Exposed (Madame X, #2)(22)

“Am I? Are you?”

“Once you begin questioning things, you won’t ever stop, X. That is a rabbit hole down which it is entirely too easy to fall.”

“Funny,” I say. “Logan said something very similar.”

“Did he.” This is phrased as a question, spoken as a statement.

“He did.” Panic still overwhelms my mind, but I am learning somehow to push through it. To speak despite the turbulence in my soul. “He told me that I couldn’t shy away from the answers, once I started asking questions.”

“I don’t care what Logan said. He is no one.” Closer now.

I can feel the heat from your body, see the way your biceps stretch the material of your suit coat. Your eyes are red, as if you haven’t gotten even the small amount of sleep you’re used to.

“He isn’t no one. Not to me. I care what he said.”

“Why?”

“Because he tells me the truth, Caleb.”

“How do you know?” Your hand floats out, comes to rest on my thigh.

I knock your hand away, with sudden violence shocking to both of us. “No. You don’t get to touch me.” I feel vehemence boiling within me. Rage. Raw, potent fury. At you. At Logan. At everything.

“How do you know he told you the truth?” you repeat. “He could have made it up.”

“I know. I’ve thought of that,” I say. “The trouble is, that same question can be applied to you. How do I know anything you’ve told me is the truth? What do I believe? Whom do I believe?”

You sigh. “The man who has always been there for you.”

“And why have you been? What do you get out of it? If it weren’t for the ready availability of perhaps dozens of other women at your disposal, I’d say it was just for the easy access to sex. A captive audience, if you will.”

“That’s not what you are to me, X.”

“Stop calling me that,” I snap. “I am not Madame f*cking X anymore.”

“Then who are you?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” I shout the first two words, scream the third. Even Len twists his head to glance at me.

“Shall I call you Nameless then?”

“Do not mock me, Caleb Indigo.” My voice is thin, as the blade of a knife is thin.

“I’m not. Mockery is not my style.”

“What is your style? Pimping? Prostitution? That’s what those girls are, beneath the thin veneer of salvation. They are still prostitutes. But now they work for you, and you are their only client. Until you sell them to the highest bidder, and then they become bride-slaves. You convince them they have a choice, but do they, really? Rachel does not have a choice. If she returns to the streets, she will once again become Dixie, the whore. Dixie, the drug addict. So for now, she is your whore, and you are her drug. She has no choice.” I close my eyes and breathe out, letting the truth seep from my lips. “No more than I. We are your whores. We are your addicts. You are a drug, and you are in our veins.”

“You do not understand what you’re talking about, X, Isabel, whoever you are.”

“Whoever I am. Apropos indeed, Caleb.” I let a thick, tension-fat silence hang between us. “I’m going to ask you one question, and you will answer it truthfully, or I will never speak to you again.”

“All right.” You sound calm.

“How did you find me?”

A sigh. An outbreath of resignation. “You’ve been surgically microchipped. I paid the surgeon who reconstructed your face two point five million dollars to insert it.”

This is a shock that goes beyond even numbness, a shock so great I am able to remain utterly still and calm. “Microchipped? Reconstructed?” I touch the left side of my face, just above my ear.

“You don’t remember?” You seem puzzled.

“No.” I try, and fail.

I think back, but the days immediately after waking up are a blur, a haze of therapy and Caleb, surgeries and Caleb, nurses and Caleb.

“The entire left side of your face was . . . a mess. The right side was perfect, unblemished. The left . . . was not. I imported the most skilled and renowned reconstructive plastic surgeon in the world, and paid him a rather large amount of money to restore you to your former beauty. The two and a half million dollars I mentioned was just the bribe to implant the chip, mind you. I paid him more than quadruple that to drop all of his other clients and fly to New York and fix you.”

I suppose I should be impressed by how much you spent to have me fixed.

“When you say that I’ve been . . . microchipped—what does that mean?” I have trouble now forming words, forming breaths.

You do not answer for a moment. “The scar on your hip . . . it was always there, since the accident, I mean. When Dr. Frankel had you under to fix your face, however, he sliced into that scar, implanted a very small computer chip, and closed the incision, making it look as if it had never been disturbed. The microchip allows me to pinpoint your location, down to the nearest meter.” You lift your phone.

I don’t know what I am to think about your revelation. So I change topics. “Would you like to know the story Logan told me?”

“If you wish to tell me, I will listen.” Impassive, unconcerned. Disbelieving.