Betrayed (The New Yorker) Page 17

  “You have always been mine.”

  * * * *

  Reno looked out his window. He could already feel the winter chill in the air seep into his bones. The warmth of Lisette and the heat from their love making kept him hot inside. She had been a virgin; she had given him the greatest gift of all. What he didn’t know was—what he was supposed to do next. He already had so much going on—Rhyne and his father, the family business he was supposedly inheriting. Reno wasn’t sure who he was anymore. Coming to New York had changed him. He was no longer the vengeful islander. He was now one of the New York Kent’s. He was the first-born son. His life had ceased to belong to his revenge, now it belonged to his family and to Lisette. He was now accountable not only to himself, but to his brother, sisters and the love of his life.

  Reno desperately wanted to move forward, but Rhyne was holding him back. Oh little one. I’ll find you. Now that I have the resources, I will find you.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Reno looked back and his breath hitched in his chest. She looked like an angel. Her black wavy hair floated in the slight wind, his T-shirt hung off her like a tent. She was his angel. “I am thinking about a beautiful girl.”

  “Oh! Her first name better start with L and her last end with an S.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, rising on her tip toes for a kiss.

  “Nope, her first name starts with an R and the last name ends with a K.” He smiled down at her. “I was thinking about my sister. I have to find her. Rhyne Kent.”

  “You understand my dilemma, don’t you?” The pleading look behind the pool of tears in her eyes tugged at his heart. “You have to understand, I was also trying to protect my little sister. You must, because I know you would do anything for your sister.”

  “I get it, but you should have told me. You should let me in,” he said.

  “So should you.”

  Reno laughed. He had been alone for so long. Learning how to let people in would be hard, but he would somehow learn. “You are right.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Of course you are.” He barked out a laugh. He had missed these moments of insanity with Lisette. She was incredible and she was his.

  “So what now? Now that you know the truth and are sure of how much I love you, what do we do now?”

  “How about a date?”

  “A date, that’s all you’ve got. Pretty lame.”

  “Ah, my inappropriate Lisette is back. But what happens when you decide you want something more than you want me?”

  “That would never happen,” she whispered.

  The gentle brush of her lips was enthralling, lighting up nerves everywhere in his body even in parts that had no right to be connected. He felt her lips part and the trace of her tongue on his mouth.

  “If you aren’t careful, you are going to end up back in that bed.”

  “You can shackle me to the bed for as long as you want. You definitely won’t get any complaints from me.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you more.”

  Epilogue

  Rhyne knew this street was familiar. She stopped for a second and looked around.

  In an instant her mind was assailed by memories from the past. She could see him running after the car. Back then she could tell he was running as hard as he could. After a while Rhyne had wished he would just stop. It was obvious he was getting tired, that his feet hurt, but Reno wouldn’t stop. A while longer, and she stopped looking. She sat in the back seat, tears streaming down her face, her hands folded on her laps, hopeless.

  The next second she wasn’t in the car—she was standing at a front door, her fist lifted as if she was about to knock. She heard shuffling from the other side of the door, Slowly, carefully she pushed the door open. Rhyne walked in and it was as if nothing had changed throughout these years. The couch was still in the same place, the television was as dusty as it used to be. The potent smell of booze and cigarettes filled the air.

  The terrified sound of a little girl crying pulled her toward the back rooms of the tiny apartment. Rhyne almost ran into her mother. She was just as she remembered, disheveled and barely sober. Kono didn’t seem to notice her. Another cry pulled Rhyne’s attention from her statue mother. She remembered where the hall led to, her and Reno’s room. She walked down the dirty hallway kicking bottles out of her way and walking around the syringes. No doubt Kono and her boyfriend were having a party.

  She pushed the bedroom door open. The cries filled the room and froze her blood. The first thing she saw was Reno’s tiny body as he latched himself on the man. She knew who was under that man, it was her. To her, Kono’s boyfriend always looked like a giant. Even now as a grown woman she felt he was the biggest man she had ever seen. She heard a noise behind her and there was Kono. Kono watched as Reno fought to get the man off her. Kono didn’t move to help. In fact her face was expressionless, her eyes blood-shot red. She was high. Rhyne had learned how to recognize the symptoms at an early age. But something she didn’t understand was why Kono wouldn’t help them. She was their mother.

  “Mom! Help me!” Rhyne looked back and forth from her mother and from the scuffle. It didn’t seem real. In fact it wasn’t real. Rhyne looked up at the dusty ceiling, seeing the cobwebs at each corners. She had to wake up.

  “Wake up!”

  Rhyne’s eyes flew open and all she could see was darkness. Reno wasn’t there anymore, Kono wasn’t there anymore and neither was the giant. She sucked in a deep breath as her body shivered from fright. She felt a hard kick from the inside of her body. Rhyne’s hand rubbed and caressed the swell of her body, trying to soothe the baby inside—clearly disturbed by Rhyne’s dream too.

  “It’s okay, I’ll always protect you.”

  As if put to the test, the door flew open and a woman walked in. At first, when she met her, Rhyne thought she was her savior. But now she knew the woman was her captor. She was keeping her prisoner.

  “Get up and get dressed, we are leaving in half an hour.”

  *The End*

  Prelude

  The New Yorker II

  - On Call -

  He could hear the noisy chants of the college kids outside his window. His Range Rover was built for the worst and the best conditions. But right now all he could do was whisper a thank you to the car gods as the large back seat accommodated him and his latest catch. Who would have known bringing Lisette to a stupid bonfire would bear such fruits.

  He stared at this woman’s pair of perfectly molded breasts and couldn’t bring himself to touch them. So he let his tongue do the touching and the tasting for him. He stared at the beauty spot just above her left breast and thought how perfect it looked.

  “Be gentle with me.” Her sweet voice spoke innocence.

  His nerve endings electrified as his hands caressed every inch of her naked body. Kneeling between her legs, his hands cupped her soft rump and lifted her hips toward him. He teased at her entrance, his lips catching and swallowing the startled gasp that came from her mouth. He didn’t understand what she meant by her statement until he buried himself to the hilt in her velvety cove. She was as tight as a fist, and the flicker of pain in her eyes, told him the gravity of what he had just done. He wanted to pull back, but her legs scissor-locked him in place. Her hips rose and fell as she started to move against him. Groaning in defeat he buried his face in her shoulder and rocked into her. She felt so beautiful, so perfect.

  His sweet innocent beautiful, Katherine.

  AJ pushed his chair back, kicked it to the floor and sent his fork sailing into the air and through his mother’s favorite crystal. Can this day get any worse? He groaned as his mother whimpered at the sound of her expensive treasure shatter into millions of pieces. He shrank back at his father’s disapproving glare, and brushed off his sisters’ cheeky yet curious gazes. There was only one other person at that table that understood him, and he was glad Lisette had managed to keep him around this long. That night, fat
e had sealed their destinies. Lisette met and fell in love with Reno and he had met and deflowered Katherine. Then he had forgotten her.

  “Reno, I find myself in need of your counsel,” he grumbled.

  “Why not me?” Adrian Senior piped in. “I am your father, and older, wiser and royally pissed off at what you did to your mother’s crystal.”

  AJ walked around the table to where his mother was sitting. “Lo siento, Mama.”

  “It’s all right.” She patted his cheek as he kissed hers. “I just want my little boy to be all right.”

  AJ smiled; glad that she still saw him as the six year old boy she was charged with taking care of all those years ago. “As for you, Dad, you married your high school-college sweetheart, then had me, then you married my mama, you have as much experience as Catalella has with men. By the way, where is that no good bas—” AJ caught himself before his spite and rage for his baby sister’s husband ran away with him.

  “He’s…” He could see Catalella shrink within herself as she tried to lie for a man who had been absent from the marriage since the second they’d said ‘I do’.

  “It’s fine, peanut, you don’t have to explain.”

  “I still say that she should have let us throw him in the ocean,” Reno grumbled out.

  “He misses another lunch and I might just join you boys,” Adrian Senior pitched in. “I think we should take the jet to the Seychelles on the way.”

  “Only you would make a trip out of a murder, Dad.” AJ rocked back on his heels, using his head he gestured toward the gazebo, away from his mother’s garden lunch.

  “Oh, right, you need my wise words, but why me?” Reno grinned.

  “Because, apart from me, you are the greatest player who ever lived.”

  “Former player,” Lisette shouted at them. “If he ever tries something on me, I will cut off his balls, cook them, then feed them to him.”

  “Mija, you don’t have to be so crude at the table,” Rosalinda chastised.

  “She’s just saying a truth, sweetheart.” Adrian Senior emphasized with a bang of his steak knife on the table.

  “Yikes!” Reno cringed, his hands instinctively covering his crown jewels.

  They walked in silence until they reached the stone benches covered with green vines and brilliantly colored flowers. AJ gestured for Reno to take a seat.

  “This must be serious.” Reno chuckled as he sat down. “Tell me little brother, what’s up?”

  “First, I would like to start off as saying that you are in fact like a brother to me. I would hate to dump your body alongside Michael Mathew’s.”

  “Point taken. Besides, Lisette is the love of my life. If it wasn’t for your rule to wait until she is twenty-six—which is twenty-three months, three days and a couple of hours away—I would have married her and put a baby in her belly by now. But we aren’t here to talk about my fantastic relationship with your sister.”

  “I know you were my sister’s first—”

  “—I don’t think—”

  “I don’t want particulars.” AJ groaned. “Actually, I do want a few. How did you deal with the emotional responsibilities?”

  Reno studied him for a second, and then said, “I thought the cardinal rule was never to be a first.”

  “I know. I know that,” he bellowed. “I didn’t know she was a virgin. I kind of found out when I was already in there. I just couldn’t stop loving her. She was perfect in every sense of the word. Her body, the way she said my name, how she responded to me. She gave me chills.” AJ’s body trembled. “I had to go on a binge to get her out of my system. But since I’ve realized that Katherine is my Katherine, I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind.”

  “Note that I am a good listener. Make sure you tell your sister that. Talk me up before I ask her to marry me on her twenty-sixth birthday.” Reno rushed on at AJ’s protective growl, “I heard what you said, but I don’t think you did.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You said you loved her. You never use the L word, AJ. And now she’s in your system? What do you mean, you just realized that she’s your Katherine?”

  “We made love—I mean we had sex two years ago. She’s been working with me at the hospital for over a year now. Don’t laugh but, I kind of forgot her.”

  “What—”

  “I only just remembered yesterday when she was lying in my arms!”

  “You forgot her?”

  “Reno, don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  “It is a big deal.”

  “That’s not the worst part.” AJ groaned. “She’s moving in with me.”

  About the Author

  I listen to the voices in my head and put it on paper.

  Reading, writing, romance, creativity and imagination are the words that describe me best. I was born in Nairobi Kenya and have a passion for books. Romance and love have always been a strange phenomenon for me, so I live these emotions through my characters. I have always wanted to change the endings of a love story to suit my picture of what romance is, so I decided to write my own. Check out my blog www.mokauthor.wordpress.com to learn more about me.

  Enjoy!!!

  Other books by M.O. Kenyan

  Denouement

  Red Tears, Blue Blood

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com