A/N: Hey, everyone! So what's going on? No reviews? That makes me sadddd :( I want to know what you guys and gals think! I want you to share your opinions! I want to hear from you! So, please, don't make me beg for reviews, okay?

Love you all and hope you enjoy another chapter!

Chapter Four

Love Mistaken as Trust

Rusty poked his head into the room, looking around to make sure nothing was going to come flying at him when he entered. Cautiously, he entered the room inch by inch, Danny following behind him. He could hear Lily in the bedroom, thumping around doing whatever it was she was doing. Again, he poked his head in first.

She was packing, violently throwing her clothes into her pack – not bothering to fold them. Not even bothering to look at them, really.

Well, Rusty thought to himself, at least the closest things to her couldn't cause him much harm if thrown.

He turned to Danny, who was frowning so deeply, the lines were forming canyons on his face. "Get in there," he choked out a whisper, gesturing towards where Lily was standing. "Now."

Danny shook his head. "Are you crazy?"

"I told you…"

"Save it," Lily interrupted, standing in front of them. "Both of you. I'm going back to New York. You two assholes do whatever the hell you want, but I refuse to be apart of this."

"Sweetheart…" Rusty started holding out a hand to her.

She ebbed away from him. "You're as bad as he is," she yelled, throwing the tank t-shirt in her hand at his face. "You knew, and you didn't tell me!"

"It wasn't something for me to tell, Lily!"

She paused, her eyes widening and her nostrils flaring with rage. "So instead you get me to blindly agree to trust you into doing something you knew I wouldn't ever want to do! Great husband you are."

Rusty's face dropped, and Lily knew she hurt him more than if she had thrown something breakable at him. In her fury, though, she didn't really care. Rusty brought a hand up to his face and rubbed his chin, turning and walking into the sitting room to get away from the situation for a second. It was Danny's turn.

"Lily, she's not that bad…"

Lily balled her hands into tight fists at her sides, her flesh turning white as the pressure cut off blood flow. All the blood missing from her hands was rushing to her face. "Not that bad? Katherine Montenegro is a fucking sociopath!"

"Can't you just hear me…"

"No, Dad, I can't hear you out. I can't even stand talking to you right now. God, what the hell were you thinking when you decided to talk to her?"

"Lily…"

"Stop! Just stop! I'm not dealing with this right now, and nothing you could say could make me even want to hear you out. Please, Dad, if you ever even loved me once, then turn around and walk away like Rusty did. Just walk away from me, leave me alone."

Danny stared after his daughter, seeing the disappointment and betrayal in her eyes. She was furious on the outside, he could clearly see. Her face was so veiny and red, it looked she might combust. Her arms and shoulders had only stiffened the entire time he was with her. Her posture was ramrod straight. Still, though, in her eyes he could see what was really fueling her anger. In her eyes, she had that same disbelief and desperation he had seen in her as he held onto her hand as a small girl, watching her mother walk away from them.

He shook his head, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and turned to exit the room.

Lily felt the anger that was taking over her subside as her father left, tears starting to well in her eyes and emotion choking her. She cleared her throat, ridding herself of the emotions and blinking away the tears. She had lost too many tears before over her mother. More would just be a waste for herself, a waste of emotion for something that shouldn't have mattered anymore.

Rusty reappeared in the doorway, his arms hanging by his sides. "Is it safe, yet?"

Lily let herself fall onto the edge of the bed, where she slid down the side and crumpled to the floor. Even that short little burst of fury made her exhausted, her legs buckling out from underneath her. Rusty walked over and sat next to her, holding his hand out to her. She stared at his open palm in front of her for a while. Finally, she laced her fingers with his, their joined hands falling to rest on the floor between them.

"So you do trust me."

"No, I love you. And, obviously, love can be mistaken for trust sometimes."

"So… you don't trust me, then?"

"Not after this. Not really, no."

Like Danny, Rusty would've preferred the yelling. This sort of somber, melancholy voice she had was plucking at his heartstrings. "In my defense, I told him to tell you…oh, like a hundred times."

She paused, collecting her thoughts. "He should've told me the second he started talking to her, yes. But you should've told me the moment you knew he wouldn't," she sighed. "God, even down there he wouldn't tell me."

"He couldn't."

Lily picked her knees up and brought them to her chest. She untangled her fingers from Rusty's, wrapping her arms around her thighs and linking her hands in front of her calves. "I really am going back home, Rusty. That woman…she…."

"We never really talked about your mom before."

Lily buried her face in her knees. She had spent so much time trying to forget about her mother, her brain physically started to hurt when asked to willingly recollect. Several moments passed, Lily's attempt to wait out the pain pulsating through her mind. Moments of silence. She could hear Rusty breathing to was so quiet, and the sounds of his inhalation and exhalations started triggering more pain. "Fine," she finally spoke, her voice muffled by her hidden face, "I'll tell you what I know and you tell me what you know."

She could almost hear Rusty nodding his head. "I can agree to that. What do you want to know?"

"Everything. From the start."

Rusty shook his head. "Well, I don't know everything, but I can tell you what I do know. It's not much, really." He shifted, positioning himself so he could still lean against the side of the bed but face her at the same time. She turned her head to look back at him, her cheek resting on her forearm. "She called him, I do know that. Before she called Rueben and invited him."

"How was she invited?"

"Some boyfriend of hers looking to impress her or something. I'm not one hundred percent on that one. But apparently her and Danny been in contact every now and then, trading tips and things. Not so much, really. Every few years, if I understood Danny correctly. He was kind of cryptic about the whole thing."

"Pfft. I believe that. If Katherine was ever good at something other than being a lousy mother, it was getting Danny Ocean tongue-tied."

"Well, all he really told me was that she called. And then she called Reuben and invited him, seeing as how he's really the only one of us that really fits the profile of the people on this island."

"So that's it? Two phone calls and here we are?"

He shook his head. "I'm sure that's not all, but it's all I got. You'd have to talk to Danny for the rest."

Lily almost smiled, almost felt a laugh gurgle up from her throat. She moved to stand up then, using the bed as an anchor as she hoisted herself back up on her feet. "Yeah, that's not going to happen anytime soon."

"Why? Why does your mother…"

"She was never really my mother," Lily snapped.

"Okay. So why does Katherine Montenegro get you so upset?"

Lily crossed the room to the vanity, planting her fists on the dresser and hung her head. "Because it's in her DNA to get under my skin."

Rusty, still firmly seated on the floor with no intention of moving, waited for her to continue. "Lily," he verbally provoked after several long, silent minutes, "come on. I told you, and you're supposed to…"

"I'm working myself up to it," she mumbled. "Katherine Montenegro was a poison the moment she met my father. She was conning him. Him, of all people. And Danny Ocean, insane as he is, was turned on by it. Hence, me."

Rusty moved then, standing and crossing over to her. He put his hands on her hips, drawing her upright and into his body. "Which I'm grateful for," he spoke into her hair.

She allowed him to manipulate her, felt lighter like he was the only thing holding her up. "Yeah, well, she only stayed until I was two, then she decided she couldn't settle down and handle family life. Her and Dad were never married, so she felt it was okay to just leave. Then, a year later, she showed up again. Stayed for six months that time, then left for six more months. When she came back that time, I was five and I started to realize what was going on. I was being abandoned by my mother. She gave me one more year after that, and that was the last time I saw her. It was the first time I actually saw her leave." She paused, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against Rusty's shoulder. "There was this school bus that would go by our house every morning for the kids in my neighborhood, and I was obsessed with it because it was yellow and that was my favorite color once upon a time. So when the taxi appeared in the driveway one morning, I was ecstatic. That is, until I saw my mother get in and drive away for the last time."

Rusty wanted to say something to her, wanted to tell her that he knew how she felt or something to console her in some way. But he had nothing.

"The worst part was, that I didn't realize until I was later, was that she never looked back. Not even a glance out the window. Nothing."

"So that's why you hate her so much?"

Lily did laugh this time, the noise erupting from her mouth and actually surprising herself. "No. Honestly, we were better off without her, and she didn't belong there. I hate her because she kept calling Dad. Calling for money, jobs. Even conning him for it, sometimes. And Dad… well, he would just give it to her. Just like that. And as much as she called, she never once asked about me. Never cared that Dad might need that money to buy me food or clothes or stuff for school. He just gave it to her, and then moved onto his next job to try make up for the deficit."

"Maybe giving us this job is her way of trying to make up for that."

Lily wrenched around in his grip, forcing his hands off her. "No, this is still all about her. She obviously can't so something so big on her own, and she knows that Danny Ocean is just the guy to give her what she wants. Always has in the past."

"So that's it, then?"

"I'm going home, Rusty. I'm not going to be part of this, and I advise you don't either. If Dad wants to sink his ship next to hers, then let him," she scoffed. "Hell, she's probably going to promise him and unbelievable payout an then steal it all away from underneath him anyway."

"If that is true, then why let it happen again? It's not just Danny here, Lily. It's Reuben and Linus, and all the guys out there. It's Tess, too. You going to let Katherine ruin them, too?"

Lily averted his gaze, looking out the window towards the pool. She hadn't thought of that, hadn't realized that it was more than just her father at stake here. Before it was just Danny, and he managed to get back on his feet fine after Hurricane Katherine ran through his life. But now? Now it was all her friends, her partners in crime. Now it was Tess and Isadora, her family. Now, there was so much more at stake than just her emotions.

"I don't know if I can, Rusty. I don't know if I'm strong enough to deal with her."

Rusty ran a hand down her face, cupping her cheek in his palm. "You don't have to be strong all by yourself. I'm here. You may not trust me right now, but you can."

"I really just want to go back home right now and forget all this."

"And I really want you to stay. If anything, to see past Katherine." Lily rolled her eyes at him. "Look, I'm not going to give you anymore reasons to stay. If you really want to go, then go. But the plan that I have set in place – the plan that I came up with by myself, without any of Katherine's influence and excluding her presence all together – has a really big part for you in it and it really, really won't work without you."

"Thought you weren't going to give me anymore reasons."

"That's not a reason to stay, sweetheart. That's a fact. I can rework a plan, but it would be a lot more successful and a lot more solid with you there. Fact."

She didn't move. Or couldn't, frozen with conflicting emotions. Rusty wasn't sure of which.

"This about it, Lil. Just promise me that. Give it a day, or two... or even three… There's some time until this job starts. But not a lot, so don't think too much."

Lily stared at the closed door in front of her, wondering what exactly was in store for her on the other side. The hallway was empty, the ornate white and gold trimmed walls bounced the sounds of her footsteps back at her as Lily started to pace. She needed to talk to Tess – desperately needed to talk to Tess – but she couldn't risk the chance of running into her father. Not yet. Not without throwing things, or forcing up crazy, homicidal thoughts.

She stopped, leaning against the wall across from the door. Lily pulled out her cell phone from the pocket of her jeans and speed dialed Tess's number. Tess answered after only one ring. "I've been waiting for your call. What took you so long?" she answered, her tone skipping all pleasantries just like her words.

"This may sound silly, but I'm standing outside your door. I just can't… is Dad there?"

The door opened suddenly, Tess standing on the other side with her cell still pressed to her ear. They both snapped their phones closed and pocketed them in sync.

"Danny's not here," Tess started, entering the hallway and closing the door behind her, "but he is coming back. So what do you say we go for a walk?"

The flowers in the Reuben's garden were in full bloom. Lilies and daffodils were the first in what seemed like a field. Whites and yellows perfectly blended into the orange and pinks of the fuller-belled lilies behind those. The pinks then mixed into purple orchids, peppered with violets and baby's breath sprayed underneath. After those, the garden erupted into a jungle of exotic plants Lily had never seen before. There were a few cacti lining the perimeter (honoring Nevada's landscape, of course) but the majority of the garden's walls were made up of rose bushes of all different sorts of colors – spreading over every inch of its supporting wrought iron fences and towering archways.

Tess led the way to a spot near the center of the garden, where a canopy was set up over a few small, round tables next to a marble fountain in the shape of a baby spitting water into the basin below. Tess took a seat closest to the fountain, and Lily sat across form her.

"So let's just dive in here," Tess proposed, folding her in front of her and leaning over the table like they were about to divulge secrets. "I'm pissed off, you're pissed off… both towards your father."

"God, of all the dumbass things to do!" Lily nearly yelled, but managed to contain her composure. "Why didn't you tell me? Call me? I could've…"

"Because I had not idea! I mean, not that Katherine was behind all this insanity. Believe me, if I knew your father was talking to that woman, much less giving her money, I would have."

Lily snapped her head back. "He gave her money? For what this time?"

"Oh, Lily, you don't think Katherine would give up the Fantasy Island information without some insurance, do you?"

"So that's the investment you were talking about one the plane?"

Tess nodded, her mouth forming a thin line across her face. "I firmly stand by my previous statement of investmentS. He wired her several payments, even though he claims it was only one."

"For what, exactly? Did he tell you?"

Tess tossed her head back, shaking her amber hair from her face. "He said it was a down payment."

"Which means what?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Lily swore an oath under her breath. Usually, she did mind cursing – and often cursed like a sailor – but it she felt guilty doing it in front of Tess for some reason and tried to keep it clean most of the time out of respect. "So what about Isadora's boarding school?"

"Expensive, yes, but manageable. I made sure of that first and foremost. Ever since Isadora tested gifted, public school doesn't seem like an option anymore. And she absolutely loves where she's at. I would never let someone like Katherine Montenegro jeopardize that."

Lily smiled. Not out of sarcasm, and not in a mocking way. Genuinely smiled. She loved that Tess was so strong, so protective of her daughter. She loved the way Tess loved her family, and she loved the way Tess loved her like family. Looking across the table at the woman, Lily couldn't help but feel powered by her strength. She felt more stable around Tess, more whole. When Lily found herself falling apart because of the actions of her father, Tess was the one she wanted to talk to. Sure, Rusty could hold her up physically, but Tess was the one to keep her together mentally. Like a mother.

Lily often found herself wondering what it would be like if Tess really was her mother.

But she was stuck with Katherine.

"So you confronted Dad about the money?"

"You bet your ass I did! I asked him why he would give such a psychopath so much money for seemingly no reason. He couldn't answer me."

"He never could. All through my teenage years, I asked him that same question. By the time I was twenty, I figured out I probably wasn't going to get one."

"You think he still loves her?"

Lily's mouth fell open. "Are you serious?" But by the look on Tess's face, Lily could tell she was serious. Dead serious. Her eyes had shrunken in, lenses glistening with would-be tears. The corners of her mouth had fallen into a frown, her cheeks hollowed. "He never loved her, Tess."

"Then why would he keep giving into her?"

"Because… because he was – is – obsessed with her. She conned him. Him! Danny Ocean! And then she was the one that got away. Again. And again. And again… He's just fascinated by her, that's all. But it's definitely not love."

"I knew she was going to be a huge problem when he first told me about her. Then, after that, she had the nerve to call our home and ask me to put him on the phone. That was when I knew I hated her."

Lily had lost her smile, lost her calm. Tess had malice in her voice, and hearing it made Lily's blood start to boil again. "Are you going with them, Tess? To Fantasy Island?"

Tess sighed, her eyes reverting to her lap. Her hands were still folded on the table in front of her, and Lily decided Tess looked like she was in a confessional, about to tell all of her wrong doings. "I have to. Hoax or not, Katherine or not, I need to protect my family. I may resent the decisions your father makes when it comes to her, but he's my husband and if he can't stand up for himself… well, I have to . For his sake, for Isadora's sake. Hell, for my own sake."

Lily nodded, her own mind made up due to Tess's determination. "If you're going, I'm going."

"Oh, Lily, honey…"

Lily held her palm up, stopping her. She paused for a second, relishing in the term of endearment Tess used for her. Honey. Yes, Tess was definitely a mother figure to her. "No, you're right. I need to help protect my family. You, Dad, Rusty, Reuben, the rest of the guys. Non of you have ever went directly head to head with Katherine Montenegro before. The woman's slimy, and you'll need me there."

"Have you ever went head to head with Katherine before?"

"Once," Lily replied. "But that's neither here nor there. Even if I hadn't, I know Katherine. I've studied her through the years. I know how she works."

"Sounds like you have a specific battle plan in mind," Tess mused, planting her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand in intrigue.

"Being the daughter of Daniel Ocean and the wife of Robert Ryan has taught me a few things in the years. Yes, I do have something in mind, but we're going to need help. Luckily, I know just the right person."