Page 21

With her bedroom door wide open, as if she were anticipating my arrival or Caleb checking in on her, Katya leans against the headboard. Dressed in a fuzzy cardigan sweater, she looks so adorable that my heart melts. Nearly three feet of crimson hair is secured atop her head with two red ink pens, with another being nibbled on between her teeth. Katya is wearing a pair of eyeglasses as she studiously edits a manuscript. Periodically, she makes a noise in the back of her throat as she scribbles on the manuscript’s pages. As soon as she’s satisfied, the pen is placed back between her teeth.

I could watch Katya for hours when she is like this. Unguarded. To the point I startle, because I realize I’ve never seen my wife in this state before. This is private Katya, and I know nothing of this woman, not really. With a start, I realize it’s because I was no longer curious about Katya as soon as I stopped stalking her.

A captured Katya was a forgotten Katya.

“I can feel your eyes on me, you know?” Katya murmurs from around her pen, words sounding garbled and distorted. “I’m debating on calling the police, giving you a hug, or letting you have it with both barrels.”

“Which is it?” Taking up a post on the doorjamb, I’m not entering Katya’s bedroom until she invites me. I can tell by how the air around Katya went from contentment to contempt that I’m not wanted within her inner sanctum.

Not much of an inner sanctum yet. The house isn’t furnished, including this bedroom. Just a bed, nightstand, chair, and a padded bench, none of which belongs to Katya. There are boxes out in the hallway, which means this stuff is on loan from Faith, belonging to the long-gone Lara, until Katya buys her own furnishings.

“I’m leaning more toward the latter.” Slowly the manuscript and teething pen are placed on the nightstand. Kat removes her glasses, and my knees go weak from the pain they shielded. “I think it would be cathartic. But at the same time, I fear telling you the truth.”

“Both barrels? Why?” We don’t need Zane to voice how hurt and rejected I feel, because it’s quivering in my voice.

“Because you and the truth usually avoid one another, that’s why.” Kat replies, refusing to look at me while she mulls over whether or not she wants to vent.

“I don’t blame you. I deserve whatever you want to tell me.” I sound reluctant, because I’m not looking forward to the tongue lashing. But I believe I need to hear it.

“Are you sure?” Kat hesitantly asks, finally meeting my gaze. Tortured green eyes are glistening with unshed tears, held wide open to prevent the tears from falling.

“Yes,” I breathe, muscles starting to shake.

The full-bodied vibrating sensation is worse than integrating. It’s like my mind knows a huge change is coming and it’s not sure I can handle it. I can, and I will. With a deep breath, I attempt to calm my nerves, while repeating my new mantra…

Everything isn’t about me.

“You asked for it. I need to talk, and you need to listen.” Katya speaks with a fake calm, as she gets up from her bed, appearing to be in extreme physical pain. Hand pressed over her side, she’s bent over slightly, like an old woman who can’t stand all the way upright.

“Don’t come near me,” is issued as a warning. Voice breaking, straining to appear okay, Katya points to the chair in the corner. “You are sitting over there.”

I do as Katya bids, sitting in the chair that has a blouse and a pair of panties tossed over the arm. I pretend I’m not nervous by folding her clothing, fondling really. The blouse smells like Katya and it makes me miss her all the more.

“Gunner?” Katya strains to call loudly, almost a shout, but I don’t miss the way the single word quivers with anxiety. “Whatever the fuck your name is, I know the controlling bastard had to have gotten by you. Get in here and do your job, protect me from harming Ez.”

Katya speaks so coldly, I worry about her mental health. Last we spoke, Katya and I were on good terms, all things considering, or so I’d thought. By the way her green eyes are glowing with malice and agony, we are on very bad terms indeed.

I’d worry Katya found out more of my untruths, but I’m sure Faith revealed every betrayal, secret, lie, and sneeze of mine. It’s no wonder Katya hates me– I can barely live with all the wrongs I’ve committed, and the majority were to Kat.

Trying to appear calm and collected, when inside Katya is petrified, angry, and falling apart, she watches as Caleb enters her bedroom. I hate what I see in the tightening around her eyes and the way her fingertips curl– Katya is scared to death of Caleb.

“Ma’am.” Caleb politely answers, trying to put Kat at ease with his subservience. He doesn’t even meet her gaze.

Caleb is not submissive in the least. If anything, he is one of the strongest dominants I’ve ever met. So strong that he can scent Katya’s fear, which is why he is treading lightly to put her at ease.

“What do I call you?” Katya asks her guard as she gingerly settles at the foot of her bed. Stiff with pain, I fear she’s overdoing it by moving heavy furniture. Katya may think she can do anything, but at an inch over five-foot, she shouldn’t be doing what the men in her life should be helping with...

…and if that doesn’t make me feel like a worthless fuck, I don’t know what does.

Kat sits cross-legged on the edge of the bed, just a few feet from me. I long to reach out and comfort her, let her know that Caleb is gentle and kind. It’s why I chose him to watch over her, and I trust him to do the right thing when I obviously cannot.

“Gunner is my professional name– a nickname I chose when I was a teenager, because I didn’t want to honor my father by using his name.”

The in-your-face bro-ness is gone, enters evasion tactics. Dominion molestee filters into my thoughts, which explains why he doesn’t want his father’s name. Why doesn’t Caleb want Katya to know his full name? Most curious– I’d care more if I wasn’t so concerned with the way Kat is wrapping her arm around her midsection.

“You’re a junior?” Katya’s willing to latch onto anything to avoid the elephant in the room.

Me.

“Was a junior, with my father’s death, there was no need for a quantifier. Friends and family who knew me prior to the nickname call me Caleb. I’m Caleb Green, ma’am.” He sounds polite but there is an underlying tone to his voice, as if he’s ashamed of his name for some odd reason.

Squinting my eyes, I try to determine why a man from a family of strong, resourceful people is so upset about his roots. Stanton is the ultimate brother, father, mentor, and leader, who wouldn’t want to share his surname?

Katya flinches, face twisting in pain, and I have a feeling that was what Caleb feared most. For a moment, Katya looks like she’s about to be ill because she’s petrified. I reach out to comfort her, but her glare has my hand dropping.

“Of course, you’re Caleb Green.” Katya murmurs, voice quivering with disbelief. Any trust they had established dissolves in an instant, and I don’t get it. “Never about me, now is it?” she whispers to herself, getting sadder and angrier. “Gunner, could you please sit on the bench? You might as well be in here instead of lurking in the hallway eavesdropping.”

Silence descends as we patiently wait for Caleb to cross the room to sit stiffly on the suede bench resting at the foot of Katya’s bed. I find it interesting how Katya placed Caleb closer to her than me. Then we wait even longer while Katya gets her thoughts in order.

Clearing her throat, Katya looks between Caleb and me, as if she’s embarrassed to have this conversation in front of someone she considers a stranger, or maybe I’m the stranger in this equation.

“You just couldn’t stay away, could you?” Katya accusingly whispers, voice so thick the words are barely audible. She glares at me with disgust for breaking the only rule she’d put into place.

Don’t enter her private space.

“I knew you’d ignore my request and be back. Really, a guard was a bit much, don’t you think? But now I know Gunner’s true identity–” Katya gestures to Caleb, hand hanging limply from her extended wrist. “That was an all-time low. Even for you, Ezra.”

“I don’t understand what Caleb has to do with anything, Kat?” I interject.

Caleb just looks at me, silently pleading that I shut my mouth. The pained expression on his face screams that he understands why Katya would have a difficult time with Caleb Green as her guard.

Ignoring my question, Katya keeps speaking. “I expected Aaron and Roarke and Cortez last night. It wasn’t out of the norm of your insane behavior. Aaron and I watched a movie on his tablet. Roarke brought me a carton of ice cream. Cort called to tell me to sleep well. Kayla wanted to stay with me, but understood I needed to be alone. But it got to be distressing and exhausting, being that it was every ten minutes. I finally said I’d call the police if they didn’t let me sleep. Some of us work for a living, ya know?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay after everything.” No matter how lame I sound, it’s the truth. “This crawling panic descended, and the only way it would leave is if I saw you in person.”

“That bullshit last night wasn’t about me and my wellbeing, and everyone seems to realize this but you. It was about you and your incessant need to control every aspect of our lives. You disrupted four people from midnight to three a.m. just because you couldn’t calm your ass down for one night. It’s not cute. It’s insanity– disturbing and obsessive.”

“I will agree with that,” I mumble, already feeling the side-effects of my disorder.

I’m battling and winning against DID, but OCD is an entirely different beast. My palms are damp, sweat is beading along my spine, and I’m doing my damnedest to stifle the shaking. It’s that crawling sensation that demands I do something that is hard to deny.

I want to either hold Katya or run from this house. But what I do not wish to do is subject us both to Katya’s cathartic venting, even though I know we both need it. I need to hear it and she needs to say it out loud.

The fight or flight response is because I instinctively know hearing Katya is going to hurt worse than anything I’ve ever experienced.

Katya has the courage to do something that Cortez has never done– set me straight and put me in my place. Tough love. Katya is grabbing her closure with both fists clenched and her teeth gritted in determination.

I’ve never loved, nor respected Katya more than I do in this instant.

The saying you never know what you’re missing until it’s gone is accurate in our marriage.

“I told you what I needed from you, yet you ignored it.” Fierce, Katya glares at me, refusing to look away as she takes me to task. “It was the only thing I asked of you. I told you I needed time alone, so I could grieve, think, and move on. I told you to never come into my personal space, because I needed something that was just mine. Yet here you are–” Katya gestures at me, getting angrier by the second. “You’re sitting in my bedroom like you own the fucking place.”

“I’m sor–”

“Just shut the fuck up!” Kat breathes the words, but they manage to whip me in the face. “I said you were to listen. I’ve listened to your mouth for years, and while you may have heard my words, you didn’t comprehend them. You were too busy thinking up what you were going to say or make me do next to actually hear me.”

Frustrated beyond measure at the injustices I’ve dealt her, Katya pounds her chest, then winces in severe pain– breath rasping in sharp pants, face twisted in agony, I want to go to Katya to make sure she’s okay.

Katya’s reaction is bad enough that Caleb looks concerned.

Enduring pain I don’t understand, Katya and I wage in a silent staring contest, while Caleb looks back and forth between the two of us. I’d love to tell Kat she will never win. I perfected this battle of the wills a long time ago, just days before I careened into Katya’s life and destroyed it. But I have a feeling bringing up my birth father when Katya is pouring her heart out to me is a very, very bad idea indeed.

“We’re all so focused on the dissolution of our marriage, completely overshadowing what is truly hurting me–”

“Katya, tell me,” blurts out in pure desperation, hand reaching out to her. “Let me help. Let me fix it. Even if it’s only on a professional level.”

If looks could kill, I’d be incinerated, ashes littering Katya’s borrowed armchair.

“The shit that ended our marriage has been a long time coming– I’ve had time to make a resolute decision. Cort and I were able to reach an amicable co-parenting relationship. I knew most of your secrets, because everyone thought me an ignorant hick.”

Eyelashes casting half moon shadows on her cheeks, Katya loses the battle of the wills, no longer looking at me. “The bullshit with Regina was new to me, but that’s not what I’m struggling to digest. See, a part of me doesn’t even think you’re worthy to hear my problems.”

“Why?” is a breathy whisper, wishing I could take it back the instant it fled my lips.

“I don’t trust you,” is simple stated as fact, while Katya shrugs. “On Christmas Eve, while I was struggling to come to terms with being the bad guy who would end our marriage, I learned my entire existence is a goddamn lie. How’s that for an existential crisis.”

“Everything isn’t about me,” is repeated yet again tonight.

“Yeah. No shit, Ez.” Snorting in bitter loathing, those fiery green eyes burn me. “I mean, I knew you were a goddamn liar and a headcase. Four years is short when I spent the thirty years prior without you. But when a woman leaves her husband–”

“Oh, Sparky,” Caleb cries out in agony, understanding when I do not.

Sparky?

Seriously, what the fuck? Where did that nickname come from? When did it come from? No need for the who, because clearly Caleb has been thinking naughty thoughts about my wife, every time I told him I was happy he was home.

Here I thought I was manipulating Caleb, and come to find out, I was the sucker playing into his hands. Roarke, Wil, and Zane all tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen.

The nickname doesn’t even register with Katya. “Whenever I was hurt, or sad, or lonely, I didn’t hesitate to go to my parents. My mom would give me ridiculous advice. My dad would act squirrelly, because he isn’t one for signs of affection. He’d poke me in the side, tell me a dad joke, then tell me everything would be okay. My sister is vicious, so either she would defend me or break me.”

“Oh, God.” I get it.

I’m a goddamn asshole of the highest order. When Katya needed me the most, I made it all about me and my shit.

“Try to empathize with me.” I don’t think Katya needs Clarissa to break her right now, because my wife is absolutely crushed. “I’m isolated in a town where everyone hates me. My parents have been ignoring me for years, never coming to my aid. When I needed them the most, I find out they have lied to me since birth. You think you feel panicky and alone, Ez? Try being me right now. I. Have. No. One.”

“That’s not tru–”

“I’m going to tell you a story, how about that?” Katya challenges me, and then her eyes flick to Caleb. She snorts in disgust, twisting her lips into a sneer, as if Caleb and I are vile creatures. “I just so badly want to say fuck you and kick both your asses out.” That twisted expression combines with several sharp shakes of her head, like she’s clearing away homicidal thoughts.

“Katya Waters was a young girl who had dreams. I’ve worked my ass off from the time I was a little kid. My father owns a construction business. You work to eat– you work hard, you eat well. I remember being five or six, raking gravel and handing my father tools when I wasn’t playing with my toy horses in the grass. As I got older, I played less and helped more. Wheelbarrows and shovels and dump trucks. I climbed ladders and rode in the lift. My father always said the most important thing to know was how to read a tape measure, because that’s what his father before him taught–”

Katya chokes, whether on a snort or a sob is anyone’s guess, but it’s easy to determine the cause. All Katya knew was a lie. Maximillian Atwater was no carpenter, nor was his father before him– he was an ivy league graduate, with a hefty trust fund, and a sister married into one of the country’s most powerful families.

“When I hit junior high shop class, by God, I could read a tape better than the teacher. I worked, and I was a quiet tomboy. My winters were spent splitting wood, and instead of church on Sunday, I filled the basement with firewood for the week to keep our house warm. My summers were spent push-mowing and weed-eating two acres around our tiny home. We weren’t poor, nor were we rich, but we were well-off compared to everyone in our area. My parents gave me anything I could ever possibly want, but I had to earn it first.”

Disgusted, Katya continually shakes her head left and right, messy bun flopping on top of her head, tears splattering wherever they land. I so badly want to comfort Katya, reassure her, help her heal, but I’m the last person on the planet who deserves the honor.

Utterly silent, Caleb looks on in horror, understanding the gravity of Katya’s situation, almost as if he gets it more than I do.

“I worked a fulltime job throughout high school– deli and cashier at a convenience store not far from my home. I worked seven days a week, doing my homework in between customers for four dollars and twenty-five cents an hour. I saved all my money in a tennis ball can, even kept a ledger like at a bank– the tennis ball can was from a lost dream never realized. I didn’t have the time to play on the tennis team with my friends. The ledger was because Clarissa would steal my money, not working herself.”

I didn’t even know Katya could play tennis. Instead of playing with Whitt, I should have been fostering the connection between me and my wife– the only connection that should have mattered. Katya was struggling, and I was too self-involved, more worried about helping Whitt and Dalton traverse their budding relationship, versus saving my unraveling marriage.

“I was in honors classes. If I didn’t maintain honor roll, I was grounded. Grounded from what? I have no idea, since all I did was go to work and school. I didn’t have time to date or go to dances– I wasn’t a joiner like my sister was. I entertained myself with reading and watching TV. Mom would take my books away. Dad would tell me to get my ass outside, even if I was watching my favorite show.”

A short snort ricochets around the bedroom, all eyes glue to Caleb. “Sorry, but I think the DNA tests were necessary. You have no idea how much Max sounds like the men on my mother’s side of the family. My grandfather and stepdad made me sleep in the barn for a month before they let me set foot into the house.”

“Idle hands are the devil’s playground,” Katya rattles off, no doubt a phrase she’s heard leveled against her often. “By senior year, my teachers were creating AP classes for me to take, and I was on the distinguished honor roll. I didn’t have to work for my grades– I just naturally succeeded.

“With a four-year difference, our parents treated us as night and day. My sister got good grades, an allowance, spent all her time at the mall, with friends, dances, and after-school activities. Spoiled and pampered and humored. She asked, she received, never having to work for anything but decent grades. She stole my money, my stuff, even gifts given to me– I was a child to her teenager, and my parents wouldn’t pay me back or punish her for it. They wouldn’t even get me my stuff back. By the time Clarissa graduated, they no longer went to award ceremonies, when I was awarded top honors in several classes, because they only went before because of Clarissa. They got sick of parenting by the time I was a teenager.”

Age-old rage colors Katya’s cheeks crimson, the never-ending pain reflected from her eyes. “This taught me self-reliance. I’d forgotten that in my journey, but I remember it now. This sense of injustice always hung over me, making me feel unworthy. I think that left me vulnerable to abusive relationships, because no matter how well-meaning and loving my parents were, treating their daughters so differently was just a form of mental abuse. An experiment.”

“Vulnerable,” Caleb whispers, lost in his own thoughts. “You had to earn the scraps from your sister’s table, yet she was given the world because she was so special. That is abuse. Your dad probably thought he fucked up by spoiling her, so he tried something different with you, but that doesn’t change how invalidated you felt.”

Sobbing in gut-wrenching bursts, Caleb’s words resonate with Katya. The possessive part of me despises him now, but the greater part that will forever love Katya takes comfort in knowing someone gets it when I cannot.

“I have no one,” is a pitiful whine, and I so badly want to interject. “They’re who I would call right now, in this situation, but they’re why I’m ruined. It’s just too much to handle all at once. That’s why I wanted to be alone. If I’m going to feel alone, then I need to be alone, to get right with who I am.”

“Max and Clara lied about their beginnings, but that doesn’t make the girl you just described any less real.” This I do get, after learning Raymond was my father and Cort was my cousin. “Your identity didn’t alter– theirs did. Those are your experiences, Katya. You lived them. You are her.”

“I hate myself right now,” Katya admits, bleeding self-loathing. “Because I want nothing more than to run home and crawl into my daddy’s lap. I need my mom to make me homemade soup. Where we watch a funny movie, listening to my sister berate me in the background on how stupid I was to marry you.”

“I’m the idiot,” I admit without hesitation. “The stupid one for not realizing what I had until it was gone.”

Katya ignores my last comment. “But that girl is gone. She grew up. She learned the truth. At the same time, it’s taking everything in me not to crawl into your lap, Ez. To let you comfort me, to let you beg me to go back home to Shadow Haven. We could just forget all this happened and live in Cort’s imagination land.”

Heart beating out of control, I want that so fucking badly I can feel Katya beneath my fingertips, taste her on my lips. Her scent fills my head and erases all the agony we’re both inundated beneath. But she’s sitting across the room from me, not moving toward me.

“No matter how alone I am, there is one thing no one can take from me, Ez.” With a deep breath, Katya destroys all hope I have of ever reconciling with her. “I will claw my way back to who I’m supposed to be, gripping the tatters of my ruined self-respect.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” escapes Caleb’s lips in a rush. Tan face stark white, he’s experiencing all those riotous emotions beside me.

“Maximillian Atwater may have been a pampered prince, but Max Waters wasn’t. Clarissa belonged to the former– I was raised by the latter. I can side a house, and even cut and bend the metal for the fascia and window trim. I can measure, cut, and build anything out of wood. I can landscape, plant a garden and trees, and actually keep them alive. I can clean and maintain pools. Hell, I can even change the oil in your car. At the same time, I can cook a meal for twenty and clean a house from top to bottom.

“I’m good with the menial and the hard labor. But I’m even better with the mental. I can balance your books while creating a website. I can write, edit, format, and publish a book. I grew within my body and birthed children, then fed them from my breast… so what the fuck can you offer me, Ez, that I can’t offer myself?”

Katya stares me down, no need for me to answer her rhetorical question. I am trying to listen to every word she says, to imprint it into my brain. I just learned more about my wife in thirty seconds than I did in three years of stalking her and another four of marriage. Seven years, and I’ve never once asked Katya about what she wanted out of life. I was too worried about what I wanted from her… and I wonder why this marriage failed.

Me.

“Don’t think I didn’t intercept those looks Cort was tossing my way. He was confused as to why I wasn’t fighting for you. Well, I thought maybe you should have fought for us– Cortez and me. From where I sit, we were offering you everything, while you gave us nothing but grief in return. I have a lot to offer you, and you took and took until I was empty of life. A husk. Dead inside. Syphoned dry by an emotional vampiric leech… What do you have to offer me, Ez?”

Katya patiently waits, and it takes me too long to realize that this time the question wasn’t rhetorical. Sneering in disgust, Katya thinks I’m disrespecting her yet again by not answering.

Before I can right the wrong, Kat speaks. “What the fuck do I need a man for?” she spits in my direction. “I don’t, because Max Waters taught me how to be self-reliant. I had a momentary lapse in recollection, because your cerebral fuckage made me feel like I didn’t deserve any better.”

Dragging in a heavy breath, I speak as quickly as possible before Kat can stop me. “Katya, you are worth ten of me.” Her responding flinch informs me how she doesn’t believe me. Everything out of her mouth tonight has been nothing but venting. All bravado, no showing of empowerment or confidence.

I have done everlasting damage to Katya’s self-esteem and psyche.

The psychiatrist in me is crying out in shame and misery. As my true calling, I was born for my profession, the one saving grace from my insanity. My son is an empath, feeling the emotions around him, while I have the ability to imagine myself as my patients and experience what it’s like to be them. It is an invaluable talent that helps me help so very many. I always profess how I cannot help those closest to me, because I am head-blind to them.

I’ve been so very blind to my own self as well.

“Dad paid for Clarissa’s car, housing, and a master’s degree, while I worked my ass off in high school. Paid for her vacations when she studied abroad, while I had to buy my own prom dress. When it was my turn, he said there was no money left–”

“Sparky, your dad is worth more than most in Dominion,” Caleb bursts Katya’s bubble, which makes me want to unman him.

“I know. Now . The difference between my sister and me was disgusting. Was then, same as it is now. That’s why I said Clarissa belonged to Maximillian Atwater, while I was raised by Max Waters.”

“I get the disconnect. My mother’s family fled Dominion, bought a farm, and have lived their lives in peace. My mom ended up running away from my abusive dad, leaving Stan and me behind. I’ve lived both lives, and I see the advantages and disadvantages of both. I get where your dad was coming from.”

Instead of arguing, or getting overemotional, Katya just nods at Caleb in thanks. He acts more mature around her, like a grown man, instead of the frat boy around the enforcers. I have no fucking clue which is the real Caleb Green, but I have the sneaking suspicion both sides are.

“My life could have gone one of two ways: earn enough money for college or get a man to support me. Even though my parents weren’t paying the tuition, and I was a legal adult, the scholarships and loans were based on their income– too much income obviously . It wasn’t my money, but it stifled me. If Dad had been poor, I would have gone for free, because I earned it. Since we weren’t, it didn’t matter that I was paying for the tuition myself. Isn’t that disgusting? I had a three-point-eight GPA with college credits from AP and Honors courses and was on the distinguished honor roll, but I couldn’t go to college because my family wasn’t poor and I wasn’t stupid.”

“And now you’re feeling the bitter bite of injustice, realizing your future was in jeopardy because Max lied about the money. He wouldn’t help you like he did your sister, but he had no issue hindering you either.”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me, Ez!” Katya barks sharply. Evidently Caleb can connect with her, but I’m not allowed. “I put off school to work, so I could afford school. Very circular, that.” Katya switches topics of conversation so quickly it makes me dizzy.

“It was my first free afternoon in months. It was summer, and we’d just completed a huge construction job that morning, so I was free to take a walk.” Katya’s tone of voice hints in the direction she’s going. “Less than a mile from my house… well, you know what happened next.”

I know better than to respond as my wife unflinchingly stares me down in challenge. I can sense Katya’s need to release fifteen years’ worth of pent-up anger and frustration. For once, I keep my mouth shut. Everything isn’t always about me, and this is Katya’s time to voice her grievances.

Katya needs to gain her control back from me, in order to seek the ultimate in closures.

“I could have allowed what happened to wreck me, but it made me work harder. On the bright side, my rape probably saved me from becoming some alcoholic, wife-beater’s doormat of a broodmare. I worked, I got that degree, and I raised my daughter. I applied for a job in publishing, so I could make a better life for my daughter– we know I was accepted and why.”

Katya rolls her eyes up to mine, and the fierce pain I see reflected back hitches my breath, threatening to choke the life out of me– a torturous death I’d deserve.

“I know from the outside looking in, I look like the world’s worst mother, because I left my daughter for a few months to secure our future.” Katya’s turn of conversation throws me off kilter– she just moved from one topic to the next in a speed that rivals my own.

“Katya, no,” I softly murmur. But I’m ignored, because this isn’t my time to talk, Goddammit! Fighting the need to drag Katya into my arms and comfort her is causing my body to profusely sweat and break out into feverish shivers.

I did this to this woman. Me . Why should I get to hold Katya to make myself feel better when it would make her feel worse? A week ago, I wouldn’t have cared. Today, I repeat how this isn’t just about me anymore.

“My daughter was in a town with less than a hundred and fifty people, half of them friends of the family or fellow employees, the other half were acquaintances. Ava was in a school where she had been since kindergarten, with friends she’d made that very first day. She was with her grandparents, in the home she lived in since birth. Safe. Loved. Happy. Healthy. I left my daughter to create that same comforting, protective, loving nest here.”

Knowing what Katya will say next, knowing she has to say it out loud, doesn’t make it any easier to hear. I automatically move forward to touch Katya’s shaking hand, but Caleb’s warning glare stops me mid-movement.

“But you happened,” Katya whispers her accusation, the sound soft yet cutting. “You happened to me. Like an imminent storm, I couldn’t change your course. I couldn’t get out of your path. Now I’m so trapped, I want to peel the skin from my bones.”

“Katya, I’m sor–” A flash of movement is all the warning I get. A sharp grunt of surprise is torn from my chest. “Ugh!” Katya’s hand hovers in the air, as if she’s shocked it lashed out to strike me. Cheek enflamed in a burning sting, my lip is split with the tinge of blood flavoring my tongue.

“Now I’m sorry, knowing you don’t have to accept it.” Katya whimpers, staring down at her hand in horror, as if she can’t reason with the idea that she was capable of hitting me. “So sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”

I’m what’s wrong with her lately, as is Dominion as a whole.

Sliding to the center of her bed, a safe distance from me, so she can no longer reach out and hit me, Katya wraps her arms around her knees, endlessly trembling in fear.

“It’s fine,” I say to put Kat at ease. “I deserve that and a lot more. Maybe next time you can kick me in the nuts– make me puke.” I go for light and teasing, but I don’t accomplish it.

Katya’s hand flies up to catch the sob threatening to spill from her mouth, as if she fears she’s a monster for hitting me.

“Just reminding you of the monster I am, Katya.” Anything. I’ll bring up anything heinous to overwrite what she’s going through right now. “A few days ago,” is a prompt. “When you kneed me in the nuts. I deserved it, just as I deserved the slap.”

“What’d you do?” Caleb asks, eyes not on me but on my wife, like he’s sizing her up for some reason. “If you’re in control of your emotions, you only strike out to protect.”

“Caleb,” I caution. “I was trying to make Katya feel better.”

“I’m talking– you’re listening. Remember?” Kat warns, commanding me not to interrupt, because she’s not in control of her actions right now. “I forgave the rape. It was a few minutes of hell with a lifetime of consequences. Ava was worth any pain or heartbreak I had to endure. But you and your guilt couldn’t leave well enough alone. You had to torture me for three years, then capture me for the past four years. You have no idea!” Katya cries out, leaving me gutted. “No idea how frustrating it is to have all these people look at me like I’m the fucking monster!”

“You’re a good person, Kit Kat,” I profusely profess. But yet again, Katya flinches as if she doesn’t believe me. Maybe she sees me as a stranger or enemy calling her by an intimate nickname.

“It doesn’t matter, Ezra. My job, my home, my children, my husband, my friends, my contacts– everyone is your dutiful follower. They are your minions. Your worshipful reverents who do your bidding, never seeing how truly evil the deeds are that you’ve committed against them.”

Katya’s mournful scream pierces my soul. Even Caleb isn’t unaffected as he silently cries from the tortured sound. Katya rocks back and forth in the center of her bed, weeping, and it breaks something fundamental inside of me. It makes me see how Katya is paying for my consequences, and finally, so am I.

The ultimate consequence. I lost my wife, the mother of my children, my ultimate victim– Katya.

Not realizing the transformation underway within my mind, heart, and soul, Katya continues to speak, and I try my damnedest to listen and comprehend.

“Max Waters respected me more than he did Clarissa. He was teaching me to be self-reliant and have self-respect. I’ve worked my entire life, more so than most, to get away from being treated with this level of disrespect. You treat me like a fucking pet. You feed and house and play and give me treats and little jobs to make me feel productive, so I won’t feel as worthless as you believe me to be. Now that you are through with me, twisting up my life, you want to give me money as recompense. You want to buy me off as you put your broken pet to sleep and forget about her.”

“Katya, that’s not why I wanted you with me, or why I want you to have the money. But truthfully, I understand why you would see it that way. I didn’t set out to hurt you. But that doesn’t matter, because in the end, I thoroughly abused you: your trust, your mind, your heart, your body. I abused all of you.”

Weeks ago… many, many weeks ago, Katya and I had a fight that rivals this one, as this isn’t a fight but me listening. Where she accused me of abusing her, and I invalidated her claims. Sitting here tonight, with the woman I love showing me her broken spirit, I no longer allow arrogance to control me.

I abused Katya. My intention didn’t matter. I may not have thought myself to be abusing her, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

“My God, Ezra,” Katya draws out in agony. “Why me? Why ruin me? You say you wanted to help me, to mend me, but I was better off where I was. You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

“No. No, I don’t.” At this point, I would agree with anything Katya said, even if was how I’m the devil raining hellfire on our lives.

I don’t know what to feel. Numb? The amount of pain I’ve caused buries me, as if I can’t comprehend the devastation I’ve wrought. In a way, I’m thankful for the numb, because I don’t want to feel like Katya does right this second. Just looking at me is killing my wife, as if the sight of me is stabbing her in the heart, bleeding her out.

“Well, I’ll tell ya what it’s like to be me, Ez.” Kat struggles to breathe, small hitches and gasps breaking the flow of her speech, close to hiccupping on her sobs. “I have all these people around me who know everything. Yet I don’t get sympathized with or offered advice. Ignorance is not a lack of intelligence, rather a lack of knowledge.”

“I believe Syn tried to right that wrong the other night.” Caleb interjects, and gets hit with that murderous glare from Katya. He shuts the fuck up right quick.

“Four years too late– my guess, Syn probably knew for fifteen years.” Caleb’s flinch is answer enough. “Instead of empathy, I am loathed for no reason whatsoever. Regina, she hates my guts. How that woman could look me in the eye while I tended to her when she crashed after Marcus had her in the maze– Regina met my gaze as if she did no wrong, after she cheated with my husband back on Halloween. Not to mention the fact, Regina helped set up the trap that brought me here four years ago. Kimber was real to me. She died for me when I found out. The woman who pretended to be Kimber irrationally loathes me because of Ade. Dominion is the city of gaslighting, and I don’t mean our street lamps.”

“Kat, don’t go there.” I attempt to stop her, but I get interrupted.

“Allow Katya to say this, Ez. She needs to let it out. Don’t you see how the silence is killing her?” Playing the part of mediator, Caleb calmly asserts himself before I do something stupid, like touch Kat or order her to shut up.

“I don’t understand it,” Katya mutters while shaking her head back and forth, appearing beyond lost and hopeless. “What was I to do differently? What? Was I to lie there and die? Was I supposed to just let this crazed woman slaughter my unborn children in my womb because it would upset Queen Regina? Ade is alive and well, but I should have sacrificed myself and Azrael and Marcus Zane? Ade and I are attempting to find peace for Priscilla.”

“Regina Regal hates herself.” Caleb answers all of Katya’s questions in one sentence. “She hates how she didn’t stand up to the founders. She hates herself for compromising her morals, ethics, and beliefs, and it’s easier to blame you than to accept the part she played.”

“Maybe I’m sick to death of dealing with childish adults who can’t take responsibility for their actions and can’t own how they did those acts because they got off on it. Regina fucked Ezra because she got a cheap high off knowing how badly it would hurt me, like she’s a better woman because Ezra cheated on me with her. Low-rent, backstabbing little girl behavior by an empowered feminist. Everyone makes mistakes, yet no one gives me an inch. If Regina were treated as I am, she should be treated poorly for her poor behavior. I’m blamed for these acts, but I’m never the catalyst. No, the catalyst is a fucking saint. Saint Ezra .”

I move to stop Katya before she says something she will undoubtedly regret. This time it’s not Caleb who stops me but Katya. She gazes at me as she never has before. No love, lust, happiness, anger, fear, or hurt.

One hundred percent indifference bleeds from my wife. Indifferent to me, as if I’m a stranger she passes on the street.

Eyes flicking in Caleb’s directions, Katya whispers because I fear she would be screaming if she didn’t control herself. “Within months of living here, I met this tiny sadistic bitch who would call me a cunt, a whore, a worthless mother. She’d spit on me and punch me and slap me. She’d make fun of me in front of a crowd at Restraint while they laughed at me. Humiliated me!”

Caleb sucks in a sharp breath of shock. I don’t, because I’m not surprised. I tried to talk to Faith about her behavior. After treating Cortez that way since we were teenagers, she immediately started in on Katya. No one intervened because Faith was our version of the boogeyman.

“Ez, that’s why I feel betrayed that you sent Gunner to me as my protector!” Katya screams, defiantly, pointing at Caleb, all the while looking unbelievably deceived.

“After I found out about Zane, I followed Syn to The Green Building. Across. The. Fucking. Street. From. Edge. Ezra! ” Mouth open, nothing but rage and injustice is thrust my way. “Caleb Green might as well be Syn’s brother. Hell, I hear they’re closer than that. If I’d known Gunner was Syn’s family, I would’ve never allowed him past the threshold. He’s here to spy on me, tell you all I do, and give Syn ammunition to humiliate me again.”

Caleb and I try to jump in and stop Katya. “That’s–”

“Oh, both of you just shut up.” Thoroughly disgusted, Katya can’t stand the sight of me. “It’s not for my safety. Control .” Katya seethes, voice wavering from barely suppressed violence. “My guard would rather see me lying on the carpeting bleeding out, so I’d no longer be an inconvenience to Saint Ezra’s followers.”

“Katya!” Caleb calmly orders in a chilling tone, causing Katya to sink farther back on the bed. “You don’t know me. You don’t like to be judged unfairly, so don’t judge me by other’s actions,” is all he says, and Katya listens.

End of story.

Eyes wide, I give Caleb an impressed look of respect. No one, not even Marcus, has ever put Katya in check. Not for real anyway. Stranger yet, Caleb said he wanted to be security only at Restraint, never to recruit him as a master, stressing this several times over. More’s a pity, since Caleb Green would be one helluva Master of Restraint.

“Be that as it may, it doesn’t change your sister’s view of me.” Katya respectfully responds to Caleb. “When Syn and I first met, I had no idea what I’d done to piss her off. None whatsoever. It’s a mind-fuck, where you want to apologize yet are frustrated because you have no idea what you’ve done. I thought we were strangers.”

Katya snorts in disgust, then finally meets Caleb’s patient gaze. No longer defiant, she looks apologetic, and I sense she’s going to say something not very nice about the mother of my oldest son.

“Syn just hated me from the time she set eyes on me. While Syn was spiting in my face and tearing my hair out, she kept the secret of how she screwed both my husbands– a triad relationship supposedly built out of love and trust, just like the one they had with me. Before me, when the boy who raped me said I was his first– said I took his virginity. When I found out Syn has a son– my children’s older brother –I was at a loss, realizing nothing Ezra ever said to me was reality. Same goes for my parents and every single person I’ve met since birth.”

“I…” speechless, I just stare at Katya with my mouth gaping open in shock.

“So here is this bitch, pissed at me for things I know N-O-T-H-I-N-G about. I wasn’t even in this state when they happened. I didn’t even know any of you even existed on this planet. Irrationally, Syn blames me, instead of the catalyst. Never blames Saint Ezra,” Kat menacingly whispers, causing me to shiver from the frost in her tone.

“My supposed friends, family, co-workers, fellow dominants– they all look at me like I’m the one who betrayed them, when they’re the ones who have done me wrong. My closest friends are with me because you asked them to befriend me, and for no other reason than that. You think me incapable of finding my own friends– how very domestic abuse of you, Ez.”

“Katya, that’s not true.” I stop her from saying anything more damaging. “Now you are the one being irrational.”

My statement is like striking a match in a room filled with gasoline fumes. Katya implodes. She doesn’t scream or hit me– she withdraws into herself, disconnecting from me, probably forever.

“Fuck you, Ez!” Katya manages to get the words out in a calm, calculated tone. “My friends look me in the eye, then turn around to make fun of me behind my back. Call me a whore, worthless, a horrid mother. They find sick enjoyment in degrading me, because must be I’m flawed since my husband wants to fuck them more than me. They call me na?ve and blind, because I trusted my husband to put me at least third on the list. They were right about that– I’m last on your list. Since they were right on that account, perhaps they’re correct on the rest of the shit they call me. It’s to the point I want to say the fuck with the whole lot of you.”

“Katya, don’t leave the children,” I stress, fear warbling my voice. I don’t fear Katya running away, I fear her ending her life.

“Ah! There’s that domestic abuse bullshit again. How do you control the little lady? Easily, when you hold hostage what she holds most dear. Her three children. I’m not going anywhere, as you well know.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it as it sounded. I’m not emotionally blackmailing you,” I lamely promise.

“You offer a lot of empty apologies without explanations, Ezra. It’s like you’re arrogant enough to think saying I’m sorry actually changes a damn thing.” Kat strikes me where it counts most. “I have been victimized by every fucking person in this city. Countless times, yet they hate me. Whore! Whore! Whore!” Katya shrilly screams, causing my ears to ring.

Katya crawls across the mattress until she’s on her hands and knees at the foot of the bed. Inches from my face, she stares into my eyes, a sadistic yet pained smirk twisting her pouty lips.

“Whore,” she breathes against my lips. Time freezes into this one very profound moment. “If I’m the whore, it’s only because you made me one.” She viciously whispers into my face before abruptly backing away, so quickly I didn’t even see her move.

“I get called a whore a whole helluva lot. Ironic since I have less sex in a year than you do in a day. Ironic since I’ve never been with someone who I personally chose. Every partner I’ve ever had was chosen by you . My rape– you and Ray. Aaron, because you wanted to eliminate the guilt, while not giving a shit that it harmed my budding friendship with Aaron and made me feel sick afterward. Aaron is only loyal to you, and those few minutes of stolen passion will taint any friendship we might have shared.”

Katya takes a moment to compose herself, and I see the toll being with Aaron has put her under. The sex, the lost friendship, and the fact that Aaron answers to me in all things. Steadying her breathing, Katya slowly regains control over her errant emotions.

“Then there was Cortez.” Katya chokes on her words, tears rapidly falling down her cheeks. “You only had me sleep with him, just so you could join in and finally get a taste of the flesh you were too cowardly to take. Cortez is the only person on the planet you haven’t forced, isn’t he?”

“Fuck!” is a gasped at the revelation. “I never have– you’re right.”

“Because your love for Cortez is pure, that’s why.” Katya answers my unspoken question. “I watched the question flash across your face. You might not know me, but I do know you.”

The truth leaves me speechless. Discombobulated. Sweat beads along my spine, causing me to shiver with anxiety. It’s a revelation to realize that not only have I never forced or trespassed against Cortez, but I’m that transparent to Katya. She can read me when I could never read her. Katya’s pained words break into my tumultuous thoughts.

“Then there was Marcus.” Katya snarls, looking ill, like the taste of his name on her tongue makes her physically ill. “Nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. Domestic abuse again, asking something of me I didn’t want to give. You said, “if you love me, you’ll do this for me, Katya,” ” Kat mimics the exact words I said to her the night of her initiation.

“You made me prove my love and loyalty by blowing your adoptive father, when I didn’t know who was touching me, inside me, releasing himself inside me.” Katya’s voice quivers, face as white as a sheet, sounding and appearing as if she’s going to be sick.

That night has haunted me. Selfishly I was upset because Cortez was angry with me over my maltreatment of Katya, and I hadn’t understood the gravity of what Cortez was angry about. I could blame Katya for not voicing her thoughts, but when did I ever let her? When could she have possibly said no? When I told Marcus to shove his dick in her throat?

Katya trusted me, and I used her trust as a weapon against her. Cort had tried to warn me it was a bad idea, and afterward he wouldn’t speak to me for weeks. I felt no shame or guilt for using Katya. I had only feared it would be the one thing that would finally push Cortez away. If we hadn’t confirmed Kat was pregnant a week later, I believe that would have been the end of Cortez and me.

Even to this day, with Katya pouring her pain out in the form of frustrated words, I still think of it as Cort being angry with me, not as how I twisted and hurt Katya for my own sick gains. With Katya crying in pain, I still don’t want to recognize the results of my actions.

For the first time ever, I try to feel what Katya feels: stolen, trapped, used, betrayed, and thrown away like thrash when she was no longer of any use to my agenda. I don’t see Katya that way, but I can see why she would feel that I do.

“I’m sorry,” I lamely offer. “I’m a ruthless, sick bastard who can’t see outside himself.”

“That’s the first truth you’ve spoken, Ezra.” Katya’s whisper is an arctic blast to the ego. “You make me feel disgusted with myself. I gave myself away just because you asked it of me. I believed the abuse was love. The only way you could’ve used my trust against me was because I gave it to you in the first place. I’m ultimately at fault, and I sicken myself.

“With the truth out now, I want to fucking puke. Marcus was with Regina, and you made me suck him off in front of his own girlfriend. Later, while I was ashamed of myself, Cort held me. But you disappeared… cheating on me with Regina. She fucked you with a strap-on–”

Wincing, I jerk backward in the chair, haunted as my sins are used against me.

“Didn’t think I knew, did you? Regina already hated me because I was me, but you gave her more ammunition for touching Marcus. Well, Regina got a sick thrill telling me how my husband never wanted me. Ez, maybe you should have married Regina, since you loved sneaking around and fucking her behind my back. Marriage vows mean nothing if you can weaponize sex to be used against your loved ones. Not me– no, never me. Marcus. You wanted to hurt Marcus.”

“I was wrong,” is spoken in a measured tone, meant not to incite Katya. “Not an excuse, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I didn’t realize how far-reaching my actions would flow. Had I known, I would have never done the majority of my behaviors.”

“Sure. Right. Then there was Dexter.” A feral smile crosses Katya’s lips a moment before she eviscerates me. “Dexter was just to occupy me, so you wouldn’t have to touch me,” is said with deliberate calculation. Then Katya releases an ear-splitting scream of a soul dying.

Katya stands on the bed, screaming bloody murder, entire body vibrating with pain and frustration. The veins in her forehead bulge, face turning purple from the strain. I move to comfort Katya, but Caleb pulls me back, shoving my ass into the chair.

“Let Katya get this out, Ezra. She needs it, and you better be listening to every word she says.” Caleb tightly warns, glaring daggers at me, hands bruisingly gripping my shoulders.

Wheezing in rough pants, Katya stares at us with wide eyes and a damp face. “I’ve never had a man want me. Ever .” Big tears plop to land on her cheeks. “Never. My gay husband has always had to get them for me, because I was so gross no one would ever want to touch me.” Katya slumps back to the mattress, legs folded underneath her butt, despondently staring off into space.

“No,” is a pain-filled gasp. I long to move forward to comfort my wife, to tell her that isn’t the case.

I’ve always wanted Katya– it wasn’t obligation. I did not pass Katya off to Dexter because I didn’t want to touch her. I have my own insecurities to battle. I did it because as a gay man I could never satisfy Katya. Not truly, just as she could never satisfy me. I knew we could make it work, because we loved and wanted one another, even if concessions had to be made. Dexter was because I wasn’t enough, and any twit could see the fierce chemistry between Dexter and Katya.

“Why do you believe Dexter doesn’t want you?” Caleb actually asks, since my tongue is tied with shock. Blue eyes narrowed with curiosity, he watches my wife like she’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve. It’s a similar expression to the one I wear during therapy sessions with my patients.

Strange.

“Dexter doesn’t.” Kat shrugs it off. “I’m okay with that. I wouldn’t expect him to want me. Why would he?”

“Because–”

“That was rhetorical, Ez.” Kat blurts out, thoroughly disgusted with me. “Dexter is a good man who loves his wife. We were together once, which was sanctioned by you, Marcus, and Cortez. As if I were a pet you wanted to watch on a playdate, or a specimen to examine.”

“I know you’ve been with Dexter more than once, Katya– I’ve seen it.” In my mind’s eye, multiple scenes play out at Restraint, where Dexter, Monica, and Katya were together. I wasn’t jealous, because I felt comforted by the thought of Katya getting her needs met. She deserved to feel fulfilled in life.

“We’re good at playing pretend, creating spectacles to test you as my husband, trying to gain your attention. There was no fucking to be had– all smoke and mirrors. Dexter and Monica were just being my friends. They’re the closest ones I have, but not really. Dexter is Marc’s cousin first, so I can’t truly trust him, now can I? Monica’s career is at Edge. So really, I have no one.”

“No one is truly alone.” Caleb is the voice of reason.

“Sure,” Katya mutters dismissively. “Ezra, everyone is attached to you by some twisted six degrees of separation game–”

“Sweetheart,” is murmured in the soothing tone I use on my delusional patients. “That is just not true.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Ez. Where was I? Oh, yes. I get called a whore by the very women who believe in equality and feminism and sexual freedom. Beautiful women who aren’t ashamed of their bodies but make me feel ashamed of mine. I get called a whore while they fuck my husband behind my back. They mentally, emotionally, and physically bully me.

“Gunner–” Katya points at a silent and frozen with curiosity Caleb. “He gets celebrated for going over to French Kissed Kink to buy sex. I don’t blame him. Gunner has earned it. He’s a war hero for heaven’s sake– he should get to do whatever he wants. But haven’t I earned the right to do as I wish? It sure feels like I have.”

“You’re a married woman.” Caleb has the audacity to say, and I freeze, waiting for Katya to turn feral on him.

If it weren’t for Caleb’s unfailing ethics, I’d worry he and Kat already had some sort of friendship. Roarke already thinks me an idiot for asking Caleb to watch over her, but I know he takes fidelity seriously.

“I am.” Katya agrees, shocking me with her calmness.

Caleb said they hadn’t spoken during the day– he lied. There is a quiet camaraderie between them that brings my territorialism to the fore.

“I am, but who am I married to? I’m a wife without a husband when I supposedly have two. Neither of them treats me as their wife, yet both expect me to treat them as my husband. I’ve been faithful, not that they gave two shits. Are the rules different for me because I have a vagina? Am I supposed to sit back and be disrespected? I don’t think so. That’s why I left, because I deserve more than my husband being unfaithful with the very women who bully me.”

“Point taken.” Caleb concedes, and I just stare gape-mouthed in wonder at the both of them. They don’t fight with each other– they act like respectful adults.

What the fuck?

When I integrated, did everyone’s lives tilt on their axis? Where is Katya’s bite? Why is Caleb being so diplomatic?

“When I finally figured out Syn’s shit, I had to laugh. This woman hates my fucking guts.” Katya snorts, shaking her head back and forth in utter disgust. Folding her legs beneath her butt, she sits in the center of the bed. Her face is marred with a disbelieving snarl, but her projected calm belies obvious frustration over her life choices. For the first time ever, I wonder what it’s like to be Katya, to live in her skin and experience life from her perspective.

“I’m called a whore, when I can count the number of men I’ve slept with on one hand. Just one.” Katya holds her hand up, wiggling four fingers and a thumb. “That includes all sexual contact. I’m not a man, so I see all contact as sex. I’m almost thirty-five, I don’t think that is an unreasonable number of men I’ve bedded in a lifetime, especially since four of my sexual partners were less than a handful of times, some only once. I don’t count Ray,” Kat levels at me in an argumentative tone, as if I’m going to dispute her claim.

“You shouldn’t,” I mutter, but she doesn’t hear me.

“So yeah, I get called a whore on a daily basis by multiple parties.”

“You’re not a whore.” Caleb presses before I can, but what he says next blows my mind. “By definition, a whore is a person who has sex for payment. Being a whore doesn’t make them a bad human being. It’s a profession, just as any other profession, but more lucrative since it’s so dangerous.”

“Trust me when I say that the way whore is referenced when leveled at me is most definitely meant to call me a piss-poor human being,” Katya firmly stresses, sounding more lost than anything.

“Whore. Twat. Slut. Cunt. Bitch. Those are leveled at women by small-minded women who judge other women on the number of sexual partners they have. Those same women get a high off who fucks them, as if the men are a prize worth fighting over. They tie their self-worth to their vaginas. Ezra wants me, I must be amazing! ” Katya twists in a bitchy voice, mimicking someone, but hell if I know who. “ Ezra doesn’t want me, I must be worthless! You’ve had sex with too many men, you’re a despicable person! You haven’t had sex with enough men, you must be ugly and fat and undesirable! I wish those women would make up their mind. Which am I, a slut or ugly?”

“The women at FKK do feel quite empowered–”

I shrink back into the chair as Caleb and Katya discuss the merits of prostitution, being as the Greens are in the skin trade. Unfathomable. I’m just thankful Katya isn’t screaming, crying, or looking like she’s about to keel over from anxiety and shame.

“Empowered you say, maybe I’ll put my application in.” Katya is teasing, I hope. “Whore or not, I can also count the amount of times I’ve had sex with Cort on that same hand. Yes, you heard that correctly. I’ve had sex with Cortez only five times in my entire life. Supposedly my husband. When it came time to be intimate, he’d direct Ezra to touch me, or he’d make up some no-sex rule.”

“I had often wondered if that was the true reason for Cort’s insane sexual guidelines,” I muse, before I realize how painful it must be for Katya to hear that the man she called husband made excuses not to touch her. “But I believe it was subconscious on his part,” I lamely offer, then instantly shut up as I receive a green death glare.

“Thanks for saying the horrific truth out loud so I could hear it. I love hearing how undesirable I am to my face.” Kat grumbles dryly, and I wonder if I said all my thoughts aloud. “So much for my career in the skin trade. No man would buy me.”

“You’re being sarcastic, correct?” It’s hard to tell with Katya this evening.

Caleb runs over me. “We all come in many sizes, shapes, genders, and orientations, because no two people find all the same attributes arousing. You have no idea how much you’re worth.”

Looking thoroughly disturbed, Katya ignores Caleb’s last comment. “So here is this tiny tyrant giving me grief about Cortez, when she’s fucked him hundreds of times. It’s nice to know that Cort could suffer through sex with Syn but not me.” Katya tries to hide the hitch in her voice but fails. “Hell, Syn has had more sex with just Cortez than I have had in my entire life with my reluctant partners. I’m the whore? Wow, way to be a fucking hypocrite!”

Kat’s eyes cut to Caleb, knowing she is insulting one of the most important people in his life, and no doubt making a life-long enemy who now resides in her home. But Kat is on a roll, and she will not stop until she’s voiced all the grievances and the injustices she perceives.

“Then there is Zane, who I didn’t even know existed until about two months ago. I mean, I believe the majority of marriages would end if you found out your husband had a fifteen-year-old son he kept hidden for all fifteen of those years. Ez, you basically lived a double life. When confronted with photographic evidence, you still denied it to my face. Bold-faced lied. You’d think people would blame the husband for wrong doing, right?”

I’m about to agree with her, but she doesn’t give me the chance. “WRONG!” Katya shrilly shouts, vein throbbing in her forehead. “Syn screamed in my face about how my children were so much more special than Zane, because you publicly claimed them. That you loved them more because you and I are married. Like being married to you is an achievement worthy of jealousy. Instead of putting blame where the blame was due, on you , Ezra. Syn just spouted this ridiculous horseshit that made no fucking sense. What. The. Fuck. Does. Zane. Have. To. Do. With. Me?”

“Nothing.” Disappointed in Katya, I’m sickened how she sees my son as nothing.

“Ez, get off your fucking high horse, why don’t ya?” Katya viciously snarls. “Zane matters. Zane matters to me because he matters to my children. I literally mean, what did Zane’s conception and your denial of said conception have to do with me? I didn’t even know you existed when Syn and you were making babies. How in the world was I to know there was a child out there when you told me you’d never had sex with any woman but Adelaide and me? You never admitted Regina until well after we were together, and never saying a word about Syn. I’m not clairvoyant!”

“You’re right.” I acknowledge how disgustingly unfair I’ve been to Katya. Swallowing down bile, I doubt I’ll make it out of this house without being physically sick.

“After Regina and I walked in on Jamie, Syn, and Levi in bed together, Regina and Syn were brutal. I left but ended up talking to Syn and Levi for hours. I tried to get Syn to see the past from my perspective. It’s like for the first time ever, Syn realized how irrational she sounded. I’m blamed for events from sixteen years ago, events that happened long before I was raped and dragged into this life. I was just minding my own goddamned business back in Pennsylvania, not knowing a horrific shit-storm was brewing in my future. I was just a hard-working virgin who had hopes and dreams, and this woman is torturing me instead of blaming Saint Ezra.”

“My apologies.” I deserve it, but it’s going to be difficult crawling from this house once Katya’s finished, because I won’t have an ounce of self-respect left. “I would apologize for Faith, but I cannot.”

“Shove that apology!” Katya snarls. “I tried to be nice, but I finally let the truth spill when both Syn and Regina looked at me like I was the one at fault. Ignoring all logic of the situation, they refused to put the blame at the feet of the guilty. Here are these two hypocritical women taking the past out on me, because they loved you so much, it was inconceivable you should ever be at fault. Self-proclaimed feminists taking the side of the prick. Regina’s business is called Empowerment for Christ’s sake, yet she runs around making me feel worthless. Here is a novel idea, they should have told me the truth about your lunatic behavior and protected me and my daughter– a young mother and her preteen daughter lured into a trap, not having any idea of what was in store for them. Saint Ezra and his precious whores trapped me for all of eternity.”

“Hey!” Caleb grunts out to stop Kat’s spiral down into meanness. “Respect.”

“When I’m done, you might rethink telling me to respect Syn and Regina. This is me finally finding my self-respect. If you don’t think I’ve earned it by the time I’m finished, then you can chastise me after, Gunner.”

“Fair enough,” Caleb politely allows. Either he doesn’t want to fight with Katya over Faith, or he believes Faith needs a serious attitude adjustment. Judging by the sounds of that Hey! Caleb thinks Kat is in need of one too.

I would step in and mediate, but Kat hates my fucking guts right now. Plus, I need them to get along, because it’s not safe for Kat to be alone right now. Even if Dominion’s evildoers have been quiet, we never know when they will strike next.

“The worthless mother comments are about as ridiculous as the snide whore bashing, but more damaging. I raised Ava by myself, without anyone’s help for almost twelve years. I was there for my daughter for everything, every minute of the day. But that wasn’t good enough, now was it? Nothing I do is ever good enough.”

“That’s not true.” I try to comfort Katya, but she doesn’t want that from me anymore.

“The twins are a different matter, but that’s because I feel the reality of the situation. I know you only created them with me to make Cortez happy. It had nothing to do with the three of us creating life from the love we shared, nothing so romantic. It was warped and twisted– all about righting the wrong you committed with Syn by making Zane, then keeping it from Cort for almost eleven years.”

“I–” the denial gets lodged in my throat. “Don’t ever make me admit that out loud. I won’t do it,” I defiantly growl. “I don’t want our children to know the painful reality of their conception, because Ava hasn’t done well knowing hers.”

“If it hurts me this much, Ezra.” Katya gives me a glimpse of how bruised her soul is by allowing her face to fill with the agony I’ve caused her. “How the hell do you think it would make our children feel? It’s not my fault, and it’s not their fault– it’s yours . But it’s too late to play the blame game, because they are human beings you created for your own twisted means.”

“They are my sons and daughters– I love them all.” I fiercely declare, fists clenching the arms of the chair.

“We all do, Ezra. Ava is my first born. Zane holds a part of each of our children. It’s not that I don’t love Azrael and Marcus Zane with all of my soul, feeling a bond only a mother can feel. But looking at them, I see what should’ve been, what could’ve been, how I went off my true path to make you happy. All I see are the secrets, lies, and betrayals in a quest to prove your love for Cortez.” Voice filled with conviction, Katya will not be persuaded or dissuaded from her path. “Right now, I need to fix those wrongs, so I can make my life with our kids right.”

“Katya, our children are perfect the way they are.” As soon as the words are released, I realize just how right Katya truly is.

Faith has always been between us, more so than Katya, because I lied about Zane. I needed to erase the mistakes of the past, knowing Cortez would forgive me. That’s exactly why the night Cort, Katya, and I came together happened. Cort wanted a child with me, as impossible as that is. I found a way to do it, and it didn’t matter who got hurt in the process.

I wanted that child with Cort just as badly as he did, and we were blessed with two.

“You’re right.” I absentmindedly mutter, mind still reeling from the truth I’ve long denied. “You’re a good mother, don’t ever think otherwise.”

“I want to hear you say that to your pet feminists.” Katya snidely snarls, lips twisting up into a sardonic smirk. “They think I should be a stay-at-home mom, as if my measure as a mother is dependent on my occupation. But it’s okay for them to have careers, right? Ms. Genius and Ms. Danger-Seeker. But I’m not allowed to be the boss of Edge Publishing. No, not me. I need to be at home, pretending to bake cookies and scrubbing shitty toilets in my multi-million-dollar house filled with housekeepers and nannies. What a joke!”

“There is nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom.” Ticking like a timed bomb, Caleb is barely holding onto his rage. “My mother stayed home to raise my four younger siblings, and she is very happy.”

“Gunner.” I can’t see her expression, but the look Katya gives Caleb calms his nerves. “This is not a statement on the merits of working outside the home versus raising your children. This is about me being allowed to find the path I’m supposed to walk. You said a keyword– happy. My mom was also a stay-at-home mother, and she was happy. However, I wouldn’t find it fulfilling, and I praise those who do with their endless patience.”

“Fair enough,” Caleb allows. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dissing mothers and grandmothers.”

“I’m career-driven. I’ve worked since kindergarten to reach this goal. Should I abandon that dream because I had children? And then what, when they graduate and find their own lives? Do I sit back and live a life of regret? I’m not a martyr.”

“No, but you are a mother,” Caleb murmurs, and I find it interesting that I’m no longer included in this conversation that was ultimately a bash Ezra session.

“ I am a mother . But isn’t Ezra also a father? Cort a father? Aren’t the men in your life fathers? Why do they get to follow their dreams just because the woman held the child within her womb for nine months? The mother and the father should both be responsible for the children they create. This isn’t ancient times. Let’s face it, I’m more of the go-getter and Cort is more of the caregiver, so why do I stay home to raise our children? Do I force Cort to go to work then? Why can’t we just do what works without judgment?”

“It works for us, Katya. It does.” I jump in because Caleb can be very old-school. “Cort would pitch a fit if you told him to go work in an office. I apologize for not defending you to the people in our lives. It made me feel justified and loved that they were standing up for me, even if it was wrong. Maybe if people had forced me to deal with the repercussions of my actions since I was born, I wouldn’t have turned out the way I did.”

I was coddled and sheltered, and when I did wrong, I never paid the price. Someone else always did, usually Cort or Katya.

“I love my children, but don’t I deserve to have a fulfilling life like everyone else? Cort is fulfilled. You are fulfilled. Why am I the only one who has to sacrifice every standard I have to please everyone else? Neither raising their children alone, both working fulltime jobs, neither stay-at-home moms, Syn and Regina, with all their cock-hating propaganda, have put me into a different category. A category they would never accept for any other female on the planet.”

“I don’t know why they do that,” I mumble in confusion, as I try to figure out how Katya being bullied is my fault. I know that it is somehow, and I need to stop it.

“I do,” Caleb says but doesn’t elaborate.

“As do I.” Katya speaks to Caleb, their eyes locked in silent communion. “It has nothing to do with whether or not I’m a whore or a piss-poor mother. It’s all about jealousy, Ezra, and hiding their own failings.”

“I need to understand how this is my fault, so I can fix it,” I quickly demand before I get cut off.

“There is no fix, because you can only fix yourself. Boundaries would have helped, standing up for me instead of reveling in the shit-slinging would have helped.” Yeah, Katya completely blames me.

“I’m the one woman they hate simply to hate. If I had a cock, watched my kids on the weekend for an hour, I’d be babysitting. If I took my kids out to the park once a week, I’d be the world’s best dad. But as the proud owner of a vagina, spending six hours a night and every waking hour on the weekends with my children isn’t good enough for the feminists.”

Katya has to stop speaking because she’s overcome with a well of frustration and injustice. Eyes squeezed tight against the hateful words threatening to spill, fists clenched, I’ve never experienced the level of frustration Katya is exhibiting. Face red from strain, she looks like she’ll suffocate if she doesn’t let it out. Let it go.

I did this to Katya– we all did. We all victimized her, bullied her, and it was to make ourselves feel righteous while we ruined the lives around us.

I finally understand. Katya was our stalking horse, one we hid our sins behind, while we pointed out her slight offenses as a distraction from our own horrific truths. Sleight of hand: call Kat a whore or a worthless mother, as we violate and steal and murder. Doing everything wicked and wrong.

If you’re too busy judging someone else’s faults, you never see your own.

With a deep breath, Katya continues. “I don’t compare myself with Syn and Regina, but everyone else does. Regina, with her abandoning her son for ten years, her nanny Fate and Kris, housekeepers, and an endless stream of family members watching the kids while she works and plays at Restraint.

“Then there’s Syn, who despite her feelings that I am a lucky bitch because you married me, found not only one father figure but three for Zane: You, Wil, and Cortez. Not to mention the manny, Julio. Stanton and Gunner, and I even found out about Marcus being called Pop. Here Syn is jealous of Ava and me, when we struggled for twelve years without anyone, working my ass off just to eat.

“Come to find out, my father had more than enough money to ensure we didn’t struggle, but never stepped in. Regina and Syn think I’m a worthless cunt, because the father of my children is happy to be a stay-at-home dad. Meanwhile, they fuck my husband behind my back. You feeling me, here? This sick double-standard that I have to deal with.”

“I-I–” Caleb and I stutter together, holding each other’s gaze. Both of us are rendered speechless for how cruel we’ve all been, and it’s no wonder Katya hasn’t killed us all.

“Of course, Cortez and you felt I wasn’t doing enough at home, not that we even had a home since you lost Shadow Haven, because Faith was having a temper tantrum. Cort had the audacity to ask if I bonded with the twins, because how dare I want to go to work, when you spend less than an hour or two with them a day.”

“I have to go to work–”

“Sure, the billionaire is going to use the lame excuse that he has to work. Work at a job because he enjoys it. He’ll also say he’s only the dad.” Sarcasm, nothing but bitter sarcasm is flowing from Kat’s lips. “The wife and mother is nothing but a vessel, so the man can do whatever the fuck he wants. If the wife steps out of line, she gets emotionally extorted and gaslighted.”

“Not that spousal abuse bullshit again–”

Katya easily ignores my outburst. “It’s not like your money is mine– it’s not like I don’t need to work to feed myself.” More sarcasm. “Not being at home meant you couldn’t control me. If I was wiping noses and passing out juice boxes, then I was easy to control. Out in the real world, where your influence doesn’t stretch, I might have actually had a real thought in my head. A thought that maybe you fucking suck.”

“That’s not true” But on the heels of that statement, my thoughts scream that perhaps Katya is right.

Isolation is the first step in abuse. It’s easier to control someone if you control their environment and the people within it. You close off all access to other things, until you are their world. It’s the definition of domestic abuse, and I deal with cases of this on a daily basis with my patients.

Am I egomaniacal enough that I did this subconsciously to Katya?

Yes.

Ignored yet again, rightfully so. “I do a better job at parenting than you and Cortez are doing. You’ve practically ruined Ava. I’ve tried to intervene but you, Cort, and Marcus will not be deterred from something you believe is right. After twelve years of being the sole voice in my daughter’s life, I’ve had you bastards ganging up and steamrolling over me. I’ve had no other recourse than to lecture the shit out of our daughter.”

“That’s not–”

“Don’t!” Katya warns. “If I hear you say that’s not true one more fucking time, I will snap. It’s my truth , how I perceive it, whether you meant it that way or not. It’s how it affected me , and I have a right to feel any way I feel.”

“You’re absolutely right.” I placate, realizing that when it comes to Katya, I forget all of my training and just live by one tenet– denial. “I can see where Marcus and I don’t allow you to voice an opinion when it comes to the children.”

“I’m so pleased you grudgingly admitted that, but I highly doubt you meant it.” Katya condescendingly throws back at me. “I trust Cort with all the kids, because he and I think alike. At first, I was blinded to the influence you and Marcus had over Ava. No more. I know how low my daughter has sunk, the way she has feigned mental illness as a replacement for pure meanness. I know what happened with Niel, Ava, and Whitney. Our daughter, she acts just like you, and you better fix her before I beat her to death. And that doesn’t make me a bad mommy, that makes me a damn good one.”

“I fucked Ava up?” Sounds like a question, but I’m numbly nodding my head. “With my actions and genetics.”

“You did.” Katya agrees, when I thought she would comfort me instead. That’s what you get when you passive-aggressively fish for reassurance that you aren’t the world’s biggest bastard, you get a cold dose of reality.

“At almost fifteen, our daughter has watched how you treated her mother, and that influenced how she sees herself. She has watched how her mother lost all self-respect. That is how you’ve fucked Ava up for life. Now Ava has learned her grandfather lied to both her and her mother, and it’s destroyed her concept of family, security, unconditional love, and hope. She’s already told me she will never marry, have children, or even date anyone, because love is toxic. Loving someone gives them the power to destroy you.”

Breath hitching in my throat, I suffocate on the truth Katya reveals, devastated that my eldest daughter views the world as she does.

“Now I find myself the pariah. I left my husbands for the most altruistic of reasons– so they could be happy together. Because I believe that if you are happy, you will stop making us all miserable. I left my babies–” Choking on a sob, voice hitching, Katya is losing it. “–with their daddy, because that is the most stable life I can offer them right now. But instead, I look like a home-wrecking, worthless mother who is putting her hand out for a hefty divorce settlement.”

“No one thinks tha–” I receive a death glare. “Okay, they will most definitely think it.”

“Yeah, they will. They’ll even have the balls to say it to my face. I’m not your child. I don’t need your money, any more than I needed my actual father’s money. The day you came to pick Ava and me up in Pennsylvania, I warned you. I told you I didn’t want anything from you. But you didn’t listen, you never do. I’m not a pet. I don’t need taken care of, because I can take care of myself.”

“You’re not my pet. You’re my wife .”

“Our marriage is a joke. You know nothing of me. Nothing. You were too busy being insane and playing games that ruined lives to get to know me. Cortez– pfftt! I think he and I could have become real friends if you hadn’t used me to get to him. While Cortez was trying his damnedest to come up with excuses, so he wouldn’t have to touch me, he was at least getting to know the real me. Cort and I will be great co-parents together.”

All I can say is, “You’re right,” on repeat, finally coming to the realization that you’re right is the husband mantra to his wife. Too bad I figured it out just as my wife asked for a divorce.

My world view is realigning again in less than three days.

“You say you love me and miss me, but you don’t even know me as a person,” Katya drawls out in disbelief. “So how is it possible that you could miss what you don’t know? What you love and miss is what I do for you, what you get from me, and the control you wield over me. Like an abusive husband, you control every aspect of my life: where I work, where I live, who I hang out with, even who I have sex with. Everything . Hell, you even buy my clothes, saying they are gifts. But it’s just your way of controlling how I look when we’re in public.”

“Am I an abuser?” I whisper to myself in confusion.

“I may be starting over with absolutely nothing, not even my dignity intact, but I’m doing it on my own terms. Even though Syn hates my guts, we’ve come to an agreement. Nothing but brutal honesty between us. She told me you had the security codes to the house. She told me you asked to pay the rent or buy me the house. This house belonged to my dead aunt– I may have never met Lara, but our connection is stronger than the one I have with you. I no longer believe the bond between husband and wife means anything– that’s what you taught both me and Ava. I earned Syn’s respect when I said I’d kill you before I allowed you to buy Thomas and Lara’s home.”

“You’re my wife– my children will be living here!” Begging in pure desperation, I need to provide for my family like I need oxygen to breathe.

“No. No, you’re not buying this house. Ava will evenly split her time between us, and I decided the twins will too. We need no child support to exchange hands because this will be equal or not at all.”

“You’re my family!” I shout in outrage, my control slipping. I have to grip the armrests to keep myself in the chair, or I’d shake the living shit out of Katya in a rage.

“Ezra, love is not for sale.” Katya whispers softly with the impact of a wrecking ball to the chest. “No divorce settlement. Nothing. I want to keep my job, because I’ve earned it. I work eighty hours a week. I’ve put my time into training my staff. The authors I signed depend on my hard work and tenacity. With my salary, I’ve already started the process of buying this house with a loan from the bank.”

“Katya, be reasonable. You will be financially strapped. Allow me to help.” Begging, I barely stop myself from abasing myself at her feet. “Please.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Katya has had enough of me, my manipulations and insanity. Fury radiates off of her in violent waves. “I want nothing of yours, nothing from you. After all you’ve done to me, you should understand this. I need to know all that I have is because I’ve earned it. I need my independence after years of subjugation. I will not live in, eat on, sleep under or on, or shit in anything you own. If I don’t own it, I’m not touching it.”

“You can’t be serious.” Conversation devolving, I’m losing my cool, unable to accept that Katya won’t bend a bit. Stubborn as a mule. “I need to take care of you.”

“I don’t give a damn about what you need!” Katya snarls. “I am not a pet. I am not a child. I am not someone’s little woman. I am a thirty-five-year-old publisher. I am a mother of three. Neither makes me who I am. Neither is my identity. I can be both at the same time. But there is one thing I don’t want to be anymore– your wife ,” Katya fiercely breathes directly into my face.

Jerking backward from the vehemence of Katya’s words, as if she struck me with an open fist. I’m sure she loves me as much as she despises me at this point.

“I will not hide in this house. I will walk with my head held high, because I was not the one doing the wrongs. I have no apologies to make. I have betrayed no one. I have cheated on no one. I have hurt no one. My only crime was allowing you to twist and trap me, to warp my actions and thoughts. I blame myself for my naiveté in trusting you as my husband.”

“You’re a good person, Katya. Don’t think of yourself as less.” Trying to sound sympathetic, I finally sense her underlying insecurity.

“I realize this now ,” Kat stresses. “I am worth more than walking through life with a worthless husband at my side, one who doesn’t love or respect me. A husband who is a faithless bastard that spits on the sanctity of the vows we made one another.”

Sucking in a pain-filled gasp, I’m unable to breathe as the impact of Katya’s words hit me full force. I can’t even issue a denial, because Katya is wholeheartedly correct.

“I want to run away and hide, but then I think to myself, why do I give a shit what these people think of me? I work hard. I’m a good mother. I’m a moral and ethical person. I mean, it’s not like I’m a real whore, a serial rapist, a criminal, an extortionist, an adulterer, a drug lord, or a murderer. I don’t judge, but you all sure the hell do. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY GODDAMN HOUSE! NOW!”

Screaming her wrath into my face, finger pointed at my chest, Katya looms over my seated form. I’m frozen in shock, disbelieving that this is truly happening but believing that it needs to happen. Katya deserves more than me, so much more. Katya deserves the right to hate me– she’s earned it.

I’ve earned it.

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry.” Katya warns when my lips start to move to say just that. “You can’t mean it. Not yet. You don’t get the far-reaching consequences of your actions. I have faith in you that you will eventually grow up, but I won’t be waiting around for it. I also have faith that you will never treat Cortez as you’ve treated me. I doubt at this point you ever saw me as a human being. I was just a pawn in your game of life– an inanimate object you used to get what you ultimately wanted. So I’m going to give you what you ultimately want– a happy life with Cortez. I’m going to take what I want– my independence and self-respect.”

“You must hate me.” Denial evaporating, I honestly thought I could manipulate Katya into coming home to Shadow Haven. I thought we could come to an agreement, where she and I were still together.

“No.” Katya’s anger deflates as she witnesses me join reality. “But I wish I hated you.” Looking exhausted, broken, and frustrated beyond repair, Katya is losing steam. “The only reason I don’t hate you is because I see your goodness when you look at Cortez and our children. Your love for them makes you a better person. Cortez and you have both avoided your connection for over thirty years, and we’ve all paid the price of the evil that emerged because of it.”

“I– I’m at a loss,” I mumble in defeat.

“Ezra, when I look at you, it reminds me of sitting in the courtroom during Raymond’s trial– the suffocating loss of control, the humiliation and shame. Except when I look into your eyes, I experience every violation, betrayal, lie, and abuse you’ve ever dealt me. Raymond was a complete stranger, a man without empathy– the vile acts he committed were derived from illness. But you’re no stranger to me. Those actions performed by you were deliberate and without mercy for your own gains, enacted by the father of my children. My husband, the man who was supposed to protect, love, honor, and cherish me. The man I will forever love, and there is no greater violation.”

Katya stares me down, pouring all of her emotions into one breath-stealing potent look. “Now let me be, and actually do it this time.”

“I need to apologize.” My attempt is with hesitation, because I can sense Katya is finished with me.

Forever.

“ You need to apologize for yourself. It will have nothing to do with me and everything to do with erasing your guilt. You can’t mean it, so I don’t want to hear it. You will know when the time comes that you can apologize for the right reasons. You’ll understand I don’t have to forgive you if I don’t wish to. Know that you can’t force forgiveness on me like you’ve forced your body inside mine. Now please leave me in peace.”

Katya stiffly gets up, walks away without looking back at me, then enters her bathroom to lock me out.