Page 11

Chapte r Nine

Not sure where to locate my renegade spouses, I go to our bedroom, knowing they will eventually have to come back there. Hesitantly cracking the door open, I fear what may be waiting for me on the other side.

Quietly conversing, Cortez and Katya are sitting on the sofa waiting for me. Sighing so deeply, I feel it to my toes.

“Hi,” I whisper in relief, but the disapproving looks my spouses throw my way worry me, to the point I start to shake with fear.

I don’t want to go through this.

“What did I do now? Never mind, what haven’t I done?” Grumbling underneath my breath, I toe off my damp shoes. I pretend they aren’t in the room with me, adding the plot twist that they’re both still in love with me. Silently undressing, I pull on a pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt.

When I turn around, both of them have pained expressions on their slightly flushed faces. “What?” I mouth.

“Ezra, if you think this isn’t difficult for us, you really are a fucking lunatic,” Cortez stiffly cries out, sounding as if he’s speaking through a straw. “Katya and I have been trying to find a peaceful resolution for months. Co-parents, friend, and family, I love Katya more than life itself. This is wrecking all of us.”

Cortez tries to hide his red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks. I long to comfort him, but would Katya take offense? Would Cortez take offense if I comfort a silently weeping Katya? Numbly walking toward them on shaky legs, my indecision is obvious.

Katya is seated in a chair, demeanor screaming do not touch– back off!

I say the fuck with it and do as I wish…

Softly cupping Katya’s cheek with my palm, I bend down to place a tender kiss to her lips. “I love you, you know,” I whisper against her flesh. She just nods her head, eyelids slipping shut, closing herself off to me.

Like gravity, my body instantly seeks Cortez. I find myself wrapped around him on the sofa, hands rubbing soothing circles on his back, fingers kneading tight muscles. Cortez weeps in my arms, allowing me to offer the comfort that makes me a man, something Katya wouldn’t allow from me.

Katya’s strength astounds me as it unmans me.

“We were just going over the particulars.” Katya begins, voice tight but tear-filled. Ever organized and diligent, my wife has a notepad and pen on her lap with a list a mile long filling the pages.

“Before we get to that, I want the truth, Katya. Are you still in love with me? Are you doing this for Cortez? Are you doing this for yourself? Or are you doing this for me?” My commanding tone has Cort freezing in my arms.

Emerald eyes filled with betrayal, the tears dry up and are replaced with bitter resentment and fury. “I’m doing this for us.” Katya hisses like a pissed off kitten. “US!” is shouted as punches land on the upholstered arm of the chair she’s sitting in, out of sheer frustration. “UUUUSSSSSS!” The shrillness of the scream rings in my ears, reverberating down my spine to bead tears in my eyes.

Cortez pulls away from me, yanking a hysterical Katya onto the sofa and into his arms.

Katya finally broke.

I finally broke my wife.

It only took me fifteen years of torment to do it.

Shaking so violently, Katya makes a sound that will haunt my worst nightmares. She holds onto Cortez like a lifeline, nails digging into his back.

Rocking an unhinged Katya next to me on our sofa, Cortez fiercely whispers to me, eyes narrowed with disgust. “Everything isn’t about you, Ezra. Kitten’s us isn’t about the three of us. It’s about everyone. Our family. Our friends. Our children. Our futures. Our happiness.”

Stunned speechless, I don’t even attempt to interrupt Cort’s tirade.

“We began this for the wrong reasons. Katya and I were never in love with one another, not as a husband and wife should be. There is too much painful history that hasn’t been healed, that couldn’t be healed while playing pretend. I refuse to pretend anymore. Even for you,” he stresses while defiantly staring into my gaze. “Ever again.”

“I’m not as good as Cort.” Pulling away from Cortez, Katya tries to hide her vulnerabilities. “I’m not as forgiving. I told him everything, but he already knew. Cort knew, yet he still stayed by your side, forgiving you for everything. I realize there are more things I don’t even know or understand, things you’ve done just to Cortez, yet he has forgiven them as well.”

“I–”

“You both have the right to privacy, Ezra.” Katya interrupts me before I say anything I may regret. “You don’t need me when you have Cortez. I don’t need you when you have Cort. Cort doesn’t need me as long as he has you. We cannot work as a triad, and we never could.”

“We could have,” I wistfully mumble.

“No, Cort and I were only in it for you. That’s us two in it for you, not three equals in a triad.” Katya points out the fatal flaw in my original plan. “It would’ve never worked.”

“I regret nothing,” is muttered with conviction. “I regret betrayals I’ve committed, but nothing that brought us together.”

“Neither do we.” Cortez squeezes my forearm, looking at me with watery gray eyes. “We don’t regret either, especially the twins.”

“I’m going to be honest with you, Ezra.” It’s odd, but Katya and Cort join forces to coddle me, as if it’s me they’re worried is going to break. “I don’t think time can heal the wounds you’ve inflicted on me. Even after understanding the dynamics of the founders, I still can’t figure out if Raymond targeted me.”

“I don’t know,” I mutter with complete and total hopelessness. At the same time, Cort says, “We didn’t know then, and we don’t know now.”

“Maybe we’ll never know.” Katya continually nods her head, like she’s answering her own unspoken questions. “Ez, I know you and Whitt double-teamed Regina on Halloween in the maze, and that you fucked Whitt and Dalton earlier tonight– last night, I guess.”

“Katya,” I start.

“Don’t!” There’s that godforsaken word again. “Even if our marriage cleaned the slate between us, you are a faithless adulterer. Spouses everywhere get divorced for less.”

“We negotiated Whitt and Dalton–”

“Not to fuck them, we didn’t.” Katya snarls. “Don’t give me that bullshit that Master Ez or Ezra did it, so it doesn’t count. Nowhere in those negotiations was a pass for you to fuck Regina. Nowhere in there was Cortez fucking Marcus. Neither one of you even thought of how humiliated that would make me feel, how disrespected. Neither one of you thought how that undermined the respect your friends and family should show me.”

“I won’t lie, Kitten.” Somehow, Cort is borrowing Caleb’s uncensored attitude. “You didn’t even register in my thoughts when it came to me fucking Marcus.”

“I know– same with Ez. Not a single thought given to me, but I guarantee you were the only person he thought about.” Katya tries to rein in her anger. My need for self-preservation keeps my ass quiet.

“We have two sons and two daughters between us. To stay with two men who so callously disrespect me by committing adultery, that reinforces to Ava and Azrael that being a woman means we are lesser, and we should just accept that behavior as normal. It reinforces to Zane and MZ how being male means you’re entitled to do whatever you want without threat of consequence. Only bad parents would model that destructive behavior for our children.”

Cort makes a choking sound, nearly swallowing his own tongue, while I sit in silence, truly processing every word Katya says. If we’re going to find a happy medium, I have to hear her.

“Our lives have been unbalanced. I’m not arrogant enough to think you being with them had anything to do with me, but as your wife, your decisions affect me and our family. Yes, I’m no saint, and I don’t expect either one of you to be. I was reasonable in our negotiations. In my defense, every man I’ve been with was because of you. Every man who has entered my body was of your choosing. You, Ray, Aaron, Cortez, Marcus in my mouth, and lastly Dexter. Never truly my choice, was it?”

“Katya.” I desperately try again, my voice breaking with the need to be heard. “Please let me say something.”

“Don’t,” Cortez cautions, picking up that damn word too. “Kitten needs to say her piece.” Sensing Katya has rebuilt her defenses, Cortez stops holding her, so he can face her while we talk.

“You cheated with Marc’s fiancé. You cheated with a woman who loathes me, goes out of her way to bully me, taints me to anyone who will listen. You betrayed me deeper than adultery. Regina hates me because of Ade, and I understand her loyalty to her best friend. But she is incapable of seeing it from my point-of-view.”

“I’ll talk to Regina.”

“Yes, Ez. That’ll help,” Cort mutters sarcastically, glaring my ass down. “What Katya needs is you getting chatty with the woman you cheated on us with. That’ll help.”

Katya ignores us both, continuing on the path she set. “Cort couldn’t grasp the concept of not fighting for you– not fighting over you. But Ade was forced to fight me for you, most certainly because of events sparked by the founders. I almost lost our twins. I almost killed another human being, only to learn just last night she’s my first-cousin. Outside of our children, no one is worth fighting over. Some acts aren’t forgivable, Ezra.”

Speechless, I stare into the endless void of my wife’s eyes, and only see betrayal reflected back at me.

Taking a deep breath, Katya rests her palm on mine. “I’m still in love with you, even if it’s a hit to my self-respect.”

“I love you, too!” Crying out, the need to go to Katya is suffocating, but I know I won’t be welcome. The defiant green glare and the wildly swinging red hair are a good indication that if I get within hugging distance, Katya will tear my nuts off this time around, instead of just kicking them into my lungs.

“Do you, do you really?” Katya furiously hisses. “I’ve often wondered. But there is no mistaking how much you love Cortez, yet you purposely hurt him as well. If you can hurt Cortez, you can hurt anyone.” Katya mirrors the same words Raymond used when we were abducted. I want to profess it wasn’t me at the time. I’m me now, not Master Ez or Ezra.

ME!

“So maybe you do love me in your own way. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, since it can’t change the past, it changes nothing.”

“I would if I could,” I hopelessly mumble.

Ignoring my inane words, Katya speaks over me. “I say I love you, but how when I don’t even know you?” She whispers to herself, voice dipping to hell and back.

“You know me,” I defend, reaching out toward Kat, but she pushes away from me.

“Ezra, how can anyone know you, when you don’t even know yourself? I know I love the version you show me, because I want you to be healthy, happy, content, and sane.”

“I want the same for you.” Not giving a shit, I reach out to snare Katya’s hand out of pure desperation.

“I wish the best for you. I want to know the real you, see you smile when you look at our children. But I don’t want to wake up beside you, or go to sleep next to you, or trust you to be there for me. I may love you, I may even be in love with you, but I cannot survive you, Ezra. Only one person can, and I’m leaving you, so Cortez can have you all to himself.”

“Katya, don’t do this for me.” Cortez loses it. The pain he felt when Kat called us out for being bad parents dissipates in the face of rage and fear. “That’s the wrong reason.”

“You’re a fucking saint,” Katya mutters in awe. “Truly. All the shit you put up with, you’re either a saint or stupid. Maybe a masochist.”

“Thanks a fucking lot.” Cortez growls, hackles rising. “I thought this was supposed to be amicable.”

“This is me being amicable, Cort. Very amicable,” Katya stresses. “Ezra is hot. Dangerous. He makes me want to fuck him senseless. He intrigues me and confuses me. He is addictive and tainted. He’s like that bad boy my parents feared when I was a teenager, but worse, because he’s not a loser. Ezra is so intelligent, it’s frightening. I love him, fear him, and lust for him in equal measure. But no one should ever fear their husband– and that, in and of itself, is the answer I was seeking.”

“You have nothing to fear from me.” Flabbergasted at the ridiculous words I spew, Cort glares at me, lips drawn in a tight line of despair. I’m fucking this up, down, and sideways.

“But more so, everything I just said, it doesn’t apply to me. Cort thinks of me as his sister, so how would a triad relationship work with two siblings and one very naughty sociopath? It doesn’t. But then you add the fact that two of the three are gay– I’m the only one in this relationship who actually likes pussy, and I inconveniently have one as well.

“Kat, I want you .” I’m just pissing Cort off left and right.

“It would’ve never worked, no matter how hard we tried. One of us would’ve had to sell their soul for the others, leaving all three of us to be miserable. I’m no saint– I refuse to sell my soul or be miserable for another day.”

Katya’s harsh truths ring in the silence until it’s deafening. We three just stare at one another in awe– there is no other word for the wave of emotion that has descended upon us. Awe, because it’s a mix of a billion emotions warping into one very twisted emotion.

“This is not a triad relationship. You two are most definitely in love with each other, yet neither of you are in love with me. Then there’s me, who’s in love with half a personality, not a full man. It’s not real. None of it.”

“Right now, you’re incapable of believing anything I say.” Unable to hold my tongue any longer, I have to get this out, even if Katya won’t digest it. “But every word you just said is dead wrong.”

“I don’t think so–”

“As I said, you’re incapable of hearing me, because you don’t trust me.”

“Do you blame her, Ez?” Cort is fantasizing about kicking me in the nuts. This is the first time I feel as if they’re tag-teaming me, leaving me as the odd man out.

“Every touch, every reaction, it was response-based, because your bodies recognized mine. Our love is regret-based, because of our past. I’m leaving, because it’s what’s best for all of us. What you both do with each other is on you, just don’t hurt our children and I won’t give two licks.”

The resolve, the strength pouring from Katya, it hitches the breath in my throat. I’m the one in awe of her. She is commanding and demanding, showing us a side of her that’s purely a shield. A defense.

Katya is dying inside, I can sense it. But she doesn’t trust me to support her, to comfort her, to love her. If the past predicts the future, Katya cannot seek me out for anything except for the debilitating pain of betrayal. But I will eventually prove her wrong. Just not as a husband, as a fellow human being.

“This is how it’s going to go down.” Kat commands, tossing her notepad onto the coffee table between us. “With Syn, Fate, Amelia, and Boyd all having their own places, Faith’s childhood home has lain empty. She offered me the house because it was my aunt’s home–”

“Wow,” Cortez mumbles in abject horror. “Faith is a real fucking bitch for sinking so low.”

“What the fuck, Cortez?!” Katya jumping to Faith’s defense shouldn’t be amusing. In years past, she would have laughed when Cortez made a comment like that.

“ I said .” Cortez slowly and succinctly repeats. “Faith is a real fucking bitch. A. C. U. N. T. In one night, she managed to turn you from Ezra. Then she gave you a home, so you had somewhere to run. Instead of coming to us and trying to work this out like normal people, you followed Faith’s direction– a woman who despises you.”

Defeated, I slump on the sofa, head in hands, feeling as if life as we knew it has come to an end.

“Faith enacted the perfect gameplay. That bitch just won a play we didn’t even know we were playing. Holy fuck!” Cort shouts in amazement, while brutally clutching his crotch. “I want to go pound Faith for this, with my big dick in her tiny cunt, when I promised myself I’d never screw another girl again, especially that bitch.”

Laughter is abruptly torn from my throat. “Well, goddamnit!” is said in honor of our blasphemous petite sadist. “Faith pulled off the perfect play. That woman is a genius when it comes to the long game.”

“Cortez. Ezra.” Katya angrily admonishes us, confused at our manic reaction to her revelation. “Syn wasn’t playing a game with me last night. She gets nothing from telling the truth. The only ones who win are you two idiots.”

Manically laughing, I hold a hand out toward our wife. “Don’t worry about Faith, Cortez loves her as much as he loves you. But I do worry about that dick statement, because he meant that one.”

“I did not!” Cortez poorly denies, the blush riding high on his cheeks and the raging hard-on tattling on him. Not that Cort is lusting after Faith– the rage of her playing us turned him on like mad.

“I’m done. It’s late.” Katya is fed the fuck up with us. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Why don’t we get a good night’s rest, then talk in the morning?” I helpfully supply, trying to coax everyone into our bed, while I figure out a way to manipulate Katya into staying in it forever. “It’s been a very long and trying day– it’s nearly four in the morning.”

“No, I’ve made other arrangements.” Katya calmly states with an ease I cannot fathom. “This is what I want, what Cortez and I were hammering out before you arrived. The twins will stay with him at Shadow Haven. I will visit twice per day, then take them on three weekly outings. I won’t ask for shared custody until we’re settled into a routine. They’re too young to go back and forth. They won’t understand it, and it’ll stress and confuse them. Ava will stay three days with me, four at Shadow Haven, alternating. Cort mentioned that Zane requested a room when you finally move home, so I assume you’ll have all the kids together for a few days per week.”

The truth hits me in the face. There is no manipulating Katya into staying. There is no negotiating. There is no talking my way out of this. There is no getting Katya to see reason. She is resolved, and nothing will change her mind.

“That is too fair, Katya. You could ask me for anything, and I’d give it. Are you sure?”

Katya stands, then looks down at me. “Very sure. That’s all I need, and the rest is up to the two of you to figure out. G’night,” Katya whispers a split-second before she runs for the door. But not quick enough before I hear her quiet sob released.

“Don’t.” Cortez warns, grabbing my forearm as I stand to go after our devastated wife. “It will hurt worse if you do,” he cautions. “Hurt Katya, I mean.”

“I don’t want Kat to be alone.” Words hitching in my throat, half standing from the sofa, with Cort’s hand locked around my forearm. I stare at the door our wife escaped through– escaped me…

Katya is terrified of me, I can sense it now that I’m no longer numbed by insanity.

“Dominion’s not safe right now– we can’t let Kat go anywhere alone. We need to put a stop to this.” Panicking, my chest is rising and falling at a rapid rate, threatening to hyperventilate.

“Hey!” Cort breathes in a coaxing tone, slightly tugging on my arm to gain my attention. Flashing me sad eyes and a wary smile, he tries to put me at ease. “Katya won’t be alone tonight. The hens are having a sleepover down the hall– all the women over twenty-one. I’m sure mass quantities of alcohol will be involved, and since Monica stayed over, most likely some weed. Katya will be too burnt-out to cry.”

“You promise,” I beg, heart breaking into a billion little pieces.

“I promise,” Cortez vows, his entire being bleeding sincerity. “Now we need to talk.”

“No, I need to be held. Cort, please, just for tonight.” I practically beg. “Hold me while we sleep. We’ll finish this in the morning. I’m too raw after everything.”