"And you whored her out."
"No!" He snaps it so intensely he doubles over, coughing. "No. Never. She wasmine. No one could have her like that. No one but me." Softer, then, quieter. "Ididsell her services, but not for sex. She was…" he spends a few moments considering. "I had many clients—of my many legitimate businesses—who were…uncouth, shall we say. And many of them remarked to me on a number of occasions that they wish they could learn how to be more…elegant. Refined. Sophisticated."
"More like you," I supply, my tone wry and more than a little arch.
He rolls a shoulder. "Essentially, yes." A soft snort. "Well, not essentially—precisely that. False modesty is not one of my shortcomings. A wave of his hand dismisses the topic. "I told her I didn't know her name or who she was. I took her to an art museum once, and she was captivated for some reason by JohnSinger Sargent's painting Madame X. So she chose that as her name—Madame X."
I gasp. "Madame X?" My mind whirls. "I have heard of her. Rumors only, but from reliable sources. I was told that a friend of a friend's cousin—or something similarly absurd—had been a client of hers. According to my friend who related this story, he was a mess. Clumsy. No social skills. Vulgar. Just an all-around embarrassment to his socialite parents. After a few months working with Madame X, he was like a new man."
He nods. "That was the business, and she was amazing at it. She could see people for who they were, and help them become who they could be."
I shake my head. "YoucreatedMadame X? Dear lord. And…and when she wasn't tutoring boys in manners, she was…what? Your sex slave?"
"More than that, and nothing so trite or vulgar. My ownership of her was not merely sexual, Brys." His teeth click together. "Brys, I…it is quite difficult to not defend my actions, I must admit. It is true that my obsession was far more than merely sexual. But it was still an obsession. I still lied to her for years. Used her for my own ends. Kept the truth of her past from her. Kept her…captive…essentially, for my own purposes. I would never have let her go, but fate intervened. Brought her to Logan, who opened her eyes, bit by bit." He swallows hard. "Even in letting her go and giving her the truth of who she was, I lied to her. I…I couldn't make myself tell her the whole truth. I told her so many lies mixed with truths and half-truths that I didn't know how to untangle it all. So when she confronted me about who she really was, I told her…aversionof the truth. In part to give her…peace, I suppose. Closure. I know her husband, at least, suspected I was lying. I think he thought I somehow fabricated her accident. I didn't tell her I’d come back as Caleb just to find her. I don’t think I realized that that is what Iwas doing at the time—it wasn’t conscious at the beginning. But I went looking for her the day my feet touched New York soil. Everything I did was bent toward…her. Everything I did to become Caleb Indigo was to be the man I thought she…" he shakes his head, as if unable to finish formulating the thought.
A long, tense silence envelops us both, then.
"And then Caleb Indigo died," I prompt.
He shakes himself out of the reverie and nods. "Yes. I…as Isabel and Logan fell in love and she left me and learned the truth and found her own life without me, I…I couldn't…I couldn't cope. It is tempting to say the wool was removed from my eyes, but that would not be accurate. I was never deluded or delusional. I knew what I was doing and did it with intent for years. But when she found herself and her freedom outside of me, I saw…" A hard swallow. "I saw that she was happy. She was happy with Logan. She was happy without me. And that…it cut deep. It drilled holes in my psyche. But I saw that she was…glowing…with life. She had children—twins." He stops, swallows, and looks away. "A boy and a girl." Another swallow. "She named the boy Jakob."
I feel my eyes fly wide, hear my breath catch. "Jakob?"
He nods. "Heterpaternal superfecundation. It just means—"
"I know what it means," I interrupt.
He nods, skips over that. “She and Logan know, but I don't think the kids do, or ever will."
I snort. "Jakob, Isawhim. He looks nothing like either of them, yet he and the girl do look alike, and they do look like her. He will have questions, someday."
He shakes his head. "He cannot know me. He won't. I…no. No."
"That isn't your choice, unfortunately. You will just have to trust Isabel and Logan to handle that as they see fit."
He stares at nothing, ignoring this. "It became obvious that I couldn’t stay in New York. But I…" A long, harsh sigh. "I had to cut myself out of her life. I had to…it was the only thing I could think of—the only permanent solution. As long as she thought I was alive, she might find me. She might have questions. Or the child might. The only permanent solution was to disappear, to die." Another pause. "I did consider making it…real. Actually—ahhh, removing myself from the earth. And I…I couldn't. My entire being revolted from the idea. So I faked it."
"The car bomb," I say.
He nods. "Nothing left to find." A shrug. "It worked. Although Logan knows I am alive. But as long as I keep my distance…" he trails off.
"And you started over again."
The longest pause yet grows out of my leading statement.
"No." His eyes slide over mine like same-polarity magnets drawing too close. "No, I never started over. I gave her fourteen billion dollars in my will. I kept…ohh, a hundred million or so. Enough to start over comfortably,” he glances at me. "Business-wise, I mean. Which I did. Eventually. But personally? No, I didn't start over. I…hid. I have spent the last ten years as a recluse, living alone above the Club. I went months at a time without human contact."
"Jakob," I breathe again; so many times, I haven't known what to say except his name.
"Inez—Sophia—has been the only human contact I have had for over a decade. Until Pugli discovered my existence and began hunting me, at least.”
"How do you know Pugli?"
“During the time I spent in Europe between the vanishing of Jakob and the appearance of Caleb, I encountered him. I ran in less than savory circles—arms dealers, drug dealers, mafia bosses, sex traffickers. When you're underground and off-grid,your options for human interaction are severely limited. We did some business together—vanilla stuff, mostly. I facilitated some product transportation for him—cocaine and small arms, I believe."
I wait, and he continues after a moment.
"I do not take people at their word, typically. Criminals especially. I may have been, technically speaking, a pimp, but I never thought of myself as a criminal. So when I was facilitating a shipment for him, I inspected it. And I discovered that one of the containers, which supposedly was carrying crates of guns, actually held human beings. Not women,girls. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old. The oldest couldn't have been sixteen. I know I—" he shakes his head. "They werechildren. I make no excuses for the things I did. I turned starving, homeless teenage girls into prostitutes. I deserve all the judgment and hatred you…" another shake of his head. "I know who I am and what I have done, and I make no excuses for any of it. I ask for no forgiveness. There can be no absolution. I know that. But Pugli? Girls who hadn’t even gotten their period. One of them was still clutching a Barbie doll as she cowered in the corner of the lightless, barely ventilated container in a pool of her own…" he trails off, still shaken by the memory, all these years later.
