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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 Garden Door
Cassie’s POVThe garden had been overgrown when we returned.Wild rosemary trailed over stone paths. The lavender had stretched across the low wall like it, too, had refused to be tamed. And in the far corner, beneath the old fig tree, the red door stood like a relic from another life.It had no hinges, no frame, and no threshold. Just a door that was painted and upright, embedded into the vines. The first time I saw it, months ago, I thought it was symbolic. A metaphor left behind by some eccentric artist. But now, it felt more like a mirror.Jeffery called it “the door to nowhere.”But to me, it had always been the door to what came next.We cleared the garden together in the days that followed. Not with haste, but with purpose. Pulling weeds felt strangely therapeutic. We didn’t talk about Edward, Elise, or vaults. Just tomato roots and soil texture, and the best way to encourage lemon blossoms.By late afternoon, the red door was visible again, its surface weathered, but the color
Fool Me Once Dust and Truth
Cassie’s POVVenice was quieter now.The kind of quiet that settled after a storm, not because it was over, but because everything it had ripped through had finally stopped moving. No more broadcasts. No more encrypted messages. No more veiled threats or hidden codes.Just ripples across water, and the scent of dust rising in sunlight.We stayed another week. Not because we had to, we weren’t hiding anymore, but because part of me didn’t want to leave until I could feel sure the world outside the lagoon wouldn’t collapse again the moment we exhaled.Each morning, I walked the narrow streets before sunrise. No disguises, no sunglasses, no bodyguards. Just Cassie. Not Cassandra. Not “the Architect.” Just a woman with coffee in one hand and centuries beneath her feet.By the fifth morning, I started sketching again.It wasn’t much, charcoal on parchment from a forgotten street vendor, but it was something I hadn’t done in years. I drew faces I remembered. Some I wished I didn’t. Elise. E
Fool Me Once No More Fires
Cassie’s POVVenice smelled like memory.Salt, Age, Ink, history, and blood.The boat skimmed silently through the Grand Canal under the haze of early morning mist. No words passed between us, none were needed. Jeffery sat beside me, jaw set, fingers curled over the handle of the leather case holding the Architect’s final message. I could feel his thoughts, unspoken but loud. This wasn’t a trap. This was a reckoning.The coordinates led us to a crumbling palazzo that looked forgotten by time. Ivy spilled over the stones like vines, windows shuttered with heavy iron, the kind that told you this place was once meant to keep something in or keep someone out.We stepped off the boat and approached the old brass door. The key slid into the lock as if it had always belonged there.Inside, the air shifted - thick, dusty, dry like parchment. The foyer opened into a long hall lined with faded portraits, faces with no names. And at the very end, a crimson door.No signs. No labels. Just that ey
Fool Me Once Embers
Jeffery’s POVThe world was burning again, but this time, it was the kind of fire we chose.I stood barefoot on the villa’s sun-drenched tiles, morning coffee in my hand, eyes tracing the horizon where sky met sea. The headlines still spun from yesterday’s data drop: The Matchstick Doctrine. Project Vestige. The Richards Black Archive. It was everywhere on every screen, every feed, every whispered conversation between stunned world leaders and exposed powerbrokers.But here… in Amalfi, it was quiet.Cassie was still asleep, wrapped in linen sheets, her silhouette calm beneath the open shutters. The breeze toyed with a strand of her hair, and for a second, I just watched her - breathing, whole, safe.We’d made it through the fire. And now we were standing in the afterglow.But not without a cost.Yesterday’s card still sat on the terrace table. ONE FINAL STORY. CHOOSE YOUR ENDING WISELY. The seal had been broken. The choice had been made. And still, a final ember lingered in the form
Fool Me Once The Final Story
Cassie’s POVThe waves roared louder than I remembered.Or maybe it was just the sound of my heart beating like a war drum in my ears as I stared down at the card.ONE FINAL STORY.CHOOSE YOUR ENDING WISELY.The crimson seal had been broken. Someone had opened it before we ever touched it. Someone had been here, watching and waiting.Jeffery stood beside me, with his jaw tense, and his eyes scanning the hills above the villa. The Amalfi Coast was postcard-perfect, with warm sunlight on terracotta roofs and vineyards spilling down the cliffs like green waterfalls, but suddenly it felt like a set and a lie, just a temporary illusion someone had curated to lull us into lowering our guard.And it had worked.He looked at me. “We left the war. But it didn’t leave us.”I didn’t respond. My fingers trembled as I turned the card over. On the back, there was a number. Untraceable. But it flashed on my burner phone seconds later, like someone was watching our every move in real-time.It was fro
Fool Me Once Amalfi
Jeffery’s POVThe sea whispered against the cliffs below as I stood on the terrace, the breeze lifting the linen of my shirt and the last of my worries with it.Amalfi had a way of silencing ghosts.Below, the water shimmered like glass tinted with gold from the sinking sun. And behind me, I could hear her laughter - soft, warm, real. It came from the open villa, where Cassie was barefoot and carefree, her voice echoing over the classical music playing low through the vintage speakers. Not the haunting laughter of someone surviving, but the joy of someone beginning again.We had made it. Not just past Elise, or Edward’s legacy, or the digital warfare that nearly destroyed us, but past ourselves. Past who we had to become just to survive.For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no plan. No secret bunker. No vaults. No codes or counter-surveillance. Just two scarred souls on the edge of the Mediterranean, trying to figure out how to live again.Cassie stepped out onto th
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