Twenty Years Later Novels & Stories

--- **THE END** --- **Epilogue: Twenty Years Later** The letter arrived on a Tuesday, just like all the life-changing ones before it. Keira, now sixty-two, with silver-streaked hair and reading glasses perched on her nose, opened it with trembling fingers. Her hands were still the same, still capable of holding a pen for hours, still marked with the ink stains of a lifetime of writing. Marcus sat across from her, his own hair now completely silver, his eyes still the same sea-glass green that had stopped her heart all those years ago. "It's from Emma," she said, her voice catching.

Aruna couldn't breathe. Her eyes remained locked on the photograph. Her mother. Not a memory. Not an old report. Not a surveillance image from years ago. Tonight. This very night. She was alive. Standing under airport lights. Close enough to touch. Close enough to reach. A painful lump formed in Aruna's throat. Twenty years. Twenty years of unanswered questions. Twenty years of loneliness. Twenty years believing she had been abandoned. Now the distance between them felt smaller than ever. And somehow more painful.

Chapter 223: The Return Of Bella Calamida **Christiana’s POV** *******Twenty years later.******* I was no longer the twenty-something who had once stood on a cliff’s edge, debating whether to let despair swallow me whole. I was no longer the woman whose life revolved around revenge and fear. I was fifty years shy of half a century now… forty-nine today, to be exact. A survivor. A wife. A mother. And despite everything, I was still standing.

He takes me by the waist while he tells me with his hoarse and seductive voice, “Happy twenty years of knowing each other, dear.” My smile freezes as I realize I just screwed up. I completely forgot that today marks twenty years since that time in the park. I just manage to say awkwardly, “T–thank you, my love. S- same for you.” Matt looks at me very amused, raises an eyebrow, saying, “You forgot!” “What? No! of course not!” “A-ha... It’s a good thing that I know you like the back of my hand. I knew you would forget it.”

“It’s so good to see you again. It’s been, what? How many years?” I pulled back, searching her face through her thick, dark lashes. They shimmered with silver tears, and she stared back at me with glassy eyes. “The last time I saw you was two weeks after you turned twenty-two.” She laughed, gently wiping the tears off her eyes. “I turned thirty-two yesterday. That makes it exactly ten years, right? Such a coincidence, but I am glad life brought you back to me.” “I am, too. I got married yesterday.”

You think you're entitled to everything because of your oh-so-great bloodline? "However, there's one thing you'll never get your hands on." Iris looked lost. "And what's that?" I stood tall, my voice ringing out. "A do-over. There's no magic pill for regret in this world." I raised my voice just a notch. "Pretty soon, Damon and I will tie the knot, and you're totally invited to the bonding ceremony." Iris looked like he had more to say, but I did not want to hear it. I wriggled free and slammed the door shut.

"This isn't up for discussion. I promise you this—if we have a second child, you can raise that one yourself." Ryan finally gave in through his tears. I sat alone in the car and burst into laughter. I laughed at the fact that everything I'd once believed was happiness had been nothing but layer upon layer of deception and betrayal. The two of them returned to the villa. I arrived thirty minutes later. I stepped out of the car, walked to the front door, and pressed the doorbell.

Ah, so she had been watching from the sidelines. "I’m getting engaged to James," she said, tossing her hair back with a self-satisfied smile. "Just think, if you’d gone abroad with me back then, we could have been married by now, maybe even had a kid. But no, you had to be stubborn. And look where that got you. You're a nobody stuck in a dead-end job, and you're a laughingstock." I cut her off, my tone flat and uninterested. "Congratulations." Sophia’s face instantly stiffened. "Congratulations? For what?"

My two pups are still underage and I won’t allow Masuzyo to hurt them to get to me. “Is there something I can find for you?” she asks. “No, thank you, just point me in the right direction.” She does and I go to the records room, going back two years. I think back, trying to remember the exact day. It was late fall. There was a light dusting of snow on the ground. October. I find the right year, then the right month. Before I find the file, I get a mind link from Atticus. ‘Luca, it’s her. The others are telling Alpha Masuzyo now,’ he tells me in the mind link.

I said and smiled at him. "It's okay ma'am, please this way." The man said they followed after him. As I walked to the car with the twins in my hands, I couldn't help but feel a little bit nostalgic. It's been six years since I last came here and I can't help but feel emotional about the whole thing. I guess I didn't think about moving here well, now I feel like running back but there's no way I can do that now. I already leased my apartment, sold my car, and even resigned from my job. I'm practically starting another life here.