praying to the
Almighty that she feel the worst pain in her life. A few seconds passed, and
there was nothing. No pain, no tickle, no feeling.

“I’m paralyzed,” Lisette said
aloud. She needed to accept it, to convince herself it didn’t matter. Coming
out of the accident with her life was a major plus. She would have to do
without her legs.

“We are going to do some tests—” AJ
begun but she cut him off.

“More tests I can fail. Yippee!”
The sarcasm dripped from her tone. “Whatever you do just make sure I’m still
able to donate my bone marrow to
Catalella
.”

“I don’t think—”

“Then don’t. Don’t think, AJ.
Whatever happens I am giving my sister bone marrow stem cells. I won’t fail at
that too. God knows I’ve already failed her.”

“You haven’t—”

“Can I get some time alone,
please?”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Reno
said.

Lisette turned a deaf ear to the
earnestness in his voice. He was hurting, his heart was probably breaking.
Lisette needed a minute to digest it all without having to consider everyone
else’s feelings. “I don’t want to be paralyzed, but here I lie. I just want a
few minutes.”

Reno nodded in understanding. “I’ll
be right outside. I love you.”

“I love me, too.” Lisette teased
but the hitch in her voice betrayed her.

She watched as Reno and AJ led the
medical team out. Once alone, enveloped in a cloud of silence, Lisette froze in
a singular moment,

“You are
going to dump him, and you know why?”
Michael’s voice rang in her ears.
But she now had a different reason to let Reno go.

* * * *

“She’s going to break up with me,”
Reno confessed. Thinking about it in his head, fearing it in his heart sounded
so different from actually uttering the words. Lisette was going to break up
with him and there was nothing he could do about it.

“I’m sure she won’t. She needs
you.” AJ put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t doubt that. I need her
too, but she doesn’t need me here. She’s going to want to do this on her own.”
Reno sighed in defeat. “And I’m going to let her.”

“Are you sure?”

“She needs to know I won’t stick by
her out of pity, I don’t feel obligated. If I have to go away for a while, then
come back and start afresh, I will. Lisette needs to accept her new reality and
the changes it will make to her as a person.”

“You must really love my sister.”

“My heart beats for her. She
controls me, possesses me, and owns me. She already is my partner because she
is my soul mate, the love of my life. In a few months or years I will make her
my wife. But right now she needs me to step back. It won’t be easy, but love
never is.”

Reno stepped back into the room,
ready to accept the cruel loss that fate had dealt him once more. He was about
to make it easy for Lisette, and tell her that he understood, and he would wait
for her. However, he didn’t expect the battalion of words that punched him
right in the heart.

“I slept with Michael. I don’t
expect you to understand. But you have to accept that we are done. It’s over.
As soon as
Catalella
gets better, Michael will annul
their marriage. We want to be together, Michael and
I
.
You have to leave and you can’t come back.”

“But—” the sound of blood rushing
through his veins pounded in his ears. “Your virginity—”

“It was mine to give and I decided
to give it to Michael. When he married
Catalella
and
you left, I realized he was the one I always wanted.”

Through the haze of his tears, Reno
couldn’t read Lisette’s expression. But in his mind he imagined her beautiful
warm eyes turning icy as she shredded his heart with her wicked words. Reno’s
body went numb. He back peddled out of the room. His legs began to fail him and
he landed in his brother’s arms.

“Reno?”

“DJ, get me out of here.” He felt
another pair of arms encircling his waist. His father was there, holding him
up. “Father—”

“It’s okay, son. I’ve got you.”

At that moment he felt like a
little boy. He was kicked back to when he was four years old, his knee scraped
and his daddy lifting him up into his arms. He felt protected then, and now, he
saw through the mist of betrayal with the eyes of a four year old seeking
security in his
daddy’s
arms.

* * * *

Reno stared at the family portrait
on his father’s penthouse living room wall. The four of them were smiling, they
looked happy. He noticed something else. He and
Rhyne
weren’t in the picture. They weren’t part of the Kent family. They were the
outsiders, one could say intruders. He didn’t belong in New York and if he
hadn’t left the island he wouldn’t be torn apart from the inside out. He would
be looking for his sister. He had to admit that without Kent resources he
hadn’t got too far in the past. Now he had a lead.

“I’m going to go back to the
island.” His gaze never left Daniela’s smiling face as he spoke. “I don’t
belong here.”

“You have more of a right than I
do.” DJ sat down on the sofa next to him, the ice cubes in his whiskey clinking
against each other. “You are the first born remember, heir to the Kent fortune
and name.”

“I’m not legitimate.”

“Let me not ever hear you say
that,” Dennis’ gruff tone said from behind Reno. “You are just as legitimate as
your brother and your sister. You are my son.”

“That doesn’t matter. I need to
leave this place.”

“You can’t run away from your
heartbreak, son.”

“I’m not running away I’m just—”
escaping.
“I need to find
Rhyne
.” Reno took DJ’s glass and emptied the contents in
one gulp.

“I have people searching for her.
You need to finish school and learn the ropes at Kent-Corp.”

Reno turned around and glared at
his father. He was about to tell him that he didn’t have a right to tell him
what to do. But, for a second he allowed himself to think. His ego had taken a
definite beating but he wasn’t about to allow his pride to suffer as well.