"I find it hard to applaud that, Jakob."
I shrug. "I understand, Brys. I really do. There is a stigma around sex work that has always clung to the profession, nomatter howwokeour society may become. But like hunger or addiction, you cannot understand it from the outside, and I do not say that in judgment. It is merely reality."
She nods. "I suppose I get that."
I blow out a breath. Keep going—into the hardest part. "I bought business after business, and eventually, I had no more girls and more businesses than I knew what to do with…and two new addictions almost as toxic as heroin: money and control."
"There's more?"
I nod. "Oh yes. I was still lost, you see. I had a penthouse condo in Midtown, a Bentley with a driver, a stock portfolio earning interest, a diverse portfolio of successful businesses…and the respect of no one. Because to anyone who was anyone in this town, I would never be anyone but the junkie whore. No amount of money could erase that. And worse,Iknew that's all I was. Just a junkie whore in a tailored Brooks Brothers suit.
"I needed something more, I just didn't know what. I didn't drink or do drugs, obviously, because I knew the danger of losing control to a substance. So I searched for the outlet I needed to find some kind of peace within myself. The only place I ever found it was in sex—but only under certain circumstances. It was difficult to find a partner who could give me what I needed—absolute obedience. Not just sexually. In every aspect of life. And the girls I was finding to date, so to speak, could give me obedience in bed but not in life, or vice versa, or not at all."
I go silent for perhaps thirty seconds, counting my heartbeats on the monitor.
"And then," I say, whispering, "I met her."
20
TRUTH, LIES, AND DAMNATION
BRYS
Her.
Isabel.
It's hard to process all that he's told me, and he's not done yet.
"The control soon became my drug of choice while money was merely the tool that got me what I needed." He stares at nothing, seeing the past. "I burned through girlfriends, whores, subs, everyone I could, but no one and nothing could sate my need for control. It is an addiction, truly. I could not function if every aspect of my life was not ordered and in my control. I lived a very regimented life. But the partner? She eluded me. I needed someone who was pliable—pliant to my will. Someone I could mold and craft into what I needed. But what did that look like?"
He’s silent for a moment or two, and then resumes.
"I met Isabel at a cafe. She was sitting outside in the sun, in this delightful, alluring little sundress. Her hair was black as night, and her eyes bright with intelligence. She was sixteen and nothing like the starving, desperate girls I used to lure into prostitution. She had parents, a family, a future. She was happy." He frowns, glances at me. "I never touched any of the girls that worked for me—never. And yes, many of them were underage.I make no excuses for that. I could claim truthfully that I kept them off drugs and kept them from starving and from being homeless, but that doesn't absolve me. There is no penance I could ever pay that would be enough, and I know that." Another pause. "But this girl? Even now, I don't know why…what it was about her. I fixated. I became obsessed with her. I followed her from home to school, watching her. I bumped into her once to prevent her from being hit by a car. I killed a man who would have mugged and raped her. She never knew. All she ever knew was that we saw each other at that cafe a few times a week, and we'd talk. She was learning English, and I knew how that felt, so I let her practice her faltering English on me. I had never touched her at that point. She was just a girl, sixteen, seventeen. Too young. But I was obsessed. I lost myself to it—to her.
"The only thing I could do to break the hold was vanish. So I did. I sold off everything I owned, every business, everything. Liquidated it all and went back to Europe. Lived incognito for months, trying to get her out of my system. Nothing worked. I even thought about trying drugs, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, not even to get her out of my mind, out from under my skin. I craved her. I don’t know how to put it so you can even begin to comprehend, Brys. I wanted to know her every thought. I wanted to know every inch of her body. Every sound she made, waking and sleeping. I needed toownher. To make her mine and no one else's. And no matter what I did, I couldn't get her out of me.
"I liked that Jakob was gone. It was freedom. I could be anyone. So I invented a new persona—Caleb Indigo. A good old American success story, rags to riches, self-made. Rising from the ashes of poverty to be a billionaire. And that was true, to a degree. I wasn’t a billionaire at first—I had about fourteen million saved. Not a fortune, but a lot."
I snort. "To the vast majority of the world, Jakob, thatisa fortune."
"When you've had billions, it feels like nothing." He shrugs, continues past that. "I tried to stay away from her while I built my empire as Caleb Indigo. But I just couldn't. I kept finding myself standing in the shadows across from their apartment, watching her through a window. Even seeing her sitting and reading or watching TV was a thrill. To be close to her? To hear her voice? I dreamed of it every night." He sighs, shaking his head. "Then one day, everything changed. I…I saw it happen. Her father was driving. They were all together in their car. They'd gone to a movie and dinner. I followed, watched the movie, and her, from the back row. Followed them home in my car. They stopped at a red light. Went through on the green, but a cube van blew the red. Smashed into the driver's side. Her father was killed instantly. The car flipped and spun too many times to count. Her mother was killed, and Isabel was ejected. I watched it happen. I watched the car spin, flip, and tumble. Watched the metal crumple. Saw the blood smear and splatter. Saw her body fly out of the car and hit the pavement—so hard. So hard. It was…god, it was a nightmare. I was first on scene. A good Samaritan. We were only a couple of blocks from a hospital. I picked her up and carried her to the ER. There was so much blood. Her head was…" he shakes his head, voice shaking. "Her head was…" he trails off, voice broken. "I can't. I can't."
Jesus. She still has so much power over him.
I wait, watch. His hand shakes under mine. My emotions are all over the place. I don't know what to think, what to feel. For now, I put the reckoning of emotions aside for later.
"It's alright, Jakob," I murmur.
He shakes his head. "It's not. It's not. It's not okay. She had a severe T-B-I. She was in a coma for four years, three months, and six days. I spent the vast majority of that time in her room. Ipaid her hospital bills. Took care of my business from the room as much as I could. I sat in that room and willed her to wake up. And then, one day, she did." He pauses, his voice so soft I can barely hear him. "She lost all of her memories. Total retrograde amnesia. No clue who she was. Not her name, not a single memory. Nothing."
"So by the time she woke up from the coma, she was legal," I say.
I snort. "As if that was my concern. At that point, sex was the last thing on my mind. I saw the opportunity for what it was—a chance to…"
"She was a tabula rasa," I whisper. "A blank slate."
He nods weakly. "Correct. And I utilized it. I lied to her. I took her home and carefully, slowly, and—I must say—artfully crafted a new person out of the remains of who she was. An elegant woman. A powerful woman."
