“Yes,” he said, stepping close to her and sliding the necklace around her neck to secure it in place, “I know. I am trying to make it so I can, so we can—”
“I understand,” she said, and he knew somehow she did, no matter all his efforts that had come before to ensure she did not understand. The emerald settled on top of the white muslin of her gown, and already he could picture it between her breasts. “Let me help you undress.” He was a fool. She was his apple in the Garden of Eden, and he was strolling willingly toward temptation, but he could not stop.
She nodded and turned her back to him. Slowly, he raised trembling hands to her gown to work the hooks that went in a straight line from her neck to the base of her spine. Once the gown was undone, she parted the material, exposing the smooth, porcelain surface of her skin. He leaned toward her and pressed kisses down her spine, taking her shivers into his own body. White-hot need hooked its claws into him, but he forced himself back and silently helped her out of her clothes, savoring the moment of intimacy of undressing the woman he loved. It struck him that she had given him all her trust to let him do this. His throat clenched to reveal what he’d been through, what it might mean for them, but he pressed his lips together, situated her on the settee, and lost himself in sketching her.
The light changed as he drew his lines, and his mind seemed to drift to another place almost. He drew her, but it was as if it was from memory, and not as if he was actually looking at her. He felt his hand flying across the canvas rapidly, but his vision almost seemed to blur, yet he kept drawing. He was aware vaguely of the light changing in the room, but he couldn’t seem to stop sketching. He sketched her standing with her back to the viewer of the sketch. Her hair was unbound and around her shoulders. Then he sketched a chair and himself in it. The tension in him, which had felt coiled like a snake, slowly started to unwind as the sketch before him took real shape. Recognition flared and froze him, hand hovering over the sketch. He blinked, sure his mind was playing tricks on him.
“Callum?”
His eyes snapped to hers, and she was already moving off the settee, scooping up her gown, a concerned and determined look upon her face. He made a grab for the canvas, but she was shockingly fast, her hand coming to it even as she ducked under the arm he threw out to block her from viewing the revealing sketch. She sucked in a sharp breath, and silence fell for a moment.
“Where is this?” she finally asked, yanking her gown on in haste. She presented her back to him, and he silently aided her in dressing once more, knowing there was no way to deny her answers any longer, despite it not being his plan. “Callum?” she said, her tone more demanding now. “Where is this?” she asked again.
He swallowed, wishing he could rewind time, but that was impossible. “The asylum.” His eyes ran carefully over the sketch, his shock making him cold. She was in the asylum, standing in front of the chair he’d been chained to, where they’d starved him, drugged him, and broken him. She stood in front of him, her hair tumbling down her back, her hands on his thighs as the prostitute’s hands had been before she’d been ordered to kneel and bring him to release in her hands. And there on her right shoulder, where her gown had slipped down, she’d been branded, as if she belonged to someone, just as he’d been branded with the number 27.
“I don’t have a brand on my shoulder,” Constantine whispered beside him.
“No,” he replied, his shame, his regret making him ache.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice still low. “Is that me?”
There was not part of him that could lie to her about this in this moment. “Yes and no.” He swallowed, the shame nearly choking now. “The Enforcer hated me.” He did not turn to look at her but kept his gaze on the sketch, willing himself to say as much as he could. “He liked to break men, and I proved hard to break.”
“I can imagine,” she murmured, her voice heavily laden with sorrow.
He turned and found her crying so softly he would not have known had he not looked. Instinctively, he brushed at her tears, and she captured his fingers. “Callum, I want you to secure your revenge but not at the price of us.”
“It’s not just the revenge,” he said, squeezing her fingers gently. “I have done things you may find unforgiveable.”
“No,” she said, her tone firm. “I will forgive you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do.” Her jaw took on that stubborn set he loved.
“And I’m changed,” he continued.
“How?” Constantine asked simply.
Her eyes implored him. He didn’t want to be responsible for destroying her if he could not fix himself, but here he was stuck in a nightmare of his own making by the sketch that revealed the ugly truth. He inhaled, picking slivers of the darkness to share. “The Enforcer wanted to strip me of my honor, my will, and in the end, he did.”
A tide of rage swept over Callum. He let go of Constantine’s hand and shoved the canvas over before turning back to her. “He wanted the other prisoners to see me as weak, because by my refusing to break, they’d come to admire me, and my vow that I would escape to return to you gave them hope that they, too, could escape. The Enforcer lashed me, shocked me, starved me, but I would not say that I was not Kilgore, and I would not quit vowing that I was going to return to you, that I would not break because your memory made me strong. I told anyone who would listen that I would remain honorable and strong for you.” Callum’s head throbbed as he stood there, his eyes stinging. “Honorable men do not break.”
“What did he do, Callum?” Constantine demanded. “What did he do to break you?”
His gaze locked with hers. “He threatened you. He had found you, and he threatened to hurt you, and to prevent that, I did what he required of me. The shame of what I did haunts me, causes me violent nightmares, and the only way I can see to possibly fix me, so you are safe with me, is to obtain justice.”
Just then, banging came at the studio door and Beckford’s voice rang out. “Kilgore! Kilgore, you have to come now!”
“Barged in, barged in,” White called. Peter joined the chorus next, yelling at Beckford, whom he did not know, threatening him.
Callum turned toward the door, but Constantine grasped his arm and he swung back to her. “What if you cannot achieve vengeance, Callum? What if you cannot prevent your violent nightmares? Will you push me away permanently? Will you give us up?”
“Kilgore!” Beckford bellowed. “If you don’t open the door, your cousin may well triumph!” The need to protect Constantine from that possibility, from how his not being able to fix himself would hurt her, pushed everything else out of his mind. He broke away from her, hearing her calling him from behind, but he’d didn’t turn around. He strode across the room, took one look at Beckford’s tense face, and asked, “What’s happened?”
Beckford leaned in close, his words coming out in a rush. “Delilah Dubois is dead. I think we need to gather the other men.”
“Callum?” Constantine asked from behind him, the concern in her voice obvious. His thoughts spun in his head. His cousin was eliminating any connection to what he’d done one by one. Callum had to get to those who were left before Ross did.
