Chapter 38 Ezrah
Chapter thirty-eight
Ezrah
My head is spinning.
It feels like my whole world is falling apart, and I can't do anything to stop it.
To find out that Aziel didn't cheat, that Sebastian is the one who orchestrated this lie, is like a knife edged into a wound that barely healed. I wish I could deny it. I wish I could say Aziel is wrong, but one look at my boy, the guilty look, and it's enough for me to know the truth.
Sebastian is staring at the ground, not meeting my gaze.
The night I found Aziel's phone with the cheating evidence filters through my mind. All the anger, the pain, the betrayal, the fucking ruins that become my life… it's all too much.
I take another step back.
Sebastian looks at me with a pleading look, but I shake my head.
"I need time." That's all I say before I turn away and storm out of the club.
I don't miss the defeat and pain in my boy's eyes, but if I don't go now, I'll explode and say things I may regret later.
I need to be on my own.
I need to think.
I don't even know how I got back to my apartment. Everything is a haze, and I'm not seeing anything before me.
I grab a bottle of whiskey and start drinking from the bottle.
The darkest moment of my life is all I see. Aziel is on his knees begging me to believe him. Pleading with me not to leave. Promising he never cheated, that he would never do this to me because I'm the love of his life.
All I felt back then was gut-wrenching pain because there was evidence of his cheating, yet he still denied it.
I left.
I left the man I loved.
The man who didn't cheat at all.
I take a big swig of the whiskey.
I was a wreck after I left and filed for divorce. Aziel tried everything in his power to reach me. He spoke with our mutual friends, bombarded my phone with messages till I blocked him, and tried to come at my work, which resulted in me resigning.
I was drowning.
And yet, I wasn't alone in that darkness, pain, and anger.
Sebastian came to me and took the reins, taking care of me, listening to me talk about his brother. What did he think while he listened to me talking about the betrayal he orchestrated? What did he feel watching me break again and again because of his lie?
Why the fuck did he leave me alone if all he wanted was me?
Anger replaces the confusing emotions inside. Anger at Sebastian for leaving my side.
Earlier, I said that the darkest moment of my life was when Aziel cheated, but that's no longer true.
This – this right now – feels like the darkest moment of my life.
All because Sebastian isn't by my side.
But there's something else too. Our moments changed me.
Sebastian changed me.
I'm already knee-deep in the same darkness as him.
And it hits me with certainty I've never felt in my life that I don't want it any other way.
I'm not just in love with Sebastian, I'm becoming something else.
Something far more dangerous. And fuck, I welcome it.
Because it feels like freedom, because it feels like us.
But before I decide anything, I need answers.
I dial Sebastian's number, and he picks up on the first ring.
"Daddy?" His voice is rough like he's been crying all this time, and I fucking hate it.
"I need you to tell me everything. No more lies."
He's silent on the other side of the phone, and I take another swig of my whiskey as I wait.
I need to hear the truth from his lips. I need him to be honest with me, let me see what he's done and why.
I need to understand, or it'll drive me mad.
My mind is a mess, and I think back to Aziel's last words. How I'm a fool, nothing more than a puppet in Sebastian's hands, how our relationship is a mistake, and one day I'll want Aziel back.
He's so fucking wrong.
I know my boy loves me, even if his love comes with blood and manipulation.
And even if I'm a puppet in his hands, then so be it…
at least, he's holding me. What we have would never be a mistake for me.
How can it when Sebastian has burrowed under my skin in a way no one ever did and I didn't think was possible.
As for going back to Aziel… I would rather die than go back to him. Even if he didn't cheat, I'll never forget how he turned his back on my Sebastian when he was a kid, when his adventurer father beat him almost to death. Yes, Aziel was a kid too, but what about when he grew up?
I still want to pummel his face just for that.
"I'll…" Seb's voice breaks, and he clears it. "I'll tell you the truth. I promise."
Do I trust him? Can I trust him?
I shouldn't. Yet, I do.
I'm silent as I wait for him to start speaking.
"I was twelve when I met my soulmate. You," Sebastian says with a small but confident voice.
"I was sixteen when I watched a movie with you and Aziel. I didn't want to watch with Aziel, but I wanted to do it with you." There's a pause, and I wait patiently. "Do you know why I never watch movies with others or hate when I'm interrupted?"
"Why?" My voice sounds rough even to my own ears.
"Because I was watching a movie when Aziel's father dragged me to the basement."
Never in my life have I known such anger as when Seb speaks about those times. I wish Aziel's father were alive so I could kill him myself.
"I'm so sorry, my boy."
Fuck. My heart hurts.
A choked sob spills from Sebastian when I call him my boy. The words just spilled from my lips, but they're true. He's still my boy, even if right now it feels like I'm an inch away from losing him.
"I was seventeen when I started studying your body language and expressions. I noticed your body, and it ignited something inside me. I was captivated by your smiles, the way you moved, your expressions. Everything."
"Then, I was eighteen when I jokingly called you Daddy. You only laughed and shook your head, but it was like something snapped inside me in that moment. I wanted you to be my Daddy so much that it hurt."
My breathing quickens with every confession from my boy. But he doesn't stop here.
"I was nineteen when I sneaked into the house while you thought I was away with friends.
The door to Aziel's room was slightly ajar, and I watched you have sex with him.
I imagined it was me whom you thrust into.
The need to be the one you touched, who you claimed, was so overwhelming, it almost brought me to my knees. "
The reverence, the obsession, and jealousy in his voice are so strong and violent in their own way that all I can do is just listen, mesmerized by his emotions, by his story of how he fell in love with me. Even if it's twisted and wrong.
"I was twenty when I decided I couldn't suppress my feelings anymore. I decided you'll be mine. No. I needed you to be mine."
The certainty in his voice, the sheer possession, makes my heart race.
"What did you do next?" I ask, keeping my voice even.
"I created a plan in my mind. Several, in fact, but they got ruined when you got married to Aziel."
"Still… you didn't give up?" It came out as a question, but I already knew the answer.
"Of course not. You're mine!" These words should make me angry. Instead, my heart skips a beat. "I orchestrated the cheating. I logged into Aziel's phone, downloaded a hookup app, and hid it so he wouldn't see. I connected his phone to mine and chatted with guys for over a month."
I close my eyes as memories flash before my eyes. The night when I found the chats on Aziel's phone is still clear in my mind. My whole world shattered when I saw the photos they exchanged.
"And the photos?" I ask.
"I hired a professional to create these photos. All I needed was one nude photo of my brother to make it realistic, and I got the photo from your messages."
My head spins as I try to come to terms with all of this.
I expect more memories to flash before my eyes, but instead, all I can focus on is the pure ownership in Sebastian's voice. He claimed me as his long before I even looked at him as something more than Aziel's little brother.
He went to insane lengths to break me and Aziel. Fuck, he even sneaked and watched us have intimacy. Yet all I can think about is how much it must have hurt him to see me with Aziel.
Deep down, even as I walked away from Sebastian in the bar, I knew I would always return.
Why?
Because he's the man I love.
Killer or not, the reason for my divorce or not. It doesn't matter. My heart already belongs to this man, and nothing can ever change it. It goes beyond an unhealthy relationship, beyond obsession. It's in a whole zone most would call crazy and condemn.
His darkness woke a darkness in me. I'd be a fool to deny it. I'd be a liar if I said I don't crave more of it.
But first, I need to know one more thing.
"If I were yours, then why did you leave me?"
Silence meets my question. My hands start to shake because my boy was so confident when he told me everything so far, so what could possibly terrify him to tell me the rest?
"Your father…" He whispers the words, and I'm convinced I heard him wrong.
Please, let me be wrong.
"What?"
He sighs deeply, and then he blurts everything.
"Your father. I didn't want to leave you, I swear.
But your father was friends with Aziel's father.
They wanted you two together from the beginning, that's why they put you in one school, even though we lived far away from it.
When you divorced, he started digging deep.
I couldn't have that, Daddy. I couldn't."
I'm not sure I'm even breathing right now.
"Your father figured out it was me who orchestrated everything, so he tried to kill me. I let him kidnap me and lock me in his basement, which I found funny that he would do the same as his friend."
Bile rises in my throat. The thought of my father touching Sebastian is a nightmare I never knew could exist, yet it's a nightmare that came true.
"I didn't let him hurt me. Well, not a lot. I tried to kill him, but he got away because he had friends whom I needed to take down first. The next two years I spent hunting down your father and doing my best to block his every attempt to contact you and tell you the truth."
It feels like all the air has left my lungs.
Fuck the lies, manipulation, the supposed cheating, and all the pain I went through.
Just the knowledge that my boy was in my father's hands makes me want to destroy the whole damn world.
"Did you kill him?" I ask.
"Yes," he says without remorse. "The second I killed him, I came back to you."
"Good."
And just like that, something snaps inside me.
Sebastian, my boy, decided I'm his years ago.
He manipulated, stalked, lied, orchestrated, patiently waited, and killed, till he could claim what was always his.
And deep down, every part of me knows I've always been meant to be his.
Just like he's always been meant to be mine.
Not only that, but he killed my father, the man whom I despised with every cell of my body.
My vision goes black as I'm overwhelmed by emotions. Madness, lust, need, possessiveness, obsession, and devotion. The last thread holding the beast inside me snaps.
This is the first time I face our darkness head on.
Sebastian's love is feral devotion dressed in sunshine. It's both, not one or the other. He'll giggle in my lap and also plan the logistics of keeping me if I try to leave. Or plan the murder of someone who pissed me off or hurt me.
My love is a sanctuary with teeth. I'm a protector, owner, and worshipper. My love comes with gentle and rough touches, structure, rules, but also possession, a need to be my boy's only focus, and darkness that loves to dance with Sebastian's.
With this clarity in mind, I grab my keys and head to the door.
"Where are you?" I say.
"In my apartment," my boy whispers.
"Wait for me there," I command, and I hung up the phone.
I need to get to my boy, show him he's mine, unleash this beast under my skin, and all the love I'm feeling. But first, there's something I need to grab before claiming my boy forever.