The Truth As He Knows It Novels & Stories

Powerful. “It’s time,” the voice said. “She’s seen too much.” Her breath caught painfully. “What do you want?” he asked. A pause. “Bring her to me,” the voice replied. “Or I tell her the truth myself.” Her heart pounded violently. “What truth?” she whispered. He ended the call and stared straight ahead, his face dark. “Tell me,” she begged. “What does he know?” His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “He knows,” he said slowly, “that the death you’ve been blaming yourself for was never an accident.”

He just looked at me with a terrifying, raw honesty. “I’m offering you the truth,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “That this house is a sinking ship. That my father is in a coma and might never wake up to see the mess he made. And that I’m the only one who will let you walk away if that’s what you really want.” He reached out, his greasy fingers stopping just short of my white dress. “But I’m also the only one who knows exactly how you taste when you’re not pretending to be an heir.”

He said I am not writing this to ask for anything. He said I am not asking you to feel anything in particular about this information. He said I am not asking you to call me or to see me or to do anything at all. He said I am writing it because you deserve to know what I know. He said the truth should have a better home than just inside me. He said you were always the real thing. He said you have always been the real thing. He said I know that now. He said I am sorry it took me this long to know.

And who the fuck is he? Just then, a man wheels over on a chair, coming to my awareness. I can't tilt my neck so I had to force my peripheral sight to capture as much as I can. He looks rich and powerful dressed formally in a beige polo shirt, tucked into a leather dark brown pant—his dark silver-dyed hair matches his other facial hair, strikingly complimenting his melanin skin. Shit! If I'm here, then I'll miss my auctioning by the Lords. Is he taking me to the Referendarius? Scrap that! Is he my new owner?

He didn’t even flinch. “I’m sorry,” I finally said, trying to keep my tone polite though my patience was already thinning. “What did you say?” His gaze didn’t waver. “You heard me right,” he repeated slowly, his voice low, steady, and maddeningly confident. “I said I know the truth. Your truth.” Okay, great. So I didn’t mishear him the first time. But what exactly did he mean by my truth? I blinked again, my lips parting slightly in disbelief. There was no explanation, no hint, just that I know your truth. What was I supposed to do with that?

When he walked in, he saw Ethan slumped on the couch, eyes empty and lifeless. The elderly maid stood across from him, her expression distant. "It's not as if I'm just now telling the truth. Over the past year, when did Miss Seraphina ever lie about what happened?" Ethan stared blankly at her, as if he hadn't heard a word. Looking at how lost Ethan was, Damian instantly knew that Ethan had finally found out about the truth as well. The maid's voice trembled with pity. "I watched her grow up. I know she could be proud and stubborn sometimes, but she would never hurt anyone with tricks or lies."

Chloe gave a satisfied hum, rolled over, and went back to scrolling on her phone. The dorm room fell quiet. I lay on the top bunk, staring at the ceiling while my mind raced. In my last life, I knew nothing, so I did nothing. This life, I knew everything. So I had three things to do. First, let them destroy themselves. Second, leave evidence. Third, keep myself clean. I dug out my old phone and opened a shopping app. I ordered a pinhole camera, small enough to clip to a collar. Then I ordered a micro voice recorder that could run for eight hours.

I opened my mouth, the truth sitting right there, closer to the surface than it had been in weeks, the exhaustion and the fear and the accumulated weight of every careful lie I’d told finally wearing thin enough that I wanted, more than almost anything, to simply let it go. “Whose are they?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, gentle in a way that made the question considerably harder to answer than any of the cold interrogations that had preceded it. “I think I already know, if I’m honest with myself. But I need to hear you say it. I need this one truth to come from you, freely, not pulled out by circumstance or forced out through someone else’s careless words.”

On the night before my wedding, the bridal party is too excited to sleep, so someone suggests a game of anonymous confessions. Everyone writes down one thing they want to say to me, the groom-to-be. I eagerly close my eyes, expecting heartfelt wishes and congratulations, but the first note stuns me. "You bastard. If you weren't forcing my sister to marry you, Lyle would be my brother-in-law!" Lyle Thomas is my best friend. Just three hours earlier, he called to apologize, saying a last-minute business trip had come up and he couldn't make it to the wedding. My hands tremble as I continue reading. "That watch she gave you as a wedding present is one Lyle turned down. He said it looked ch

“You have no right to say anything to me. You’re going to kill me anyway.” “Exactly. It’s because I’m going to kill you, that’s why I believe you should know the whole truth.” He must truly believe that I’m going to die tonight. That’s why he’s doing this. “What else do you have to tell me that I don’t already know?” “The real truth about your father. The things he’s done.” “Yeah, I know. He’s the leader of a gang. His line of work is rough.” I roll my eyes. “But what about you? Aren’t you exactly the same?”