Blindsided (14 page)

She shook her head. “I wasn’t always blind. That came later, when I was twelve.”

“What happened? Was there an accident?”

“Accident?” she turned her face fully toward him, her eyes vacant. It was unsettling.
 

“No…” Her eyelids fluttered, head tipping down as she fiddled with her fingernails. “My blindness was no accident.”

He wasn’t going to like this. “What happened?”

She looked back up at him. “I’m blind because my brother, quite simply, wanted to be the best.”

Chapter Seven

“Thirty is a defining moment in one’s life. It’s the pivotal moment. You’ve either made it, or you haven’t.”

“You’re fifty, dad. And still on top.”
 

The curly headed child looked up with adoration in his eyes for his father. And why shouldn’t he? Bruce had given the boy the best of everything. Taller with every passing year, his child would soon tower over him: Six feet, two-point-five inches, two-hundred-twenty pounds of raw muscle—if genes stood for anything. But for right now, he was still his little boy. A father couldn’t want for a better son. He’d made sure of that. The perfect son, it wasn’t so much to ask.

“Bah. I’m still on top.” He waved his finger at the boy. “But I got here when I was thirty.”
 

Bruce turned back to the sideboard. The decanter clinked against the glass as he poured the scotch. A full tumbler for himself, a splash for his boy—the kid was only twelve after all—but he figured given the import of their conversation that a little scotch should mark this occasion.
 

“Thirty. That’s when I took over this company from your grandfather. It took another decade to make Idyllis Records the powerhouse it is now, but it was the gumption and no-holds-barred credo I made when I was thirty that got me where I am. If I hadn’t known exactly what I was worth, known exactly where I was going, I wouldn’t be here now.”
 

His son nodded enthusiastically.

“As you know, I wasn’t the oldest child, not even the oldest son. I had one brother and two sisters, all very capable, who dad could have chosen to place over me. But I got the job. Why? Because I made it happen. I proved I was the best. At thirty I was working harder and making more for the company than any of my siblings. None of them had the smarts I did. None of them had the same level of talent for the business.”
 

He paused, testing the scotch. Rolling the smooth liquid in his mouth before letting it slide with a burn down his throat. It was the best, too. Only the best for him. His gaze returned to his son and he smiled. “I remember the day distinctively. As each one of my siblings hit that magical age, you could see my father’s shoulders sag more. The disappointment on his face as he realized none of them had what it would take to bring our company into the next level of achievement. Until me. When I turned thirty my father smiled. And then he named me CEO and sole inheritor in his will. Do you want to be the best son?”

“I do!”

“Then be the best. And be the best before you’re thirty.”

Byron’s father had clapped him on the shoulder, toasting him with his glass before shooting it back and giving him a smile. And after Byron had choked down his own splash of scotch, he’d smiled as well. Not because his father had chuckled at how valiantly he’d downed the hard liquor, not because he’d understood and appreciated the old man’s advice, but because already, in his mind, he was planning out how he could put that advice into action. He’d be the best. He’d prove he was the best… he’d be the best of them all.
 

Chapter Eight

I’m blind because my brother, quite simply, wanted to be the best.

With that jarring statement their conversation had been interrupted by the eruption of chaos. Garret had once again pulled and primed the old relic that was his registered hobby weapon of choice and Frodo had gone off into circles of excitement, his clumsy antics knocking pillows on the floor, rocking tables and scattering precious porcelain alike. Alarmed, Teigan grabbed his stunner and moved to Aria’s side. A glance down showed her sipping her tea, unperturbed by the pandemonium around her.

A few seconds later Teigan figured out what had set Frodo and his brother off, his altogether human ears finally picking out the distinctive high pitch whirl of a small chopper flying low over the trees. He looked back at Aria, a question on his lips.

“Willis,” Aria answered preemptively and stood up, gracefully gliding over to the sliding door.

The choppers lights swept over well-kept gardens, eventually centering on a twenty-foot wide, shorn landing pad in the center of the back yard. Willis set the stream-lined chopper down with expert ease and cut the engine.

Aria pushed open the patio door and moved partway down a pebbled path where the older man met her and clasped her into a hug.

“I worried.” His softly spoken words carried over the night air that had gone quiet with the interruption of technology.

“I’m fine.” She gave him a fleeting smile in return. “I’m a big girl and can take care of myself.”

He harrumphed at that, but patted her hand, taking it to lead her back toward the house.

“Will our guests be staying long?” He drew out the word guests, making it apparent he did not consider them such.

“We have things to discuss,” she told him.

“Very good then,” he replied, and threw Teigan and Garret a look that said he wished them off the face of the earth.

They moved back into the solarium, each taking up similar positions as before. Willis edged into the corner closest to Aria, his presence hanging like a bank of clouds over the room. His eyes flashed between Garret and Teigan as if he was barely managing to bottle the fury and might of that deadly storm.

Okay then. Let’s just get this over with before the self-appointed watchdog decides to ignore Aria’s instructions and kick us out.
 

“What happened?” Teigan asked, picking up the conversation from before the interruption. “You said your brother blinded you on purpose?”

She nodded stiffly. “That he did.”

Teigan glanced at Willis. His face was a mask of barely contained rage, only this time Teigan wondered if it was for Aria’s brother, not him.

“We had a typical sibling relationship when we were young,” Aria said. “We got on each other’s nerves more than not. We possessed similar traits and skills, and succeeded at most anything we put effort into. He was always more competitive than I was though. I was content to do my own thing. I spent a lot of time outside in the gardens, under the watchful eye of Willis, of course.”
 

She threw a smile toward where Willis was hovering. His stern face softened perceptively, but then stiffened under the attention of the two other men in the room.

“Willis was our bodyguard,” she explained. “I harassed him terrible. But besides just being a pest, I begged that he teach me some basic defenses. He was the first one besides my parents to realize that my brother and I were truly…special.”

Teigan thought of her beauty, her strength of character and kindness. Special indeed. Only he didn’t think she meant it in a positive note as he did.

“After he finally realized what my aptitude meant,” she continued, “he urged our parents to tell us about our origins and warn my brother and I about hiding our abilities from others. They agreed, and my brother was brought under Willis’ tutelage as well. Karate, discipline, control. Byron had always been a bit of a wild card, impulsive, independent,” she hesitated a moment, “arrogant. By seven years of age, my brother had already bloodied a few classmates, broken a couple arms. Both Willis and my parents hoped maybe the training would help him learn to control his heightened strength.”

She took a deep breath, her head tilting toward Willis. “A few months later my brother almost beat Willis to death during one of their sessions.”

Teigan glanced at Willis, watched as the man took three deep calming lungful of air, consciously loosening his balled fists.
 

“What did your parents do?” Teigan asked, focusing back on Aria.

“Mother was appalled,” she answered, “wanted to send Byron to counseling. Dad said he was just being a boy and would learn to control his strength with time. He was grounded, I believe. No electronic toys until Willis fully recovered.”

“What did
you
do?” Teigan directed the question to Willis.

Willis met Teigan’s hard stare evenly. “Nothing. The little bastard was not worth risking Miss Idyliss’ secret for.”

Admirable. Teigan supposed he could forgive the man his overprotectiveness where Aria was concerned. Now he just had to convince Willis that
he
wasn’t a threat.

And you’re not?

“Anyway,” Aria spoke over the tension in the room. “Byron played nice for a few years. I think he realized his road to success was to keep in my father’s good graces. There were subtle things he did, little practical jokes he played on me and some of the household, but never enough to truly upset my father.”

“Until you were twelve.”

She nodded. “When we were twelve, Father brought Byron to the recording studio. He was going to private boarding school in a couple weeks and Father wanted to inspire him to lay out a path for success. Byron later told me how our father was full of this BS about thirty either being the make it or break it point. Kind of like a deadline. I don’t know exactly what was said, but that’s how Byron told it to me. I should have realized then that he was plotting something. He was all chummy with me for the next week.” She gave a self-depreciating shrug. “I passed his kindness off to the fact that we’d be splitting ways soon. He could occasionally be a brat, sometimes downright mean, but he was my brother. I lapped up the attention.”

She turned silent. Willis stepped closer to her chair, laid a hand on her shoulder and sent a baleful glare at the two other men in the room.

“What happened?” Teigan asked when it was apparent she wasn’t going to start again without help.

She straightened under Willis’ touch. “Three days before he left, we were in the virtual reality room. Not unusual. We’d often play games or go on little trips there. He liked to program his own adventures.”

“Pretty smart for twelve.” Garret’s head cocked to the side.

She nodded. “He’s very smart. We each had our strong points. I was the better hacker, but I didn’t get into VR because I knew it would piss him off.”

“We’re you smarter?” Garret asked.

She ignored Garret’s question and went on. “I can’t even remember what it was. Space adventure, I think. Doesn’t matter. He was all excited, wanted to show me what he’d done. Only, there was a glitch in the program.” She shook her head, her lips curling up. “Do you know how long it takes to burn your retina when exposed to the proper combination of high intensity UV lights? A second. A split second. That’s all. We were both covered with minor burns. But he’d been wearing sunglasses that happened to be highly protective of high spectrum light.”

Teigan knew she was omitting something, and it didn’t take a genius to read between the lines. “You think he programmed the glitch.”

“Some minor burns, easily treated, were a small price to pay for making sure his sister would never be able to best him.” She lifted her chin, as if she expected them to dismiss her theory out of hand. Who else had dismissed her?

Garret whistled from his corner of the room. Teigan closed his hands into fists.

He’d wondered what sort of condition affected her sight. Surgeries had completely replaced contacts more than a half century ago, and even oncoming blindness due to degenerative tissues was unheard of with the breakthrough in drug treatment programs. But burns to the retina? Burns of the skin could be grafted. With strong topicals, silica webs, and light therapy, even the most extensive burn patients could make a complete recovery. He didn’t know much about eye tissue, but he suspected the cells didn’t recover from trauma. At one point in time, back in the early 21
^st
century, there’d been hope stem cell research would blow open the medical field. A combination of politics, religious blocking, and a half-century of economic downturn had resulted in a halting of the program. Interest had risen again toward the middle of the 21
^st
century, but then Viadal’s experiments had come under the public eye. Anything that had the stamp of genetic manipulation had become faux pas. It seemed Aria was suffering for it.

“And he got away with it.” Teigan felt the rise of fury rising in his bloodstream. He was beginning to suspect that her father had not wanted to admit his son was anything less than perfect.

“My mother suspected but father said she was being paranoid. I was told to forgive my brother and stop harping on it. I couldn’t and in the fall I went to a private school for the handicapped rather than to the all girl’s prep school.”

“The school Byron visited you at the night of his death,” Teigan guessed.

“Yes.” Her voice quivered slightly. Frodo whined, receiving a pat on the head and a soft smile.
 

Great, even the dog was getting smiles now. Maybe he should plan on being alone in that dog house. He wished he could leave her be, not force her to relive something that obviously upset her, but a quick glance at Garret and he was reminded why he couldn’t. “Did he visit you often?”