Page 25 of Callum

It was five more years before I learned the truth of her past. She didn’t tell me, but I still found out. I went looking where I shouldn’t have, searching for answers to why she flinched if I touched her without warning. I needed to know why she never seemed surprised when I would appear silently in the dark, but she would jump a foot in the air at the sound of keys rattling.

The answers didn’t bring me peace.

Her father was not a good man. I don’t know many people with good fathers in my line of work, but hers was a special kind of shitbag. My research hadn’t brought me much information beyond that Rosalind had been sold into a child sex-trafficking ring at six years old. I refused to look into what happened to her there, but I know she left at eleven. She didn’t show up in Chandler until she was thirteen, and there is no record of what happened to her in the interim.

What I do know is that she wasn’t reported as a missing child at six years old. Or at eleven. Or thirteen.

She wasn’t ever reported as missing.

Because Rosalind White, daughter of Vincent White, had been living happily with her father for the entirety of those nineteen years.

The most interesting part of that is not the fact that a very violent and beautiful Rosalind White has been living in my Underworld since she was thirteen. No, the most interesting part is that the version of Rosalind White, who has been living with Vincent White for all that time, never ages past six years old.

Every six years, Vincent White moves to a new town. He gets a new job, a new house, and sometimes even buys himself a new car, but he always tells the same story. He always shows up with an infant in his arms and a tale about his newly deceased wife.

“Died in childbirth, the poor thing.”

At first, I had wondered if my Rosalind was even the real Rosalind White or if she was simply one in a long line of victims, but it was easy enough to track down her birth certificate.

My Rosalind was his first, though her mother did not have the mercy of dying in childbirth.

She lived long enough to see what the father of her child was doing with their baby. She lived long enough to realize that a man in his forties hadn’t sought her out at fifteen years old because she was too beautiful to be ignored. She lived long enough to realize that getting a sixteen-year-old pregnant wasn’t his end goal.

He was trading her in for a younger model.

I don’t realize I’m chambering a round in the Glock 19 until the slide snaps free of my hand. The anger pulsing through my veins at the thought of Rosalind’s father is enough to have the muscles bunching beneath my skin.

Carefully, I breathe through my nose. Pulling the magazine from the grip before I remove the live round from the chamber, I watch the bullet drop through the air. There is a happier part of this story; I remember it like it was yesterday.

Vincent White’s screams live in a part of my brain that I hope to carry with me to my dying day.

The sound of his pleas, as I flayed the skin from his bones with a knife that I later gifted to his only daughter, has brought me peace in my darkest moments. The feel of his blood on my hands is a memory I hold dear every time I pull the soul from someone’s body.

He was the kill that ultimately gave me my Name, after all. From that day forward, I was known as the Doctor, long before I made the title official through higher education.

I killed that mother fucker seven times.

Every time his heart stopped, I brought him back just to bleed the life from him again. I would end his life a thousand times if I thought it would bring Rosalind even a moment of peace.

“Doc?”

My eyes snap to the doorway where two young MacAlisters are standing. They look as confused by my presence as I am by theirs.

“Malik,” I nod to the young man who spoke, recognizing him as a perfect replica of his father. Harrison Danner has been a MAC my entire life, and I can’t say I’m surprised his son is following in his footsteps. “What are you doing down here?”

If he admits to stealing liquor, I think I’ll have to shoot him. Nowhere lethal, but still.

Hopefully, he’s not that dumb.

“We’re here to…help…you?” It’s definitely a question, and I realize what’s going on. Grant sent them to file serial numbers but didn’t tell them I was already here. This is how Grant is going to integrate me back into the MacAlisters: word of mouth. People will talk about Callum MacAlister doing grunt work and earning his due the hard way. Even if it doesn’t impress the Father, it will go a long way to bridge the gap with our people.

Why can’t Grant just fucking tell me these things?

“Then pull up some chairs, boys,” I gesture toward the stack in the corner. “You’ve got some catching up to do.”

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I’m fucking exhausted.

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