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Prologue
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2025-05-23 20:05:46The wind in the evening was chilly, and the fragrance of spring flowers was lovely as Cassie walked with Jeffery along the cobblestone walkway by the spring in the city square. The street lamps gave a warm glow reflected in the rippling water below. The whole evening was a dream—something she did not wish to wake up from.
Jeffery opened and wrapped his around hers, his fingers entwining with hers with a comfort that bypassed her heart. "I've wanted to do this," he admitted, his voice rough, almost shy. Cassie pressed her lips together, gazing up at him. "Do what?" "Take you out on a date. Just the two of us." Heat encircled her waist. "Seriously?" She chuckled. "Why didn't you ask me all this while?" He smiled. "I guess I wanted it to be special and memorable." They strolled in silence for a moment before they decided where to sit on a wooden bench next to it that was near the spring water. They were shrouded in darkness like a cocoon as they exposed their fears and desires—Cassie's fear of being insufficient, Jeffery's fear of being sufficient. "I don't want to be that guy everyone's expecting me to be," he confessed, turning his back to her. "With you, I feel like I can be me; I feel like I can be real without the world crushing me down." Cassie's heart hurt. "You know you can always tell me the truth." I understand how that feels. I have always felt like an outsider, too. People bully me because of my weight and size, which made me not express my true self openly. "I think you're beautiful and have a great body, too. You shouldn't worry about your size." She chuckled, "Easier for you to say". Then, before she could even think before she could even allow doubt to creep in, Jeffery leaned in. His lips touched hers—soft, full lips, tentative but full of unspoken promise. Sparks flew, and warmth ran through her veins as she dissolved into the kiss under the starry sky. They did not notice the shadow that was behind them. Eric, Jeffery's high school basketball friend, folded his arms, his eyes wide with amazement. "Wow, so Jeffery finally got her," he muttered and grinned, knowing that this evening would be over so quickly that neither of them would ever anticipate it. ***The next day, at school lunch, Cassie's life fell apart.
She wasn't supposed to have heard it, but she did. Laughing out loud, Eric called out to Jeffery, "So, did you do it already? I mean, the bet's still on, right?" Cassie's gut twisted. Her heart throbbed in her ears as the truth hit her. Hard. "Come on, man," Eric said, shoving Jeffery. "You have to sleep with her. That's the whole point." Some other students gasped, and Eric looked at their growing group, unwatched. "Hey, guys!" Eric announced to the group. "Jeff here had the most romantic night of his life. Too bad that it was a bet." Guffaws. Side looks. Mutters. Cassie felt the walls closing in on her, her vision clouding. Without thinking, she rounded on Jeffery. "Tell me it isn't true." Jeffery looked at her. "See, I can explain, Cass, forget them; it's not what you think." She couldn't hear anything anymore, her heart broke—no, it shattered. Tears blinded her eyes, but she would not let them do so again. So she raised her chin and walked away, leaving humiliation, deception, and betrayal along with the first boy she ever trusted. One promise she made to herself was to never let Jeffery Richards ever fool her again.
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Fool Me Once The Broadcast War
Cassie’s POVThe storm outside Geneva rolled in like a warning, clouds heavy with unspoken truths. I stood in the underground command hub Anton had retrofitted into a broadcast center, staring at the screen that would soon carry my voice to the world.“We’re patched into four international satellite lines,” Anton said, checking the feeds. “This goes out across all major financial networks, the media circuit… even dark web mirrors.”Margaret looked at me from across the console. “Once this plays, Cassie… you don’t come back from it.”“I don’t want to,” I replied, my voice flat but unwavering.Jeffery was safe, bandaged but whole, sitting beside me with a silent kind of fury in his eyes. We’d escaped Luke Grieves’s trap barely, but the war hadn’t ended. It had simply changed its face.Now, it was public.We called it The Cassandra Broadcast - a strategic data drop wrapped in raw confession. It would contain the tapes from Edward’s Black Archive, the unedited documentation of The Matchst
Fool Me Once Smoke and Mirrors
Jeffery’s POVDarkness.It wasn’t just the lack of light; it was the thick, cloying kind of darkness that settled inside your lungs and made you forget what fresh air ever felt like.I blinked slowly. My eyelids were stuck, and my tongue was dry. The metal chair beneath me was cold, and my wrists stung from tight restraints. The air was sterile, chemical. I knew that smell; it was sedatives. The sharp kind. Fast and clean - military-style.So this is what it felt like to be hunted.A shape moved in the shadow beyond the buzzing overhead light.“You’re awake.”The voice was male, polished, and kinda familiar.I straightened, or tried to, but the restraints gave little slack.“I’ve been through worse,” I said, my voice rasping. “Edward was fond of chokeholds and psychological chess.”A chuckle. “Edward trained well, but he never told you everything, did he?”“No, but Cassie and I figured most of it out. That’s why you’re sweating.”The man leaned in. Blonde hair slicked back with gray e
Fool Me Once Disavowed
Cassie’s POVThe camera lights were blinding, but not half as harsh as the silence that followed my announcement.“I, Cassandra Jones, hereby step down from all official roles connected to Richards Global, including my board appointment and consulting contracts. Effective immediately.”No questions, no clarifications, and no emotion.Just the truth, or what they needed to believe was true.The headlines would eat it alive before noon: Richards’ Heir Resigns Amid Scandal. PR Queen Falls from Grace. Cassandra Jones: From Architect to Anomaly.It was all part of the plan.The war wasn’t over, not even close. But I’d learned something Edward never understood: the most dangerous woman in the room isn’t the one shouting into the spotlight. It’s the one who’s already moved into the shadows.Margaret was waiting in the van outside the press room, her eyes darting over her tablet as the livestream lagged by ten seconds.“They’re buying it,” she said without looking up. “Twitter’s melting down.
Fool Me Once Code of Silence
Jeffery’s POVSilence has a sound when you’ve lived long enough inside power.It’s the hum beneath everything - the pause before a market crash, the breath before a lie lands, the space between a threat and the blade that follows. That was the sound filling the war room now.Anton stood over the console, his jaw locked, and his eyes unreadable. Cassie sat across from me, her arms folded tight, as if holding herself together by will alone. Margaret hovered near the glass wall, phone pressed to her ear, whispering instructions to someone I couldn’t hear.No one spoke.The flash drive sat between us.Small, black, and ordinary, but it was deadly.Anton broke the silence first. “This wasn’t part of the Cassandra folder. It was hidden beneath it and buried inside the wipe command itself.”“A parasite file?” Margaret asked, lowering her phone.“A failsafe,” Anton corrected. “Edward didn’t trust erasure. He trusted insurance.”I reached for the drive but hesitated. For years, I’d been peelin
Fool Me Once The Name Beneath
Jeffery’s POVThe silence inside the war room was heavier than any courtroom I’d stood in. The Cassandra Files had just been taken down, but not before the doctored content trended worldwide.Cassie’s original video - clear, honest, devastatingly brave had been replaced by something far darker. Footage was manipulated to show her talking about “taking over” the empire. About using her inheritance “by any means necessary.”I knew every word in that video was fake but the world didn’t.Anton tapped away at his console like a surgeon trying to restart a failing heart. “The malware was injected through a mirror node, someone hacked the release timer, redirected the scheduled push.”“Do we know who?” I asked, my fists clenched against the edge of the table.He didn’t look up. “Not yet but they knew the exact timing and internal scheduling sequence. This wasn’t some troll in a basement. This was high-level access.”Cassie sat beside me, her face pale but composed. I could see the war behind
Fool Me Once Inheritance Code
Jeffery’s POVThe air in the bunker tasted metallic, like blood and electricity.I stood behind Cassie as she stared at her laptop, the screen glowing with those last haunting words.“There’s one more file in the archive you haven’t opened yet. Edward left you something. It’s time.”Her knuckles were white around the mouse.I had seen her frightened before - shaken, cornered, cut down by betrayal, but never like this. This was different. This was the kind of fear that came with knowing your enemy still had one more bullet left in the chamber.“Do we open it?” I asked gently, but my voice felt foreign in my throat.Cassie didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed locked on the screen like it might jump out and bite her.Anton leaned in from behind her. “This message came from the same backchannel as the altered Cassandra Files leak. Whoever this is, they have root access to everything we’ve touched in the last seventy-two hours. This isn’t someone hacking their way in… they were alread
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