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Todos los capítulos de Fool Me Once: Capítulo 71 - Capítulo 80

159 Capítulos

Beneath the City

Cassie’s POVThe boots rang out in the empty subway tunnel, the sound reverberating off the walls like a countdown. We'd been below ground for nineteen minutes, zooming through empty platforms and decaying corridors beneath New York City. The air was thick with dust and secrets. Above, the world was alive. Below? Ghosts only.My beam of light cut through graffiti-covered walls and settled on a rusted gate embossed with faded red letters: VAULT ACCESS – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The door was slightly ajar."Here," I whispered to Jeffery.He nodded, sweat rolling down his jawline. His black T-shirt clung to the chest muscles, stretched tight over his shoulders. Bruised and bloodied as he was, he was a man carved from granite—ready for battle."Cover me," I murmured, pushing through the narrow slit.It was darker in there. Colder. The quiet wasn't hollow—it was waiting.The room bent into a semi-circular room lined with flickering green lights. Consoles. Monitors. And in the center—one

The Cost of Silence

Cassie’s POVI woke up in a hospital bed with a heart monitor beeping next to me and a metallic aftertaste in my mouth. Everything was muffled, white-washed, and excessively clean. My shoulder hurt from the bullet wound, and my head pounded as if I were hit by a train—but what roused me wasn't pain.It was the shortage.Jeffery wasn't there.I struggled to sit up, swallowing a groan. My arm was slung in a sling. A fresh IV pumped clear fluid into my vein. 3:47 AM flashed on the wall clock. A nurse station hummed just beyond the door, but nobody entered.He promised he wouldn't leave.My gut twisted."Where is he?" I rasped out audibly, the voice sounding like sandpaper.The door squeaked open. Andrew peered in, his eyeliner smudged and his face grim."Oh good," he said, entering with feigned good humor. "Sleeping Beauty's finally awake.""Where's Jeffery?" I croaked again.Andrew didn't say anything right away. He placed a takeaway coffee on the side table and looked anywhere but at m

Code Black

Cassie’s POVThe subway thundered below me as I tightened the strap on my pack. The Manhattan subway never slept, and tonight, it throbbed with something beyond electricity. I was heading out to the far reaches of Brooklyn where Andrew's mysterious hacker friend, Kay, worked out of the basement of a bar."Mindwalker," I said to myself.I'd heard it, and a chill had run down my spine. The encrypted document Jeffery had left behind hadn't produced much, but Kay would be able to open it. I needed to hold on to that. Because without answers, Jeffery was out there on his own—and Edward Richards was ten steps ahead.I stepped off the train and climbed the rain-slicked stairs into the rain. Brooklyn was quieter than the city, but still, shadows gathered in alleys like secrets not to be spoken. A neon sign flickered BELOW THE BAR above the solid steel door. I rapped twice, waited, then three times.A little gap opened."Password?" a muffled voice asked."Firefly."The door creaked open.Kay w

Tethered Flames

Jeffery’s POVCassie and I crowded into the back of a taxi, soaked, out of breath, and clutching the sole item of evidence that could be used to topple Edward Richards' empire. The flash drive burned my palm as if it contained a live fuse—a circumstance that was most likely true. The more we had it, the more we became targets.The cab driver continued to glance in the rearview mirror. We didn't seem normal. Cassie's wet ringlets clung to her cheeks, her blouse torn at the shoulder where blood had dried and flaked. I had my hand gingerly on her thigh, but not for comfort only—my gun holster was strapped under her seat. We couldn't afford anything unexpected."Where to?" the driver inquired."Seventy-third and Lexington," I replied quickly. "The long way. No bridges."He nodded and got into traffic. As soon as we did, Cassie let her head drop back onto the seat. Her chest moved up and down, but her eyes never lost that open, too-aware look—too awake to sleep, too upset to relax."Cass,"

The Bloodline Cipher

Cassie’s POVThe map lay on the table between us, creased at its edges by age and confidentiality. We'd discovered it in the briefcase's secret compartment after cracking the drive—an analog breadcrumb in a digital war. The coordinates led to a destroyed facility in Vermont, a private research site that had been abandoned and was no longer listed in public records. At least the files indicated."This is it," Jeffery muttered, scanning the old satellite images. "ATHENA's original node. Before the servers were moved off-grid."My gut roiled. "Why Vermont? Why not in a hideout beneath the Swiss Alps with the other bad guys?"Jeffery's jaw clenched. "Because it's personal. Emmaline Shaw didn't choose you when you were at your most vulnerable. She chose you because of who your mother was."I looked at him. "What do you mean?"He swiveled the monitor around. On it: a file. My mother's face. Younger. Confident. Standing beside… Emmaline Shaw."They knew each other?" I whispered."Your mom wa

Welcome to Vermont

Cassie’s POVI'd never seen Vermont so desolate—mist-clad hills rising like phantoms, trees stripped bare by winter winds, and the railroad tracks cutting across them like arteries on a corpse. Beautiful, in a ghostly, icy way. Fitting, as we were arriving in the cemetery of all that I'd ever loved.We avoided Cavendish by noon. Jeffery forced us to hike the last five miles, avoiding roads and cameras. The silence between us wasn't a sign of tension or anger—it was armor. The more that I knew, the more I had to keep myself together.We traversed a frozen path, crunching through the snow as we went. Jeffery was slightly in front, shoulders tense beneath his black coat. He kept looking back to see how I was faring. I had no clue whether he thought I was going to run or fall apart. Neither of those was going to happen—not yet."How much farther?" I finally asked."Half a mile. The estate's over the ridgeline," he replied, his voice low.I nodded, wiping a bead of sweat away from my foreh

The Final Transmission

Cassie’s POVMy mother's scream did not sound like fear.It was a sound that was defiant. Like fire in a storm. The kind of sound that made your spine straighten up—not with fear, but awe.The grainy images jumped across the screen before us, her body strapped to a metal chair in a white room. Her hair was slicked with sweat, a gash across her temple pulsing with blood. But her jaw was clenched, her eyes unblinking. She didn't even blink. Not even when a masked interrogator stepped into position in front of her, out of sight.Jeffery was standing next to me, rigid as a statue, his broad shoulders tense like a drawn-out bowstring. In the dim light of the server room, he stood at least as recognizable as ever—tall and imposing, built like a man to break down a wall, and yet, in this instant, utterly helpless."She knew," I whispered.Jeffery leaned in, his voice low. "She was guarding something."My mom, Camille Jones, wasn't some analyst. She was the creator of a secret so dangerous th

The Key and the Lock

Jeffery’s POVI was losing my grip on Cassie.Not in the body—her whole form remained braced against me, her breathing shallow and choked—but in her mind, in her heart, she was disappearing into somewhere I could not go. Somewhere, her mother had locked her, somewhere in code, threat, and secrets that seeped into her like ink under the skin."She's synching," I snarled, observing the veins along her temple throb unpredictably.Her eyes had glazed a few moments earlier, but now they fluttered—like static between two stations.And then she spoke.But it was not her voice."Authorization granted. Neural alignment at 62%.""Cassie!" I shook her shoulders.Nothing.The overhead lights pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat as if the entire complex was synchronized with her bodily functions.This was not tech. This was possession.There were footsteps from the other end of the hallway.I spun around, holding my gun.A man stepped out of the shadows.Emmaline Shaw.Cold. Calm. Attired in tactic

Embers in the Ashes

Cassie’s POVThe stillness following ATHENA's landing had weighed on me. The hum that had coursed through my frame for days—weeks, perhaps—grew quiet. I felt its absence as though I had been missing a phantom limb, something I had not asked for but had become a part of me.Jeffery's hand stayed at the small of my back. His touch grounded me. Firm, warm, protective.We stood in the ruins of the fortress of secrets that had once been Emmaline's. Smoke curled in lazy wisps from the broken terminals. Glass shards glinted in the flash of the emergency lights. Alarms had been silenced, but peril had not.I glanced over at Jeffery. "She's gone."He nodded, his gaze sweeping the hallway where Emmaline had vanished. "Not far. She'll regroup.""She always does." I hated the confident ring in my voice."I will not let her get to you again." He grasped my hand. "We will stop her."But what was real was—we had no idea what was next. ATHENA had lost, but that far from meant the war was finished.It

Return to Richmond

Cassie’s POVI never imagined coming back to Richmond like this—on the eve of war, with this cargo of secrets trailing behind me like chains that are corroded with rust. The city itself hadn't changed that much. The skyline still slovenly scraped the grey sky, and the ancient sycamore trees along Franklin Street still whispered the same tired lullabies they'd been whispering when I was growing up.But I was not the same.I arrived prepared then, armed with knowledge, wounds, and a man who possessed my past, present, and future in the calloused fingers of his hands.Jeffery drove in silence. There was tension between him and me that was so thick, it was a thing you could almost taste—smoke and metal, sorrow and loss. Every curve of the wheels carried us deeper into where it all began. My childhood home was a memory now—long since gone after Mom disappeared. But something lingered: the church.St. Vincent's Cathedral. The last location where she was spotted before her disappearance.And

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