Everything We Never Knew A Novel Novels & Stories

“You don’t know me!” Aaron’s expression doesn’t change. “I know more than Brian ever did. I know your birthday. The way you hate too much sugar in your coffee but still drink it if someone else made it. I know you twirl your necklace when you lie. I know you keep a notebook under your mattress because you’re afraid your sister would’ve read it.” The air drains from my lungs. My hands freeze. That notebook—no one knows about it. Not even Ashley. “How—” My throat closes. “How do you know that?”

"That's why it's only right for you to be scared, sweetheart." Ivory felt her heart sink into an abyss at his words. In novels, the female protagonist would meet a better man after leaving the male protagonist. Then, a new chapter of her life would begin. However, reality wasn't the same as novels. It would only turn out to be worse. If that were the case, she didn't want to put up an act anymore. She threw caution to the wind and said, "I was a little scared when you first came in, but I'm not anymore.

Adrian stole a glance at them from the corner of his eye, quiet but there. They got back to unpacking. The space slowly morphed from a bare corner of the penthouse into a lively playroom. There were colorful posters on the walls, a cozy reading nook, and shelves loaded with books and puzzles. Adrian hung a mobile by the window, and just as Amelia reached into the last box, her fingers brushed against something soft. A little, faded pink elephant. She froze. It wasn’t Nora’s. It was hers. From her childhood. Back when things were whole. Before the betrayal. Before the quiet that followed her parents’ divorce, and before she lost her sister’s laughter.

I was thrilled back then, vowing to love Rosie like my own blood. However, to actually like that little sister? Yeah, right. I swallowed the annoyance bubbling inside me. I thought it was better to avoid the whole mess. So, I headed straight for the bedroom. Our bedroom was still new; Bennett and I had not spent much time there. However, standing in the master bathroom, staring at the army of shampoos, shower gels, and conditioners, I was floored. All my stuff was still zipped up in my suitcase.

(Elisa’s POV) I loved how my life turned out. One minute, I was lying beside the road with a bullet wound from people I thought were my friends, and here I was living a life of crime and loving it. I looked at my watch, realizing how late I was to get to the restaurant, and said, “I have to go. I need to run the books for my bar and restaurant.” I turned to Lorenzo and asked, “Are you coming?” I asked since he had insisted on tagging along.

Both of us smoked, so we had put on a new enclosed front porch the previous year. Neither of us worked as our parents were billionaires and had left their fortune to us. But we didn’t live in luxury. We had what we needed and some of what we wanted. The last thing we wanted to do was draw attention to ourselves. To the civilian world we were just 2 females in their early 20s.

A foolish stirring born of fatigue and too much imagination. I would later learn how wrong I was. For when I closed my eyes, it was not the yard I saw, nor the men, nor the blades flashing in the sun. It was the feeling — brief, uninvited, impossible to unlearn — of being noticed in a world that survived by forgetting girls like me. And though I did not yet understand what that recognition would cost us both, I know now that this was the moment my ordinary days ended.

A clean, contained thing. I looked at the boy arranging marshmallows into a pattern only he understood. I looked at the man sitting quietly across from me, one thumb tracing the rim of his mug. I took a sip of the hot chocolate, warm and slightly too sweet and exactly right, and understood, for the first time since stepping off that plane, that the thing I had been escaping toward had already shifted into something I hadn't planned for at all. I wasn't sure yet whether that was frightening or the opposite of it.

“Some lies are told not to deceive the world—but to protect a heart n kkot ready to tell the truth.” A week had passed since “the rules” were made. The mansion had grown accustomed to silence—the kind that neither hurt nor healed, just *was*. Arielle kept herself busy with painting and reading; Evan drowned in work. They shared the same roof, the same meals, but not the same world. That peace—thin as glass—shattered one afternoon when a message arrived.

The second the call connected, his voice came through. "Elena." There was no anger in his tone. Only something I had never heard from him before. Panic. "Why didn't you tell me?" I stayed silent. His breathing became uneven. "I know about the baby." My fingers tightened around the phone. "I know you went to London." A pause. "I know you left." The words landed heavier than I expected. "Damian..." "I spent the entire morning trying to find you." His voice dropped. "I called the hospital. I checked your schedule. I went home and saw your closet..."