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Chapter 14 - The game was rigged

By morning, I had made a decision.

No more following orders. No more fake reports. No more acting like I didn't know RedHalo was playing me like a violin.

I was done being their puppet.

Now? I needed answers. From the source.

The Vanellis.

The first one I found was Ryles, because of course he was the easiest. He was half-asleep on the lawn, sunglasses on, sipping an iced coffee like he didn't have a care in the world. Probably didn't. Probably had dreams about skateboarding through explosions or whatever chaos lived inside his head.

I stood over him and crossed my arms.

"We need to talk."

He peeked at me from under his shades.

"Yikes. That tone sounds serious."

"It is serious."

"I didn't break anything," he said quickly.

"Unless you count my GPA."

I grabbed his cup, and then stared at him down. "I know about RedHalo. I know what they did. I know they lied to all of us."

That got his attention.

He sat up, real slow. "You're not joking."

"Nope."

He blinked at me, then actually, for once, looked serious. "Did Cassien tell you?"

My heart skipped.

"Wait, you knew he knew?"

"Yeah." Ryles scratched the back of his neck.

"I found out by accident. Overheard a call a few months ago.

I laughed, loudly.

He sighed. "You're mad."

"You think?"

And then, because my life is just a TV show with no commercial breaks, Matteo showed up. Out of nowhere, obviously. Silent as a shadow, as usual.

He looked at Ryles, then me. "You told her."

"I figured it out myself," I snapped. "Don't act like you've been protecting me."

Matteo didn't flinch. "I wasn't protecting you. I was waiting."

"For what?" I asked. "Me to fail?"

"No," he said. "For you to stop trusting them."

We ended up in an abandoned classroom, the kind with peeling paint and old desks and a shaky lights that made the whole thing feel very betrayal-core aesthetic. Cassien was already there.

Of course he was.

He sat on the edge of a desk, arms crossed, eyes unreadable.

Like he'd been expecting me.

"You came," he said.

I threw my bag on the desk. "You owe me answers. All of you."

And so they gave them to me.

Everything.

Turns out, the Vanelli family used to be in deep with RedHalo. Their father was one of the original artifact handlers, people trusted to track and hide the world's most dangerous objects. But then, he went off-mission. Hid the artifact. Refused to give it back.

Why?

Because he figured out what RedHalo really wanted it for: control.

Apparently, the artifact isn't just some pretty old thing. It's a digital skeleton key, something that can unlock every encrypted system RedHalo's ever built. A kill switch. A power source. A weapon.

And the Vanellis?

They've been hiding it.

Protecting it.

From the people I thought were the good guys.

My stomach did flips, but not the fun kind.

The betrayal kind. The kind that makes your chest feel like it's collapsing from the inside out.

"So what now?" I asked, staring at the three of them. "I'm just supposed to switch sides? Betray everything I was trained to do?"

Cassien stood and walked toward me.

"No," he said. "You're supposed to choose who you want to be."

The silence was loud.

I looked at each of them, Matteo, quiet and unreadable. Ryles, nervous but weirdly loyal. And Cassien, standing way too close with a storm in his eyes.

And for the first time in a long time, I realized: I don't know who I am when I'm not following orders.

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed.

I pulled it out, expecting some desperate message from RedHalo, but no.

It was worse.

A voice recording. No ID. No return signal. Just a cracked voice.

"Agent Grey. You are compromised. Mission is terminated. Execute fail-safe. Do not contact the asset again."

And then it cut off.

No explanation or instructions.

Just terminate.

I stared at the screen like it might burst into flames.

They wanted me to kill the mission. But what even was the mission now? Stealing the artifact? Destroying it? Taking out the Vanellis?

Or me?

Was I the fail-safe?

My heart pounded in my ears.

"What is it?" Cassien asked, stepping closer.

I shoved the phone into my pocket. "RedHalo's done with me."

Matteo's jaw clenched. "They won't just walk away. You know that."

"Yeah," I whispered. "I do."

We all sat there in that empty classroom, this weird little bubble of spy secrets and betrayal and something way too messy to name.

Cassien was watching me like he already knew what I was going to say next.

I looked him dead in the eyes.

"Then we burn it all down."

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