Chapter 62 Chapter 62
Chapter 62 Chapter 62
“Did you see the look in her eyes?”
Reno spoke the words, but they felt inadequate, a shallow reflection of the haunting, hollowed-out terror he had just witnessed. He stood balanced on the threshold of her hospital room—one foot rooted in the sanitized, hushed sanctuary where Lisette lay, the other in the sterile, indifferent light of the hallway. He couldn't fully leave. The image of her eyes—stricken, wide, and clinging to him as if he were the only oxygen left in a vacuum—was burned into his retinas. He wanted to be close enough to catch her if she drifted into another nightmare, yet he didn't want the jagged edges of his conversation with AJ to pierce the fragile peace of her sleep.
“It’s like she had a panic attack. I’ve never seen her that scared,” AJ whispered. He leaned over, peeking through the sliver of the doorway with a heavy sigh before turning back to Reno. The cocky, untouchable surgeon was gone; in his place was a man weary to his bones. “I’m glad she has you. Now that she’s awake, I don’t have to worry so much. They never tell you how much work being a big brother actually is.”
Reno’s jaw tightened. “I’ll take care of Lisette. You just make sure the baby of the family is strong enough to fight the cancer. That’s your job.”
“The journey of recovery is just beginning, Reno,” AJ warned, his voice dropping an octave into a register of professional gravity. “I hope you are truly up for what’s coming.”
A dry, mirthless laugh escaped Reno’s throat. He knew AJ meant well, but the warning felt redundant. Reno had grown up in the trenches of siblinghood; he had a little brother and sisters of his own. He understood the silent, heavy mantle of the protector—that visceral, bone-deep instinct to step between his family and a moving train. But what he felt for Lisette wasn't just duty.
It was a gravitational pull. He would walk into a furnace for her and fight the devil himself just to see a flicker of a smile return to her lips. He knew AJ couldn’t grasp that. To AJ, commitment was a foreign language; the man’s medical profession was his mistress, his wife, and his only true companion.
“I’m going to marry your sister,” Reno said, the statement sounding less like a plan and more like a decree of fate.
AJ snickered, a brief flash of his old self returning. “I would welcome you to the family with open arms. Honestly? You’re the only brother-in-law I actually like—or approve of.”
“Don’t worry,” Reno added, his voice darkening. “I think between the two of us, we can find a way to permanently get rid of Michael Mathews.”
“I thought we talked about that.”
The booming, authoritative voice of Adrian Senior vibrated behind them, cutting through their dark plotting. The patriarch stood there, his presence commanding the hallway. “You both need to go home and sleep. Now.” Reno opened his mouth to protest, his heart hammering at the thought of leaving her side for even a second, but Adrian didn't give him the space to breathe. “I’ll watch over my little girls for the next couple of hours. Home. Both of you. Now.”
Reno realized he couldn’t win this fight. His love for Lisette had sustained him through a grueling, sleepless vigil, fueled by the terrifying certainty that if he closed his eyes, her life would slip away into the silence. He had lived on five-minute naps and adrenaline for days. He was a shell of a man, needing food, a shower, and the kind of sleep that feels like a temporary death.
Reluctantly, he stepped back into the room. He leaned over the bed, his heart aching at her stillness, and pressed a lingering, tender kiss to her forehead.
“I’ll be back before you know it, baby,” he whispered into the quiet.
The air in his apartment felt stagnant, a heavy shroud that hadn't been disturbed in a week. Reno marched into the dreary space, feeling like a ghost haunting his own life. The rooms looked foreign, clinical, and cold. Yet, the walls held echoes—specifically of the night he had spent with Lisette curled in the safety of his arms. The memory hit him like a physical blow, causing the stiff, exhausted muscles of his face to twitch into a ghost of a smile.
That night had been the catalyst, the first domino in a brutal marathon of emotional trauma. His mind raced through the blur of the last few days: the gut-punch of finding Lisette and Michael in that hotel room; the soul-shaking revelation that his baby sister was alive; the moment the earth stopped spinning when he heard Lisette was in the ICU; the crushing weight of Catalella’s cancer diagnosis; and finally, the miraculous, agonizing moment Lisette had opened those beautiful brown eyes for him.
He had sprinted through a gauntlet of emotions, moving from hotel rooms to hospital hallways to this dull, empty apartment. He welcomed the hollow silence now. He wasn't sure his heart could handle another spark of feeling without shattering completely.
He stripped off his clothes in the middle of the room, leaving a trail of the last week on the floor. In the bathroom, he stepped into the shower and cranked the handle. He didn't wait for the heat. The icy, needle-like spray drummed against his aching shoulders, a sensory assault that grounded him. As the water slowly transitioned from freezing to scalding, he let out a long, ragged sigh, his muscles finally surrendering their tension. He hadn't realized how much he needed the solitude—the simple, mindless rhythm of water hitting tile.
Slowly, Reno sank down until he was sitting on the gray, white, and black mosaic floor. He pulled his knees to his chest, tucked his head down, and buried his face in his palms. Here, behind the locked door and the curtain of steam, he finally shed the iron-clad masculine exterior he wore for the world. He let himself weep.
The tears were thick with a guilt that tasted like ash. He felt like a catastrophic failure—as a brother, a son, and most of all, as the man who was supposed to protect Lisette.
He hadn't been able to find Rhyne. He had abandoned her, just like he felt he had abandoned Lisette. If he hadn't been so blinded by his own wounded pride, he would have realized she’d been drugged. He would have been the one to drive her to safety. Instead, he had turned his back on her in that hotel room, fleeing to Hawaii on a desperate goose chase while she suffered.
Deep down, in the parts of his soul he had tried to silence, he had always known Lisette would never betray him. She had guarded her heart and her body for so long; why would she surrender to the one man she loathed more than her own biological father? Not even for Catalella would she sink into that filth. But his heart hadn't been listening to logic. It had only reacted to the poison his eyes had fed it. Now, that heart felt like a heap of jagged glass, crushed against the immovable rock of his own inadequacy.
Lisette, his soul mourned. Failure, his mind roared back.
A sudden, volcanic rage flared up beneath his skin, turning his blood to acid. He could hear the pulse thundering in his ears, a rhythmic demand for release. With a guttural snarl, he swung his fist, punching the tiled wall with everything he had left. The wall didn't break, but he heard the sickening crunch of his own knuckles against the stone. He didn't flinch. He knew the physical pain would find him in the morning, blossoming in shades of purple and black... but for now, the only agony he could truly feel was the phantom echo of Lisette’s.