Live Not By Lies Novels & Stories

John had agreed very quickly and said he respected my choice, and that he did not like kids either. However, that was a lie from him, too. My mother held my hand tightly and looked at me in concern. She seemed like she was afraid I would be touched by John’s flowery words. However, they had underestimated my courage. I stared at him calmly. “John, stop lying to me. No matter what you say, you’ve broken the vow of our marriage. It’s over between us. “I’ll send you divorce papers through my lawyer.” John kept shaking his head.

“That’s…” He shook his head slowly. “I wish I’d seen that.” I laughed softly. “It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as you’re imagining.” “I doubt that.” I continued anyway. “I walked them through everything.” “The fake infertility report.” “The domestic violence allegation.” “The financial fraud.” “The manipulation.” “The conspiracy.” I swallowed. “And then I ended by telling them…” I looked directly at him. “‘The truth does not become a lie simply because someone famous tells it.’” The room became very quiet.

His voice was low, furious, but it carried. “You did this,” he seethed, holding up one of the tabloids. “The lies, the photos, the fake emails—you planted it all.” Elise tilted her head, unbothered, her lips curling into a smile. “Prove it.” “Enough, Elise.” His voice thundered across the lobby, silencing the whispers. “You’re nothing to me. You’ve always been nothing. And if you ever come near Sienna again—”

“Don’t let him win. He’ll kill us anyway.” His gaze makes contact with mine- wild, desperate, full of pain. A bruise on his lip, a bruise sprouting over his jaw, and yet now I see the man who kissed me in the dark and said I should never go over to the dark alone. But now we don’t know, and I must be the light. That way at least Emily will live, I think. He shakes his head violently. “No—Carina, please. Don’t.” I keep quiet. My fingers are holding the flash drive Leo has created, the one that I slipped under my sleeve. It is my actual weapon, my bet, and my lie.

I was silent for several seconds before I said, "Stand up and talk to me. You asked what you did wrong. There's nothing wrong in wanting dignity, but you tried to build yours by trampling on mine." Her sobbing stopped. "When you spread lies that I was a servant and turned the whole campus against me, did that make you feel dignified? When you threw the bloodstained sheets into my washbasin and tried to force me to wash them, did that make you feel dignified?"

What would he even get out of it? Was it just about control? You don’t accidentally lie like that. You don’t accidentally lie like that. That kind of lie... it's something you plan. You don’t accidentally steal someone’s right to choose what goes in her body. I kept trying to breathe around the panic, but it was like trying to swallow glass. Because if he lied about this… what else? What else was I living with and not knowing? What else did he put in my food, in my drinks?

I acted like I wasn't in any way thinking of a lie to glide out of his question and the unnerving situation I was in, with him acting like a dad advising his guilty teenage son against doing drugs. Living a lie was harder than I thought. It's so difficult keeping a secret, especially from the people you love. I wondered how people lived their lives knowing everything about it was all a lie. What if the truth comes out? How did they keep us with their lies? It was overwhelming. I wasn't sure I would continue if doubts kept coming from different angles. It was nauseating. Laughter escaped my lips. A bitter laugh. I needed to prove to him that it was real. I wasn't going to chicken out, I had t

I didn’t need to raise my voice to intimidate him. My presence was enough. “I liked you, Benny. You had talent,” I moved back, shaking my head. “Marshal, believe me. Boss?” he pleaded. The sight of him wanted me to shoot his brains out, even right now, he had the audacity to lie at my face. Well, he did have balls. “You know what’s worse? I thought if you’d been honest with me, I would have let you off easy,” I lied.

A chance to survive the coup instead of becoming another body on the floor. He had believed it, too. At first. But belief is fragile when built on lies you tell yourself. Because the truth—the cold, unvarnished truth—was that he had chosen survival over loyalty. He had chosen Leander’s promise of position and safety over Fallon’s dying breath and Scarlett’s shattered trust. He had chosen to live rather than to fight.

"Sounds like exactly what someone says right before they take something anyway." "Maybe so." He doesn't bother denying it, which somehow lands worse than a denial would have. "I've found honesty tends to work better than lies, in the long run, with someone as sharp as you clearly are. Lies get found out eventually. Truth just gets accepted, once the alternative gets bad enough." "Is that the plan? Wait until things here get bad enough that I come running?" "The plan is you staying alive long enough to have that choice at all." His voice never wavers. "That's the only thing I'm counting on tonight."