All The Truths
Contents
Author Note
Blurb
Playlist
Chapter 1 - Reina
Chapter 2 - Reina
Chapter 3 - Asher
Chapter 4 - Asher
Chapter 5 - Reina
Chapter 6 - Reina
Chapter 7 - Asher
Chapter 8 - Reina
Chapter 9 - Asher
Chapter 10 - Reina
Chapter 11 - Reina
Chapter 12 - Reina
Chapter 13 - Asher
Chapter 14 - Asher
Chapter 15 - Reina
Chapter 16 – Reina
Chapter 17 - Reina
Chapter 18 - Reina
Chapter 19 – Asher
Chapter 20 – Asher
Chapter 21 – Reina
Chapter 22 – Reina
Chapter 23 - Reina
Chapter 24 - Reina
Chapter 25 - Reina
Chapter 26 - Asher
Chapter 27 - Reina
Chapter 28 - Asher
Chapter 29 - Reina
Chapter 30 - Reina
Epilogue - Reina
What’s Next?
Also By Rina Kent
About the Author
All The Truths
Copyright © 2020 by Rina Kent
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
To those who stand tall.
Author Note
Hello reader friend,
If you haven’t read my books before, you might not know this, but I write darker stories that can be upsetting and disturbing. My books and main characters aren't for the faint of heart. I don’t do trigger warnings, but if you need one, then my books are probably not for you.
If you, however, have read my other books, get ready for another twisted journey with complicated characters and intense passion you all love to hate.
All The Truths is the second book of a duet and is NOT standalone.
Lies & Truths Duet:
#1 All The Lies
#2 All The Truths
Don’t forget to Sign up to Rina Kent’s Newsletter for news about future releases and an exclusive gift.
Blurb
The truth doesn’t set you free.
Revenge shouldn’t be rushed. It needs to be savored.
Reina ruined my life and it’s only fair I ruin hers back.
Or that was the plan.
That was before she got under my skin and flowed into my blood.
Life as we know it crashes and burns.
All we have left is revenge.
Or is it?
Playlist
Illuminated – Hurts
Infinite – Silverstein & Aaron Gillespie
Divide – Bastille
Good Lesson – Bastille
Wherever You Are – Kodaline
Call Me – Shinedown
State of My Head – Shinedown
Kill Our Way to Heaven – Michl
Emperor’s New Clothes – Panic! At The Disco
No Shame – 5 Seconds of Summer
Empty Thoughts – Glass Tides
Death of Me – SAINT PHNX
Willow Tree – Twin Wild
Wrong – Depeche Mode
Running From My Shadow – Mike Shinoda & grandson
I Found – Amber Run
The Unknown – Crossfade
Just Give Me a Reason – Pink & Nate Ruess
What Have You Done – Within Temptation & Keith Caputo
Roots – In This Moment
Wasting My Time – Default
The Very Last Time – Bullet For My Valentine
Haemorrhage – Fuel
Love Falls – HELLYEAH
Some Kind of Disaster – All Time Low
You can find the playlist on Spotify.
The night of the assault
Life is unfair.
Its parallel lines and never-crossing patterns are like a curse.
No matter how much you run away from it, you always get pulled back.
Friday night lights fill the stadium as my squad’s members smile and jump. The crowd’s noise is like a rush of adrenaline for both the cheerleaders and the football players.
A small smile tugs on my lips as I stop near the exit and throw one last glance behind me, at Bree and Prescott, Lucy and Naomi, Owen and Seb.
And everyone else.
I never thought I would miss them, but then again, the whole robotic act was just that: an act. I never once thought they weren’t important, but I was a professional at making them believe they weren’t.
My gaze strays up of its own accord, to the spectators—the section for players’ families.
That’s where he always sits. In his closed-up, black mind, he still considers Owen and Sebastian family.
Which can never be said about me.
My fingers snake to my bracelet, feeling around the dainty material as I roam the crowd.
I know I won’t find him, but I still search anyway; that says something about my desperation.
It says something about how dysfunctional we are.
I wish this had started three years ago, but it’s been going on since Uncle Alex and Dad decided we were to be engaged.
Our relationship has been wrong and refused to be right ever since.
We just keep missing each other, over and over again.
Then he told me those words, the ones that shattered the remains of my heart into tiny, bloody pieces, impossible to collect or to touch.
There has been a constant ache in my chest since I finally realized the painful truth: we live in parallel lines. Our worlds are never meant to cross.
We were never meant to be.
Giving up on finding him in the crowd, I spin around and walk the long empty tunnel. The cheers and the music eventually fade, turning into nothingness.
With every step I take, my spirit loses balance. My limbs tremble as if begging me to go back in there, search for him, tell him what I couldn’t all these years.
No.
It’s over.
Everything is over.
Now, I have to save the only other person who matters more than I do.
I retrieve my phone and pull up Instagram. It doesn’t take me long to find the conversation from a year ago. I wish I could’ve gone one more time or told the jerk these words in person, but despite my tough act, I’m a coward in so many ways.
I just know how to hide my cowardice well.
For a long time, I learned how to turn weakness into a strong façade, something solid and hard no one would suspect.
With trembling fingers, I type.
Reina-Ellis: I won’t meet you again.
The reply is immediate. Sometimes, I get the feeling he’s never there, and others—like now—it’s almost as if he’s breathing down my neck.
Cloud003: Nice try, my slut.
Reina-Ellis: I mean it. I’m turning the page and you chose not to be part of it. I know you’re blocking any feelings you have for me and I understand. I probably should’ve done the same. I’m sorry and goodbye.
As I hit send, my eyes blur, and I close them to fight the onslaught.
It’s a ll over now.
All the bad blood and unsaid words.
All the secrets and lies.
It’s…over.
There’s no reply—not that I expected one. He’s a jerk that way, always making me wonder what he’s thinking.
I hope it’ll stop with this goodbye, but I doubt it will.
This thing is already flowing in my blood, and unlike common belief around Blackwood College, I do bleed, both physically and emotionally.
I’ve just mastered the art of deception and don’t show it.
With one last touch to my bracelet, I forge ahead.
Tonight, I’m leaving everything behind and reuniting with the one person who always loved me unconditionally.
The one who gave me their life.
Present
Asher’s silhouette becomes a blur as I struggle to catch my breath.
There’s something paralyzing about pain. It’s not the agony itself but the brain’s reaction to being metaphorically stabbed.
It shuts down at the onslaught and chooses numbness instead, because sometimes, being numb is the only way to survive.
I wish it were physical pain. I wish it were that assault and the agony at the back of my neck and shoulders each time I moved.
At least back then, I lived with the belief that it would soon go away.
This pain won’t.
It’s at its rawest, truest form.
My thighs still ache from how Asher took me last night. My insides are still sore from his touch, how he filled me, how he kissed me and stretched me whole.
A few moments ago, my heart was soaring, almost hitting the ceiling with all the butterflies. Stupid little butterflies.
They’re slaughtered now, leaving blood and goo in their wake.
As I pull my trembling legs to my chest, I can hear it loud and clear: the breaking of a heart. The smash, the fall. I can almost see the pieces surrounding me like broken glass.
And it’s all because of the man in the sharp suit standing in front of the pole.
The man who only approached me for revenge.
I trusted him. I was falling for him.
I ignored all the signs and my instinct and went to him. I considered him my savior when he’s been my Grim Reaper all along.
Logically, I should stand up and go there. I should pull him by the shoulder, slap him across the face, and ask him why he did that to me—to us.
Tears well in my eyes at the mere thought. I can’t possibly face him without breaking at his feet.
He’ll taunt me and call me a monster; he’ll tell me it’s all my fault. I can’t take that right now. My armor has chipped and is now heaped in a useless pile amongst the broken pieces.
So I do the one thing I can at this moment. My nails dig into the dirt as I use it to rise to my feet.
There’s something so utterly hard about standing up after a fall. The ground keeps pulling me down as if not willing to let me go. It’s gravity, I know that, but my brain is unable to process that fact right now.
It takes me long seconds, but I manage to stand up on unsteady feet. I don’t look at Asher—not even one glance.
If I do, I’ll make the broken pieces worse. I’ll soak them with blood, bury them in my chest, and it’ll be an unsalvageable mess.
I take one step after another, putting one foot in front of the other.
One step.
Two steps.
I can do this. I can walk.
It takes me what seems like an eternity to reach the entrance. It’s empty, desolate and…wrong.
That sensation from the hospital returns with a vengeance.
Wrong.
Everything is just so fucking wrong, from the house to the hollowness to the damn air.
Jason stands at the front, leaning against the double doors. His developed arms are crossed over his chest as he watches me with furrowed brows.
He knew all along.
That’s why he warned me through Cloud003’s Instagram account. If I’d paid enough attention, I probably could’ve done something about it.
I could’ve stopped myself before I fell this deep into Asher’s trap.
Problem is, I didn’t even feel it when I was lured in. I couldn’t smell the scheme or sense the manipulations. I suspected him, but never enough to think he was after my life—literally.
I only felt the push when I fell. I only registered the fall when all the pieces scattered around me under that tree.
“Are you okay?” Jason asks slowly, but he doesn’t move from his spot.
My feet come to a screeching halt at the step. When I meet his gaze, my movements are slow and almost robotic. In my attempts to stop myself from crying, I’ve turned numb.
The hot sun above might as well become a gray cloud. I feel nothing, see nothing, and smell nothing. The world has suddenly become colorless, and I have no idea if I want the colors back.
“Ah, shit.” He rubs the back of his neck and approaches me slowly, as if I’m an injured animal. “Did Asher say something? I knew that asshole would step on you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I don’t recognize my voice; it’s neutral and dead, colorless like the world surrounding me.
He rubs his nape again, appearing uncomfortable. “Asher threatened me and my mom. She’ll have nowhere to go if Alex fires her, so we have to stay here until I secure my position in the NFL.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“I can’t keep watching you consider him a hero when he’s your worst villain.” His tone hardens with every word. “He never cared about you, Reina. Not once in his selfish, fucked-up existence did Asher Carson look at you like he gives two fucks about your wellbeing.”
My brows furrow.
Yes, Asher might have only approached me for revenge, and he’s always been his own brand of asshole, but I saw those small gestures…the way his eyes softened, the show of affection in his green gaze, the tightening of his jaw afterward as if he didn’t want to care.
It doesn’t matter, though, does it?
None of it erases what he did. His intention was loud and clear on the roof, in the classroom, and in the locker room.
He wanted to kill me.
Don’t they say actions speak louder than words?
I’ve witnessed his actions. Hell, I can still feel those creepy vibes down to my bones.
“Tell me everything you know, Jace.” I meet his kind brown gaze with my determined one.
My brain is telling me to retreat to my room, hide under the covers, and cry—but my sheets still smell like him from yesterday. Hell, my entire body does.
I’m still sore from him, still full of him in ways even I don’t want to admit.
Besides, if I give the gloomy cloud any freedom, it’ll just take over and leave me with nothing but depression and dark thoughts.
My best bet is to know what I’ve done. There’s nothing scarier than ignorance. It slowly creeps under your skin and eats you alive, and when you decide to act, it’s already too late.
I’m solving this before it turns unresolvable.
Jason cocks his head to the side. “Follow me.”
I don’t question and walk behind him as he heads to the pool house.
His shoulders become my focus as I try to walk right. My brain keeps pulling me in different directions. One part wants to run back to Asher and demand the truth from him. The other part is letting the gloomy cloud whisper nasty things in my brain.
See? You’re nothing.
Why don’t you follow Arianna and just die?
No one cares about you.
The sound of a closing door shuts those demons up. I didn’t realize we were in the pool house until Jason locks the double doors.
Something is secretive enough to warrant this, I suppose.
“I knew this day would come.” He speaks as he heads toward the TV on the opposite wall. “I knew I’d have a use for this.” He retrieves a flash drive from his pocket and hook s it into the TV, cocking his head back. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“This footage will give you an idea of what you need to know.”
My palms turn clammy as I slowly nod.
He motions at the cushions lined up in front of the TV. “You might want to sit down, Reina.”
I approach them at a snail’s pace, suddenly not sure if this is the place I want to be in.
Before I can voice my thoughts, Jason plays the video.
The footage’s angle is sideways, and the quality is grainy like those old security videos. It’s almost as if it’s been recorded in secret.
There’s no audio.
It’s just a frame of Asher and me standing in front of the locker room. The football team’s, I think. I’m wearing a blue cheerleading uniform and Asher has a blue Tigers jacket on, which means it’s from high school time.
Although I can’t hear any words, I can feel the maliciousness on my skin. Asher appears pissed off, his jaw clenching and his hands balled into fists by his sides. I, on the other hand, seem cool. My arms are crossed over my chest and my expression is robotic, like the one from the fake pictures on the internet.
As he grits his teeth, forcing words out, I stand there unmoving. Silent. No reaction.
I’m entranced by the scene: the volatile tension in his body, the complete relaxation of mine.
Only, am I really relaxed?
I tilt my head to the side, watching closely. From the outside looking in, I appear completely unaffected. However, my nails dig into my arms. It’s not hard enough to draw attention, but it’s there. I’m doing that to rein it in. I can tell without having to remember that particular scene.