The Truth As He Knows It Novels & Stories

In one quick measure, he downed the rest of his drink all at once, the glass clinking hard against the desk as he set it down. “I'll definitely be back, Zachary Blackwood,” he muttered, his voice low and shaky despite the bravado he tried to wrap it in. “For your sake, I hope you won't,” I said. He hesitated, then pushed himself up with a swagger that looked rehearsed. “Fine. But remember this, you’re not the only one who knows the truth. And one day, that truth will burn everything you’re trying to protect.” He started toward the door, then paused, glancing back with that same slimy smirk. “Where’s the restroom? I could use a minute before I leave.”

The storm outside had cleared, leaving the city slick and shiny under the neon glow. Jimmy moved through it like a panther, calculating, controlled, but I could see the fatigue in his shoulders, the tension in his movements. He was sharp, yes, but even the sharpest claws could be trapped. I leaned back, sipping my wine slowly, savoring the control. “Soon,” I whispered. “Soon, the truth will bend exactly the way I want it. And then, only then, will I know who’s really standing with me… and who’s been lying all along.”

His suit even looked more structured, his jaw harder and he did not glance at me even though he was speaking about me. “I am not. Was just impressed by her little mail his morning.” His green eyes flickered to me. “Yes, it was something. I'm heading out, I should be back before noon.” I struggled not to smile as he walked out. “He like she mail?” I asked, my voice giving away my joy. “Girl, you might just last,” Rebekah chortled. “I'm off to do my job.” She was almost out when I remembered something. “Hey Rebekah?”

I saw the man I knew — the man who had learned to choose truth over fear, love over doubt, reality over appearance — come back strong and steady and sure. He looked straight into the face that looked exactly like mine, and he spoke slow and clear and firm, every word weighed and true. "You know every memory I have. You know every fear I carry. You know every mistake I ever made. You know every word I ever said to her. You know every promise I ever gave. But there is one thing you do not know." He paused, and his voice grew soft, and fierce, and full of a certainty nothing could ever shake.

"You can be difficult sometimes. We both know that. But that doesn't mean I walk around telling people you're impossible to put up with." I stared at him. Somewhere under my anger, something small and ashamed shifted, because I *did* know it. I had always known it. That didn't mean I'd ever wanted to hear it said aloud in his voice. "That's supposed to make me feel better?" "No. I'm trying to explain myself." "Well, you're not doing a very good job." He exhaled and shook his head. "Did Olivia tell you anything else I said?" "No." "Then maybe you should stop assuming you know the entire conversation."

The recognition underneath all of it, clear and unguarded and entirely without armor. It lasted several seconds. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Neither do you.” I left his study. The corridor outside was cool and empty and I walked it without hurrying, running the conversation back through the same way I ran every debrief, sequence by sequence, word by word. He had told me the truth. Not a managed version. Not the portion of truth that served his position. The full shape of it, including the part where he admitted he had been wrong, including the part that made him look calculating and human and uncertain all at once.

I know I have to do whatever it takes to fix this. “I will make sure everyone knows the truth,” I say. “Even if it takes all my life.” Quinn looks at me for a long time. “I want to believe you,” she says. “But trust takes time. You have to show me – show all of us – that you are different.” I nod. I know she is right. Trust is not something I can ask for – I have to earn it. We sit in the office for a while longer, looking at the old papers and talking about what to do next. Quinn says she will help me find more people who knew the truth. She says her mother’s old friends might still be alive – people who can tell us more about what happened.

he replies “I’m asking you to be honest about it.” I shake my head immediately. “No.” “Why?” “Because it doesn’t matter anymore.” “That’s not what I asked.” “I don’t care.” “You do.” “I don’t.” “You’re lying.” And that was the moment everything almost slips because I feel it, that truth pushing against everything I’m trying to hold in “I said I don’t care,” I repeat but this time my voice isn’t as steady and he notices ******************

The raw, unmasked pain of a man who's just learned that the person he hated most in the world was the person who loved him enough to be destroyed. "I don't know," he says. "I don't know what to believe." I cross the room and stop in front of him. "You believe the truth. Whatever that is. You find it." "How?" "You're Julian Croft. You find things out. It's what you do." He stares at me. His hands lift and frame my face. His palms are warm and steady. "What if the truth is worse than the lie?" "Then you survive it. You've survived everything else."

Something that had been underneath all of those since the gala and was now, in this specific moment, at the surface without any of the architecture to contain it. "I need to know who you really are," he said. His voice was completely steady. The steadiness of someone who has made a decision and is executing it regardless of the circumstances around the execution — regardless of the phone face-down on the desk and the story breaking across every platform and the studio calls stacking up in the muffled dark. "Before this gets worse," he said. "Before I respond to whatever is on that phone and whatever comes after it — I need to know." He held Zhan's gaze with the full, direct, unhurried qualit