Exiled (A Madame X Novel) (2 page)

“But Jakob remembered how it felt to be like those girls. So once his income was stable, he learned to diversify. He saved his money and bought a business, a legitimate business. And then another. And for every successful business venture he started, Jakob freed a girl.
Got her a job and an apartment. He’d never allowed any of his girls to become hooked on drugs, because he remembered how that felt as well. Eventually, his legitimate business ventures were all that remained.”

Your eyes finally go to me. See me.

“And then, one day, Jakob walked out of his condo, sold all his businesses, boarded a plane bound for Prague, and never returned. No one ever saw Jakob
again.”

Y
ou seem to think that’s the end of it. You stand up, cross the room with quick, angry strides, pour a measure of scotch from the decanter. Down it in a single swallow. Pour; swallow. You repeat this twice more, until you must lean on the table, glass under your palm, breathing hard. A third of the contents of the decanter are now in your belly.

“And that’s the story of Jakob Kasparek.” The storyteller’s cadence is gone. The distant, vacant expression is gone. The mask is back in place. “Anything else you wish to know?”

“Where is Logan?”

You do not even bother to glance at me. “The morgue, I would presume.”

“I don’t believe you.”

You shrug. “No matter to me whether you believe it or not. He’s dead and you’re mine.”

“I am not yours.”

You gesture at the door. “Then leave.”

I am at the door in three strides. The knob is in my hand, twisted. The door opens. But I cannot leave. Not because I am yours, but because there are still so many questions.

“If Jakob Kasparek vanished, then how is it he signed me out of the hospital, rather than Caleb Indigo?”

A silence greets that question.

Something else you said has been percolating.

“You said I have been yours since I was sixteen, Caleb. What did that mean?”

More silence.

“How old am I? Why did you tell me I was mugged, when I was really in a car accident? Why did you tell me I was eighteen when I went into the coma? How long was I in the coma?” I’m stalking closer to you with each question. My voice rises with each question. “What is the truth? What is the truth about me, Caleb? Or Jakob, should I say?”

You fly across the intervening space in the blink of an eye. Your huge powerful hand grips my chin, my throat. Tips my head backward. Your other hand curls around the base of my spine and jerks me flush against your body.

“Jakob Kasparek is no more. He is no one. He does not exist. My
name
 . . . is
Caleb
.” Your voice is ice, sharp as razors and deadly as a viper’s venom.

Your fingers crush my jaw, pinch my windpipe. I am pinioned against you. Helpless. And then your lips crash against mine. Roughly, at first. Angrily. Violently. With shocking, lip-bruising force . . .

You
kiss
me.

With mesmerizing, hypnotic passion, you kiss me. Rough becomes gentle. This, perhaps more than the kiss itself, stuns me. The tenderness, it is exquisite. You kiss me delicately. Skillfully. You
kiss me, and you kiss me, and I am breathless. Your tongue whispers against my lips, slips graceful between my teeth and tangles with my tongue. Your palms play against my back. Fingertips dimple my flesh, and slide lower.

What is happening?

Your sorcery, it is not this affection. This is some new magic. Some new witchcraft.

The kiss, your kiss, Caleb, it is like nothing I have ever felt in my life. You kiss me as if you’ve been waiting for all of eternity to kiss me thus, as if you are starved for my lips, thirsting for my mouth. You clutch my back and hold me to you as if you are terrified to lose me. And your hand, clutching and crushing my jaw, loosens. Gentles. Glides up, over my cheek, past my ear, and into my hair. You lean into me, until I am bent backward over your palm, and I am held up by your strength alone.

There is no breath, with this kiss. No thought. Nothing. Just this kiss.

“God, Isabel. Isabel.” You whisper this against my lower lip. It is a breath only, so low I might have imagined it.

It is a plea, that whisper. A broken, pain-barbed plea.

What does it mean? I cannot begin to understand.

You break the kiss. Stagger backward as if wounded. Your eyes are shadows. Haunted. As if for the first time in all the years I’ve known you, a curtain has been pulled aside, and I am suddenly truly seeing the contents of your soul.

For a moment then, you are Jakob. A young boy abandoned to fate, abandoned to the cruel streets of New York. I see the truth in the tale you told. You wipe your mouth with your wrist, brow wrinkled in confusion. Eyes coruscating with agony. You are sixteen-year-old Jakob, the whore-boy. The drug addict. The plaything.

And it is Jakob who kisses me once more. Who with hesitancy
and tenderness unzips my dress. Plucks open my bra. Slides off my panties. It is Jakob who divests himself of his clothes. Who presses his skin against mine.

I am wrapped up, woven into a spell, tangled in the fabric of a lie engineered out of truth. It is Jakob who lifts me off my feet, carries me to my bed. Lays me down.

Who kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me . . .

It is Jakob.

And God, Jakob is something I cannot resist. Caleb’s power, skill, and relentless hunger, but with a tenderness and vulnerability only Jakob could possess. Confusion and hatred and loathing and disgust boil in some secret cauldron within my soul, but Jakob’s fiery touch sears it away. I know this touch. It knows me. Knows my body, knows how to bring me to writhing need with but a whisper of a fingertip against me, just so.

Jakob, Caleb, the names tangle. The vulnerability in your eyes is at war with shadows. Violence is an oil slick across the gentility in your features.

Fuck, I am lost. I am drowning.

You stare down at me, and you let me see something in you. Some hint of a soul. And it is a soul at war. A soul in pain. You kiss me with that pain, and it is jagged. Your breath is rough and ragged as you lave kisses over my breasts. As you finger my opening and drive me to moans as only you can. You drag a thick finger through my wetness and caress me to orgasm, and you kiss me as I whimper. While you are kissing me, while I am whimpering and clenching and writhing and shaking, you thrust your hips, and you enter me. And when your hip bones clash against mine, you break the kiss and you fix your embattled, pain-racked eyes on mine. Your eyes do not
leave me as you push into me. Do not leave mine as you withdraw. Your face takes on the expression of a man in utter agony. As if you are ripping away a mask surgically implanted in your skin. As if you are ripping open your soul and letting me see the gaping wounds life has left in you.

You make love to me as if it hurts to do so. As if the pleasure of being inside me is too much, and thus is pain. Exquisite torment. An agony of ecstasy. That term is much bandied about, but when it really occurs—a true agony of ecstasy—the reality of it is hellish to witness. Such overpowering bliss it is an overload. A too-long hit of pure oxygen to dying lungs. A feast of rich food on an empty, starving stomach.

Your hips piston against mine. You are levered over me, staring down at me as you drive in and out of me like a madman, like a man possessed. I hold on to you and try to pierce the wildness in your eyes, try to see into you, try to catch some glimpse of who you are and why you’re doing this, what it means.

You moan, brokenly. Tortured groans. Your manic, fucking thrusts falter with intensity, and you release inside me. You are not blinking, not even breathing now, thrust deep, spasming. Hips fluttering.

A groan escapes you. The sound of a shredded soul.

Your forehead lowers to mine.

You are gasping, each outbreath a grunt, a moan, a groan.

“Isabel.” That whisper again.

As if my name is an incantation. A prayer to an unknown god.

A time without measure, seconds, minutes. I do not know.

And then you lift your head, seek my eyes. Looking for something.

“Caleb?”

You flinch as if struck. Shudder.

And then

you

kiss

me.

Slow. Deep. Sweetly, even.

You touch my face. My cheek. Fingertips fluttering over my eyelids, tracing the contour of my nose. Memorizing.

You pull away, and look at me once more.

And then I watch as the mask clicks into place. I can almost hear the
clink-snick
of the armor plates touching and fusing.

And I wonder . . .

Did I speak the wrong name?

Y
ou roll off me, slide off the bed with slow, languid, lithe movements. Stand up, move to the doorway. You are silhouetted. Thick thighs. Taut calves. Round, iron-hard buttocks. Back a rippling field of muscle. Broad shoulders, brawny biceps cut from living marble as if by Michelangelo’s very hand. You clutch the doorpost, sagging for a moment as if weak. Turn your head slightly, almost but not quite looking at me. Face in profile.

I think you are about to speak. You even open your mouth, but then . . . you straighten. Iron turns your spine rigid. Shoulders go back. Head up.

And you turn away from me. Vanish.

I hear my door open, close. Hear the elevator.

And I am left to wonder: What just happened?

Who was that in my bed, making love to me? That was not Caleb. But it wasn’t Jakob, either. It was some chimera of the two. And now he is gone. That was a man I would have . . . the thought pierces me . . . a man I could have fallen in love with. I wanted to
know the source of his pain. I wanted to heal him. Protect him. Comfort him. Hold him close and know his secrets so I can tell him I love him for them, in spite of them, beyond them.

But he is gone.

Shoved back down into the depths of your unfathomable soul. Locked away behind the iron mask you wear.

A thought occurs to me:

I just had sex with Caleb. Again.

I fell under his sorcery. Again.

But it was
different
, a part of me argues—

He faced you; he did it naked; he held your eyes the whole time;

it
meant
something—

Everything inside me crumples, and collapses.

Suddenly, I am sobbing.

Who am I?

What kind of woman am I that I could make love to the man who has so continually lied to me about who I am?

That man. God, that man.

You.

You hide me from me. You lie to me. You obfuscate. You refuse to answer. You run away rather than just tell me the truth. Why?
Why?
What horrible secret lies in our shared past that you are so afraid of me knowing?

And how can I allow you to take my body and use it at your desire? How can I allow you to
fuck
me again and again and again, knowing nothing will ever change?

You killed Logan.

Logan.

God, Logan. How could I face him now? Even if he were alive, how could I face him? How could I go to him and tell him that I allowed you to
fuck me
yet again, after what Logan and I shared?

Was that fucking, between you and me, Caleb?

No; it was something else. I don’t know what. Something raw and ragged and desperate.

Wrong.

Yet . . . it was more real and honest than any other moment I’ve ever spent in your presence.

But Logan. Logan. I fall into renewed sobs at the thought of him—

I don’t fall easy, Isabel. But when I do, I fall hard and fast.

There’s no going back for me now—

I can hear his voice, almost. I can see the light in his indigo eyes as he gazes at me. The brilliance of his easy smile.

And I hear my own words, my promise to him—
You are my path, Log
an.

I am a horrible, weak, despicable person.

I have no path. Only a road paved with sins and scars and pain and mistakes.

But yet, I do not give in.

I cannot.

Will not.

Some internal compulsion has me leaving the bed. Washing you from my body. Tying my damp hair into a knot at my nape, and dressing in the clothes I began the day with, an expensive dress, the sleeves ripped off, neckline torn open to reveal a little too much cleavage.

Slip my feet into a pair of heels.

I do not know what is driving me.

But I am leaving the building. Ignoring the eyes as I push through the revolving door and out onto the street. The voices wash over me, the rush of cars, the horns, the groan of engines. But I am not brought to my knees by panic.

I see a car idling at the curb a few dozen yards away, window open. A white car with lights on top; NYPD. I lean into the open passenger window.

“Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me where the nearest hospital is?”

The man within, the police officer, is older, portly, graying. “St. Vincent. Eighth and Thirty-fourth.” Gruffly, impolite.

“Thank you, officer.” I turn away, start walking.

“Hey!” The officer’s voice calls out. I glance back, and he’s pointing from the window in the opposite direction. “You’re goin’ the wrong way, sweetheart.”

I find my way to St. Vincent. The woman behind the reception counter is young, Hispanic, in scrubs.

“I’m looking for someone who might be a patient here. Logan Ryder.”

The woman says nothing, just taps at a keyboard, eyes flicking across the screen. “Nope. Sorry.”

“Anyone with a gunshot wound admitted last night?”

Tap-tap-tap-tap . . .
“Nope. Sorry.”

I think back, and realize he wouldn’t be here. This is the closest hospital to me, not to where we were when Logan was shot.

When YOU shot Logan.

We were . . . where did Logan say he was taking me? I wasn’t paying attention to the streets while he drove.

Brooklyn.

“What is the name of the hospital in Brooklyn?” I ask.

The woman frowns at me. “There’s, like, a dozen. Mount Sinai Brooklyn. New York Methodist. SUNY Downstate. A bunch.”

“How do I get there?”

She shrugs. “Go to Brooklyn?”

“But if I’m looking for someone, but don’t know which hospital—”

“Then you’ll have to ask at each one till you find him. NEXT!”

I wander out of the hospital, feeling hope bleeding away. How do I get to Brooklyn? How do I find out which hospital he’s in? How do I even know he’s still alive?

He is.

I can just . . . feel it. He is. He has to be.

I ask someone which way to Brooklyn, and get a response in a language I don’t understand. Ask again, get a thumb jerk in what I hope is the correct direction.

I walk that direction until my feet ache. I don’t know how long. Until I see water in the distance.

And then a black SUV glides to a halt beside me. A tinted window rolls down. Thomas.

Impassive black face, dark eyes staring. A slow blink. “Get in.”

I hesitate.

“He is alive. I will take you. Get in.” A voice like thunder in the distance. Like rich, thick syrup. Like the bottom of a well. Thickly accented English.

“Thomas, why would you—”

“You want to see him?”

I breathe my answer. “Yes.”

“Then get in.”

I get in. Miles in silence, and then I have to know.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve helped me when I know you shouldn’t be. Why?”

A shrug of a heavy shoulder. “I do not know. Sometimes, there are things a man must do. He knows. And he does them. Perhaps I have known your soul, in another time.”

I have no idea what that means. It doesn’t matter. Thomas is an utter enigma. Frightening. The largest man I have ever seen in my life, skin so black it is shadow made flesh. A mountain of silence and darkness. Eyes that see everything and give away nothing. A sense
of tightly coiled violence. But yet again Thomas has helped me, in what seems to be direct violation of what you would want.

Thomas drives me unerringly to a hospital far, far from your world, from the enclave of wealthy Manhattan. Slides to a stop under the portico. Glances at me. “He is here.”

“Thank you, Thomas.”

A shrug. “Go. And Indigo . . . he will come to you again. You know this. Yes?”

I nod. I do know it. I feel it. “Yes. I know.”

“Good. Do not forget it.”

I exit the SUV, close the door behind me. Watch as Thomas drives away, slow, careful, unobtrusive. For the second time now, Thomas has been my deus ex machina. I do not know what to make of it, of the man. Why Thomas, so utterly unlike Len, your other henchman, continues to help me. Len is a known quantity; vicious, violent, and utterly loyal to you. Unapologetically a killer. Thomas, however, is different.

I push aside thoughts of Thomas and Len, and of you. The receptionist at this hospital—I do not know which, have once again failed to pay attention to where I have been taken—is an elderly white woman with tired, apathetic eyes.

“May I help you?”

“I’m looking for a man whom I believe is a patient here. Logan Ryder?”

Tap-tap-tap-tap . . . taptaptap . . . tap.
“Yes. Room five thirteen.” Slides a large green sticker toward me, tosses a ballpoint pen on top. “Print your name on the visitor’s badge and stick it somewhere visible.”

I write my name:
Isabel de la Vega.
Affix the sticker to my chest near my shoulder. Take the elevators up to the fifth floor. The hallways are wide and harshly lit with fluorescent bulbs. My heels click loudly on the floor. The smell of disinfectant and illness assaults my
nostrils. Count the rooms, 503 on my left, 504 on my right . . . turn a corner, 511 . . . 512 . . . 513. The door is closed. The ward is hushed. An orderly or nurse pushes a cart past me, one caster wobbling and squealing. A doctor, then. Tall, male, Indian, slender, stethoscope thumping at his chest, flipping through a chart and barely paying attention to where he is going.

I do not want to go in. I do not want to see Logan wounded. Perhaps dying. Unconscious. Unable to remember me. Fading away, thin and frail and pale. Wrapped up in bandages like a mummy.

Panic flutters in my throat, in my belly. I blink, and choke back a ragged panting gasp. Blink again, and I feel dizzy. Disoriented. I have to lean against the door frame, rest my head against the wood of the door. Close my eyes.

*   *   *

D
arkness.

Warmth.

Pain.

A steady beeping. Snoring. My eyes open, flutter. Haze, blurriness. Disorientation. Open my eyes again. They will not quite open all the way. Won’t focus properly. My skull feels thick, stuffed with cotton. I can see enough to know I am in a hospital. But where? Why? What happened? I hear the snoring again. Scan the room as best as I am able. There. In the corner. A chair reclined into a makeshift bed, thin white blanket pulled over a large, muscular body. A glimpse of black hair.

A snort, squeaking plasticky leather, and the form shifts, twists. I can see the face now.

Jakob?

What is Jakob doing here?

My throat is clogged. Something is lodged down my throat. Taped to my nose. I can’t speak. I try to moan.

Jakob starts, sits up immediately.

“Isabel?” His voice is scratchy, muzzy with sleep.

*   *   *

M
iss?” A concerned male voice, lilting, accented. The doctor. A hand cool on my cheek. “Are you okay?”

I straighten. Nudge his hand away. “Yes. Yes. Thank you. I just . . . I got dizzy.”

“Are you visiting a patient on this floor, miss?” A penlight, shining in my eyes. Tracking their motion. “Look down, please. Up . . . left . . . and to the right.” I do as instructed. “Very good. When was the last time you have eaten, please?”

“Recently. An hour or two ago.”

“Do you feel ill to your stomach? Queasy, at all?” Cool thin long fingers check my pulse at my neck, kind brown eyes watching an analog watch.

I shrug off his concern. “I’m fine. Just . . . a long day.” I breathe and compose myself. “I’m visiting someone. Logan Ryder. He’s in here.” I reach for the door lever.

“Ah. I am Dr. Kalawat. Mr. Ryder is very, very fortunate indeed to be alive. Some would even call it miraculous. He is also very tough, I think. Extremely determined.”

I hesitate to ask, but must. “How is he? I mean . . . I haven’t seen him yet, since—since . . .” I am reluctant to speak the words.

“Since someone tried to murder him, you mean?” A hardness laces the doctor’s eyes. “As I have said, he is lucky to be alive. The bullet entered his eye socket on an angle oblique enough to pass through without damaging his brain. He lost the eye, of course, and needed rather extensive reconstructive surgery. If the angle had been even a few millimeters different, he would be dead right now,
or at best, would have suffered rather more severe brain damage. It’s too soon to be totally sure, of course, but we think he will make a full recovery without any lasting brain damage.”

Lost the eye? God, Logan.

“Can I see him?”

“If he is resting, please allow him to remain asleep. He needs his rest so that he may heal more swiftly.”

“All right. Thank you, Doctor.”

A nod. “Of course. And if you feel dizzy again, please, page the nurse. You are in a hospital, after all.” A gentle smile in farewell.

When he is gone, I softly open Logan’s door. Tiptoe in.

Beep—beep—beep.
I know that sound. It echoes in my skull, in my gut. In my memory. I feel disoriented once more, but shake it off.

Logan is sleeping on his back, the bed inclined upward slightly. Pressure bandages are wrapped around his head, covering his left eye and cheekbone. His mouth is slack. Arms on top of the thin white blanket.

I want to cry.

He has been through so much, and now, again, he is near death. For me. Because of me.

My eyes water. Sight blurs. Hot salt burns my vision. I am weak in the knees, unable to support my weight. Sick to my stomach. I wasn’t queasy when Dr. Kalawat asked, but I am now. Queasy. Unsettled. Dizzy. My mouth waters, saliva running, pooling against my teeth. My stomach tightens. My gorge rises. I barely make it to the adjoining bathroom. My gut rebels, convulses, and I forcefully empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Again. Again. Until there is nothing left but bile and saliva. When it seems as if my stomach has quieted, I rinse my mouth at the sink, wash my hands.

Logan is awake when I return to his room.

“Isabel?” His voice is rough, scratchy.

I pull the visitor’s chair close to his bed. Take his hand. “I’m here, Logan.”

“You got . . . away?” God, he sounds so weak.

I try to smile. Squeeze his hand. “Sort of, yes. Don’t worry about that.”