I feel you.
In front of me. Close, so close I can feel your body heat and smell your cologne.
“I apologize for the dramatics, Isabel.”
I would not say anything even if I weren’t gagged.
You breathe, just breathe. Looking at me, I assume. And then I feel a touch. Hear you inhale. Your nose, sliding along the curve of my neck. Your fingers, then, tracing the V opening of my robe.
“What are you wearing beneath this, I wonder?”
You loosen the knot, tug the belt open, and the edges of the robe slip aside. Your fingertips brush down the sides of my throat, to my clavicle, along my breastbone. Gentle, tender. Your fingers shake on my flesh. I am breathing hard past the gag. Blinking furiously in the darkness within the bag blinding me. You nudge at the robe, and it droops off my shoulders, baring me. Now the scant coverage of the bikini leaves me feeling utterly naked.
“Ah . . .” An appreciative sigh. “So lovely, Isabel. Far too lovely to be covered.”
Snick.
A terrifying sound. Metallic. Sharp.
Something thin and cold touches my chest, my cleavage, right between my breasts. I stop breathing. Hold completely still.
The sharp edge does not pierce or cut as it traces the outline of my breast. A quick jerk between my breasts, and the string holding the tiny cups of the bra is severed. My breasts fall and sway loose.
I resume breathing then, but now my breathing is ragged with fear.
The blade tickles lower. Down my side, to the knot at my hip. Another quick jerk, and the string is cut. The bottom falls around my feet, and I am naked.
Gagging on my panicked breathing.
“Hush, Isabel. Be calm. You know I’d never hurt you.” Your breath, your voice, a whisper in my ear. “I couldn’t mar such perfection.”
Your presence recedes.
I hear a click, the snap of a camera shutter. Ticking of smartphone keyboard keys. The bloooop of a message being sent, and received.
Bbbbbrrrrriiiinnnnggagg! Your ringer, so familiar, the old-fashioned metallic blat of a rotary landline phone from decades past.
“Logan.” A pause. “Calm down, Mr. Ryder. As you see, she is unhurt. And she will remain unharmed. But if you leave your office, you will never see her again. No, you idiot, I won’t kill her. I will merely . . . keep her. I have, as of this moment, every intention of returning her to you in the same condition I received her. The photograph is merely proof of life, I suppose you could call it. I’m not going to hurt her. Nor you, for that matter, although I do have eyes on you, and those eyes are in possession of a rifle, capable of putting a bullet between your eyes from a mile away. Remain where you are.”
Another pause, as you listen. I can hear Logan on the other side, yelling, tinny, distant.
“What do I want? A moment with Isabel, that’s all. To talk. Just she and I.”
Logan’s voice.
“I will have her returned when we are done with our conversation.” You sigh, a sound of long-suffering. This is pure Caleb, calm, in control. “Your dog? She is unhurt as well. The dart merely contained a dose of sedative. She will wake up in a few hours none the worse for wear. And now I must let you go, Mr. Ryder. Remember, stay where you are. Stay in that very room, if you please. Do not leave for anything. In fact, it may be best to not even stand up, for now.”
And then you are in front of me, again, close enough to smell.
Silence, for a long, long time. An eternity, in which you are there, in front of me, not touching me, not speaking. I don’t know what you are doing.
And I can only endure it.
At long last, I feel your hands tugging at the hood. Removing it.
The light, even with sunglasses still on, albeit askew, is blinding after the total darkness.
I blink, and feel you adjust the sunglasses so they sit properly on my face.
My robe is still draped behind me, hanging from my bound wrists.
You are impeccably dressed. Three-piece charcoal pinstripe suit, tailored to fit your trim waist and wide shoulders. White button-down, a crimson tie, knotted but loose around your throat, topmost button undone. Hands in your hip pockets. Just eyeing me.
I glare back. Pretend to bravery I do not in any way feel.
“Isabel. Oh . . . Isabel. You are, as always, lovelier than ever.” You step closer. Closer, yet. I am unable to slow my breathing, then, when you press up against me. Inhale against my throat once more. Back up, run your palm up my side. Cup my breast and release it. “Pregnancy suits you, I must admit. It adds a softness to your already full figure.”
I am still gagged. I want to vomit at your touch. It is an immediate and instinctive reaction. And surprising.
Yet . . . welcome, considering my former addiction to you, my former susceptibility to your sorcery.
A tear escapes, slides down my cheek, appears beneath the rim of my sunglasses.
You reach up, wipe it away with a thumb.
“I’m sorry, Isabel. I’m sorry for all this. I . . .” You turn away, scrub your fingers through your hair. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Back to me, then. An abrupt whirl, two harsh paces. The hand still in your trouser pocket flies up and out, a black something clutched in your fingers, and then there’s that horrible snick as a blade snaps open. I stumble backward, screaming past the gag.
You grunt in irritation. “Oh, shut up and hold still, would you? I said I would never hurt you. Surely you understand that much, at least.”
It’s a quick, efficient move, the way you slide the flat of the blade between my cheek and the gag. Twist, so the blade bites into the gag and parts it. I feel a sting, however, and you frown. Lick your thumb, and wipe at my cheek where the tip of the knife, razor sharp, nicked my cheek.
You lean in, kiss the wound.
I flinch away. Work my jaw.
Tears blur my eyes. “What do you want, Caleb?”
“You heard what I said. To talk, that’s all.”
“You could have called me.”
You laugh. “Oh no. That wouldn’t do at all. You and I, our history? It deserves so much more than a mere phone call.”
“But this?” I am cold with fury; you hear it in my voice.
My hands are still bound. The robe hangs from my wrists. My breasts are bare, my core exposed, and my thighs tremble with the furious, fearful knocking of my knees. I do not know any longer what you are capable of. Anything, I think. Anything at all.
You still have the knife out, and you spin the blade in a circle on your palm, a casual demonstration of mastery and familiarity with the weapon. You approach. Your motions are those of a predator, smooth gliding steps of a panther, a prowling lion. Your eyes rake my body. You move around to stand behind me, slink your knife-wielding arm around my neck, trace my cheekbone with the dull back edge of the knife. Your other hand toys with me, flicks at my nipple, cups my breast, smooths down my rib cage, flattens possessively against my hip.
“You are my siren, Isabel.” Your voice is a rough murmur against the shell of my ear. “Your body sings a song I have never been able to resist. Yet I am not so fortunate as godlike Odysseus that I can bind myself to a mast as he did to resist his siren. I have only my will, and where you are concerned, my will is entirely insufficient.”
I still have not even registered where I am; I look around, trying to not even allow myself to process your words. Not your home, not the cavernous penthouse at the top of your tower. This is somewhere new. Windows all around, a mammoth, gaping, totally empty space. Windows, and light. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls, showing Manhattan in all four directions. Behind me, an elevator shaft. The only feature of the entire room, which is the footprint of a skyscraper. Tens of thousands of square feet in every direction. Bare concrete underfoot.
“Did you hear me, Isabel?” You
tap my cheekbone with the tip of the knife, gaining my attention.
“Yes, Caleb.” I step forward, pivot in place. “Or should I call you Jakob?” It is a test, to see how violently you react. It is a dangerous game, I think.
But you do not react. Perhaps you didn’t hear the last part. I do not know. You move up close to me, so the tips of my breasts crush against the front of your suit coat. You lean in, as if to kiss me. Brows furrowed, eyes tormented, but lucid. Instead of kissing me, you touch your forehead to mine. I don’t dare move, because you still have the knife, and you are reaching past me with it. Around to my back. I am not breathing, not moving. Don’t even blink as you breathe on my cheek, touch your ear to mine, your chin to my shoulder. Looking over my back, watching your movements as you slip the knife blade between my wrists, and . . . flick.
The plastic binding my hands together parts, and I am free.
The robe pools onto the floor.
You close the knife blade. Pace in caged-tiger circles around me. Pocket the weapon. Gazing at me. Your eyes, my God your eyes, they are haunted, blazing with pain and need. Your mask has slipped, Caleb. The emotion within you is a cauldron. No . . . a caldera, crumbling to reveal an active volcano beneath, ready to erupt.
Your chest rises and falls heavily, as if you have recently run a marathon. You are gazing at me as if I am the source of all life, and you are a dying monster, ravening in the shadows, hungering for the sweet morsel of life just beyond its reach.
I remain utterly motionless. Watching you pace in circles around me. Naked. Vulnerable. Terrified. Confused.
And then you move up behind me. Touch my spine. Trace each knob downward. Feather your palms, yes, lovingly over my bottom. Cup my hips. I do not move. I hate your touch. Hate it. But you are manic, unbalanced, and I fear you. So I must allow it, I think. I want to go home to Logan. I want to feel the baby in my belly grow.
As if reading my mind, you press your front to my spine, and your fingers dance around my sides, between my ribs and my arms. Your palms flatten against my belly. It has begun to bump, just a tiny little bit.
“Is it true?” You murmur this, ever so gently, in my ear.
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“Thirteen weeks.” My voice shakes.
“And you do not know if it is mine or his?”
“No. There is no way to know. Not until after the birth.” There is, actually, but my doctor said the procedure came with risk, and wasn’t worth it. I agreed. But I’m not about to say this.
“I don’t suppose it matters.” You turn away from me. Pace away, long quick angry steps.
And then back. Kneeling in front of me. Eyes wide, wondering. You press ten gentle fingertips to my belly. Gently, reverently.
“But . . . if you carried my child inside you . . . ?” You breathe this, as if it is too wild a notion to be believed. “My blood, beating within you. My bloodline, growing in your uterus.”
“Stop, Caleb,” I whisper. “Please, just . . . stop.”
“If it were mine, what then?” You stand up. Stare down into my eyes.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what then.”
“I have tried to let you go, Isabel. Time and again. I try. But I just . . . cannot.” You turn away again, as if ripping your gaze from me, painfully. Rub the stubble on your jaw with a palm. “I can’t. And now that you’re pregnant, now that you may have my son or daughter growing inside you—how can I let you go?”
I risk a step closer to you. “You have to, Caleb. You must. It is all there is to do. Find it within you, Caleb. Please.”
“I can’t!” This, desperately. Shouted, spittle flying. “Do you have any fucking clue what I’ve been through because of you, Isabel de la Vega?”
“No, Caleb, I do not. How could I? You’ve lied to me at every turn. Hidden the truth from me. Locked me away from myself, from my life, from my past.” I breathe out slowly, trying to regain some measure of calm. “You knew me, didn’t you? Before the coma? Before the accident. You knew me.”
Your gaze sharpens. Slices into me. “You’ve remembered something, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“You tell me, Caleb.”
A frustrated sigh. You turn away, snatch my robe off the floor. Bring it to me, hold it open for me. I slide my arms in, and you tie it closed, reluctantly, reverently. You have never behaved thus. As if I am something precious.
Always I felt like just . . . a possession. A watch you were jealous of, but that held no real emotional value to you. As if you possessed me merely so no else could. Owned, but not cherished.
This, the way you look at me now, the way you touch me now . . . if you’d shown this side of you all these past years, perhaps there could have been something for us, between us. But it’s too late. Too late.
You cling to the belt, the knot, for several long moments, and then, as if physically forcing yourself to do so, you release the belt. Breathe in, out, again, and again. Just staring at me. As if plumbing the depths of my soul through my eyes, seeking something.
And then you turn away, walk the many paces to the window. Assume that familiar pose, one arm barred horizontally on the window, your forehead resting on your arm, in the crook of your elbow. Other hand lifted to the glass, fingers tapping a rhythm. Weight on one leg, the other knee bent.
Staring into the past.
I put my back to the window a few feet away from you, sink to sit on the floor.
“You were just a girl when I first saw you. Fourteen, not yet fifteen, but nearly. You were in the process of blooming from an awkward girl into a lovely young woman. I knew, the moment I saw you, that you would be . . . stunning. A Helen of Troy, a woman for whom armies would go to war. But then, you were just a girl. No tits, hair in a sloppy braid, staring wide-eyed at the big bad city, this place, this modern Babylon. You were with your parents. I knew you’d be stunning, because you looked just like your mother, and holy mother of God, that woman was gorgeous. More than gorgeous. A woman to kill for, to die for. A true Spanish beauty. Long thick black hair, firm, dark, unblemished skin even at her age, forty or so. Eyelashes so thick you could almost hear them as they swept against her face. And her body, your mother, Isabel, she had the body of a goddess. Your father was a damned lucky man. He was a rather handsome man, himself, however. A little older than her, I think. Forty-five, nearly fifty, perhaps? Going a little silver at the temples, but it gave him that distinguished air, you know? Tall, straight, strong. A good bit of stubble, not quite a beard. You were between them, your mother on the inside, you, and then your father nearest the street. All three of you were fresh off the boat, so to speak. You were literally clutching your visa in your hands, still. You’d gone straight to Fifth Avenue, like all the tourists do.
“I passed you. But that moment, when I first saw you, I will never forget that moment for as long as I live, Isabel. You looked at me, and you saw me. Your face told the tale. You thought I was handsome. So I smiled at you, and you ducked, looked away, blushing, giggling. I saw then how beautiful you would be. And I knew, once you came of age, that I would have to have you. But not until you were of age. I was no pedophile, no predator of young girls. In my world, I had men like that . . . eliminated with extreme prejudice. If a man came to me looking for young girls, he would vanish. I would see to it. I had no patience for such filth. Did not, and do not.”
You tap the window, fall silent for a while. I wait, knowing you will continue. Needing you to continue.
“I was a pimp then. There is no other word for it. But I was good to my girls. I took care of them. Kept them off drugs. Fed them, clothed them, gave them somewhere safe to live and do business. Made sure their clients were clean, and not rough. Made sure no one abused them. And I never took advantage of their services myself. At least, not without paying for it like anyon
e else. I was not a good man. I am not, and never have been. Never will be. But back then? I was . . . bad. I was on the rise. Twenty-five years old and so very angry at everyone, at life. I was making money hand over fist. I was hungry for respect, for success. I was ruthless. If someone got in my way . . . well, they regretted it. But I had standards. Rules. A code. All of my girls were at least eighteen, and they knew, each and every one of them, what they were getting into. I never coerced them or forced them. I made sure they were loyal to me and only me, yes, but . . . they were not victims. And you . . . I’d never seen anyone like you. You were sweet. Innocent. Young, then, too young. But you . . . you saw me, Isabel. You looked right at me. And you didn’t do so with fear or disgust. Not like everyone else. You should have. And if you’d been able to see what I truly was, you would have. But I was selfish, and I liked the way you looked at me.
“I kept tabs on you, on the three of you. Nothing nefarious, I just . . . kept track. You went to school in Brooklyn. Your father worked at a jewelry store, a little place owned by a very distant cousin, I think. Or a friend of a distant cousin. I don’t remember anymore. Your mother worked for a hotel, cleaning rooms. It was demeaning work for a woman meant to be an empress, but she did it with vivacity and determination. For you. So you could have shoes and clothes and some money to spend. Your father and mother both worked very long hours to put a roof over your heads and food in your bellies, which meant you were much alone. You had no friends that I ever saw. You never left school with anyone, you never met anyone outside of school. Once school let out, you would go to the library. But you’d stop for a snack on the way, at the same bodega every time. You liked your sweets. You’d get a Coke, and a Snickers bar. I had the feeling, when I watched you, that you got these things as a form of rebellion, that your parents wouldn’t approve, which is why you did it. You’d stay at the library for long, long hours, reading. I never knew anyone to read so many books as you. You’d just sit in the stacks, nose in a book, from when school ended until late at night. Your father rarely came home before midnight, and your mother nearly that, and they’d both be gone a few hours past dawn. Seven, eight at the latest. You were . . . very independent. You’d take yourself to school, take yourself home. I assumed you made your own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Always alone.”
Exiled (A Madame X Novel) Page 16
