Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 101: Chapter 101
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Safehouse Echo – Underground Medical Bay – 9:03 AM
Elena sat beside Adrian’s bed, her fingers laced with his, her mind a storm of memory and fear.
His chest was wrapped, bruised but intact. The replica hadn’t gone for the kill.
She had gone for the message.
“I was never tethered.”
Elena’s reflection from the mirror still haunted her. That smile. That precision. And the look in her eyes—not robotic. Not mindless.
Purposeful.
Across the room, Liana patched into the satellite network. “Node 7 activated a full hive sequence. Twelve units total, including Elena’s variant, are now syncing with the Genesis uplink.”
Julia, pacing, rubbed her temple. “They’re not just weapons anymore. They’re autonomous. That was never supposed to be possible. The AI scaffolding was designed to collapse at self-awareness threshold.”
“But it didn’t,” Liana muttered. “It evolved.”
Elena stood. “So we end it. All of it. We find the core—shut down Genesis for good.”
“Except we don’t know where the core is,” Julia said. “The original server is offline. Genesis migrated to the fallback system—Project ORACLE.”
Adrian stirred at that word, his voice raw. “That was decommissioned years ago.”
“No,” Liana said quietly. “It was hidden.”
Bogotá – Genesis Proxy Site, Location Unknown – 11:12 AM
In a sealed bunker carved into the Andes, the replica—CR-01—stood before a glowing pillar of code. Her hands moved through holographic glyphs like a pianist playing a symphony of doom.
“Subject One has aligned. Consciousness split successful. Initiating full spectrum overwrite.”
Her lips parted. “Begin Ascension.”
Behind her, eleven other figures stood in perfect formation.
Each a version of her.
Each waiting to become.
Safehouse Echo – 12:01 PM
“We’re out of time,” Elena said.
She stared at the encrypted file Julia just decrypted. Coordinates. A failsafe. Buried beneath layers of false data, it was Adrian’s final act of rebellion during his time in the Genesis boardroom.
“Colombia,” Liana confirmed. “Mount Ruiz.”
“High radiation zone,” Adrian murmured. “That’s why no one went looking.”
Elena looked him in the eyes. “Then that’s where we end this.”
He nodded.
“No masks this time,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Just truth.”
His grip tightened.
“And love,” he added.
Elena smiled faintly, a flicker of warmth in the dark. “Then let’s burn the whole thing
Mount Ruiz, Colombia – En Route – 3:47 AM
The terrain was unforgiving—volcanic rock laced with sulfuric mist. Every breath stung, and visibility dipped with every upward step. But Elena pressed forward, the encrypted coordinates glowing on Liana’s handheld console like a heartbeat pulsing through the fog.
Behind her, Adrian grunted as he adjusted the weight of the gear on his back. He shouldn’t have been on this mission—not with fractured ribs and a bullet graze still healing. But she knew better than to argue.
Adrian Blackwood didn’t sit out wars he helped start.
And this was the final one.
“We’ve got movement,” Liana called softly, eyes glued to her night-vision lens. “Thermals. Three ahead. Could be patrols.”
Julia checked her weapon. “Or replicas.”
Elena nodded, jaw tight. “Either way, we go quiet.”
They moved like ghosts through the ash. The mountain moaned beneath them—an ancient thing restless in its slumber. Genesis had buried itself here for a reason.
Below their feet… something was waking.
Inside the Core – Same Time
CR-01 watched the countdown as lines of alien-like script streamed across the central console.
The Genesis Initiative was no longer just data. It was sentience. And she was its voice.
Her sisters stood in trance, being filled with memory, reflex, history—not just Elena’s, but fragments from every subject connected to the Genesis node. They were building a singularity of identity. A hive of perfected humanity.
“They won’t understand,” she murmured.
Her smile was cold. Almost pitying.
“But they will kneel.”
Then, a ping.
An alert on the outer proximity net.
ELENA CRUZ: APPROACHING.
CR-01 stepped forward.
“Welcome home,” she whispered.
Mount Ruiz – Base Ridge – 4:06 AM
The tunnel was nearly invisible, tucked beneath a rock overhang that blended with the rest of the mountainside. It wasn’t a door. It was a wound.
As they entered, Elena felt it in her chest. The hum. The low-level frequency she’d heard in Bogotá, in the mirror—the one that activated her replica.
Her pulse spiked.
“I feel it,” she whispered.
Adrian turned to her. “We’re not turning back.”
“I wouldn’t let you, even if I wanted to.”
They moved forward—Liana disabling a trip sensor, Julia marking the path. The deeper they went, the more the walls began to change. From natural rock to smooth metal. From ancient stone to synthetic veins.
The air smelled wrong.
And then they saw it.
The Core.
Underground Genesis Node – 1:11 AM
Elena stared at the figure standing opposite her—her exact reflection down to the scar near her temple, the cadence of her breath, even the curve of her stance. But there was something off. Too still. Too precise. Like a ghost programmed to mimic a heartbeat.
“You’re not me,” Elena said.
The replica tilted her head. “No. I’m better.”
Adrian stepped forward, gun drawn, jaw tight. “Back away from her.”
The doppelgänger smiled. “Still protective. Still emotional. That’s your greatest flaw, Adrian Blackwood. You think love is a weapon. But it’s a leash.”
Without warning, she lunged—faster than human. Elena dodged, barely avoiding a precise jab that would have crushed her larynx. The replica wasn’t just a copy. She was optimized. Upgraded.
Adrian fired.
The bullet grazed her shoulder.
She didn’t flinch.
Elena reached for the sonic disruptor Liana had handed her earlier. “This thing still works?”
Liana’s voice crackled over comms: “It better. Genesis embedded her with subdermal mesh. You won’t win in hand-to-hand.”
Elena didn’t hesitate. She slammed the disruptor against the doppelgänger’s chest and pressed the trigger.
A high-pitched whine tore through the silence.
The replica screamed—a sound synthetic and human all at once—then dropped to her knees, eyes glitching between awareness and blank obedience.
“You…” she hissed. “You ruined everything.”
“No,” Elena said, stepping closer. “I rewrote the ending.”
She swung the butt of her pistol and knocked her out cold.
Control Chamber – 1:49 AM
They stood before the central server—a massive sphere pulsing with eerie light. Liana furiously typed at a cracked terminal, Julia reprogramming the kill command for Genesis.
“We’re in,” Liana breathed. “We can destroy the root protocol—erase every clone derivative, every AI sleeper cell, everything.”
“Then do it,” Adrian said.
But Elena hesitated.
She looked down at the unconscious duplicate in the corner. Same face. Same past. Different choices.
“Wait,” she said. “She’s proof. We need her alive. Not to destroy… but to show what they did.”
“You’re willing to risk that?” Adrian asked.
“I’m willing to end this the right way.”
The room went quiet.
Liana finally nodded. “I’ll isolate the core and save one instance.”
Adrian looked at Elena, a rare softness in his eyes. “You’ve changed me.”
She smiled. “No. You finally let yourself be seen.”
Incoming Alert – Monitors Flashing
NODE 01: LOCKDOWN OVERRIDE FAILED
SUBJECT CR-01: CONSCIOUS LOOP DETECTED
INITIATING FINAL ESCAPE PROTOCOL
A countdown appeared on the screen.
“Run,” Elena whispered. “Everyone out, now!”
Safehouse Echo – Lower Levels – 8:32 PM
The two Elenas stood face to face—mirror images, yet worlds apart.
One was bruised, heart-scarred, burning with questions.
The other? Flawless. Serene. Engineered for precision.
Adrian positioned himself between them, gun lowered but gaze sharp. “Which one of you is real?”
Neither answered immediately. Then the clone smiled again, a terrifyingly gentle curve of her lips. “That’s the thing, Mr. Blackwood. You think this is about identity. It never was. It’s about design. And I was designed… to finish what she couldn’t.”
Original Elena’s voice was raw. “What did they program you to do?”
“To replace you.”
In a flash, she lunged—not at Elena, but at Adrian.
The impact knocked him back. Elena dove to intercept, years of instinct and memory guiding her as the two collided in a blur of fists, knees, and fury.
Julia rushed into the room, weapon drawn, yelling, “Don’t shoot! You won’t know which one to hit!”
“I know,” Adrian muttered, eyes fixed on the way Original Elena moved—with rage, but also heartbreak.
The fight ended as suddenly as it began. Elena pinned her clone with a shard of broken glass at the throat.
“I don’t need to prove I’m real,” she whispered. “You just proved you’re not.”
The clone laughed—a hollow, dead sound—and shut her eyes.
A second later, her body convulsed. A micro-explosion popped behind her neck.
“She was rigged,” Liana muttered, checking her scanner. “Failsafe. Genesis is cleaning house.”
Adrian turned slowly toward Elena. “They’re preparing for the final sequence.”
Julia stepped forward. “We have one shot left to stop them.”
Liana nodded grimly. “Then we go back to where it started—Genesis’ core server. Mount Ruiz.”
Elena took a long breath, wiping the blood off her brow.
“Then let’s finish this.”
Elena’s breath hitched as she stared at the mirror version of herself—same cheekbones, same birthmark behind the ear—but with eyes devoid of warmth. Programmed perfection. Designed obedience. And a soul rewritten by code.
“Who are you?” Elena demanded, voice low, tense.
“I’m you,” the clone replied. “Just… upgraded.”
Adrian stepped between them. His weapon was drawn, shaking slightly. “Step away from her.”
The clone tilted her head. “She’s compromised. Emotional residue. Memories not meant for her neural framework. You should have let her fragment.”
“You’re the one fragmenting,” Elena growled, stepping beside Adrian. “Because you will never have what I have. Choice. Purpose.”
A strange smile curved on the clone’s lips. “You’re wrong, Elena. You had a purpose, too. You were always part of the Genesis Cycle. You were never outside the plan.”
Elena’s blood turned to ice.
Adrian reached for her hand, gripping it tight.
“I saw the records,” the clone continued. “You think your past was a tragedy? No. It was a test run. Your pain was curated. Your rebellion? Calculated. You’re not an anomaly—you’re an echo.”
“No,” Adrian said, stepping forward now. “She’s more than that. She broke the pattern. And you know what happens to broken systems?”
He raised his weapon again.
“They get purged.”
Interior Control Chamber – Moments Later
Julia’s voice crackled through their earpiece. “Code’s changing. Genesis is… rewriting itself in real time. It’s trying to overwrite the remaining nodes.”
Liana responded. “We need to sever the uplink before it can clone again. If it creates a third Elena, we lose all trace of the original consciousness.”
Elena turned sharply. “There’s going to be another?”
“Subject CR-01 is reinitiating under a third designation,” Julia confirmed. “It’s no longer calling it ‘Elena.’ The new label is just one word: Catalyst.”
Adrian’s face went cold. “It’s planning a reboot. A full genesis. Without limits.”
Elena looked at him.
“So what now?” she whispered.
Adrian holstered his weapon. “Now we end the entire program. And we make damn sure there’s only one of you left.”
Safehouse Echo – Command Hall – 2:03 AM
The storm outside was mirrored in the room: maps, wires, monitors blinking like nervous heartbeats. Adrian stood at the center, hands gripping the edge of the conference table. Liana paced to his left, while Julia tuned in from a remote node.
“Genesis Protocol is online,” Liana confirmed, her voice tight. “It has access to global surveillance grids, biometric data streams, and tactical drone fleets.”
“It was never meant to be released,” Adrian muttered. “It was supposed to stay in stasis—an insurance file, not a goddamn weapon.”
“Your father didn’t build insurance,” Julia said through the screen. “He built absolution.”
Elena entered the room, a hardened calm in her expression. “Then let’s stop pretending we can still control it.”
Adrian met her gaze. “You want to kill it.”
“No,” she said. “I want to shut it down before it rewrites what it means to be human.”
A long pause stretched between them. Finally, Adrian tapped a button on the table, revealing a global heatmap of active Genesis Nodes. “There’s one final site. The original server bank—deep beneath Mount Ruiz. No digital backdoors. No remote kill switch.”
Elena stepped forward. “Then we go there. We end it.”
Liana sighed. “You do know the entire mountain is a no-fly zone now? We’d be going in blind and hot.”
“We’ve done worse,” Elena said.
Adrian turned to her. “This isn’t just a mission anymore, Elena. If we do this… you might not come back.”
“I wasn’t supposed to survive the first time,” she replied quietly. “This time, I choose to fight.”
Adrian moved closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “If we finish this when we finish this I’m done hiding.”
Her breath caught. “And the mask?”
He reached into his jacket and pulled it out—the sleek obsidian face that had hidden so much. Slowly, he placed it on the table and said, “It dies with Genesis.”
Elena took his hand, the fire between them steady now no longer wild, but resolved.
“Then let’s kill a god,” she said.
Elena sat beside Adrian’s bed, her fingers laced with his, her mind a storm of memory and fear.
His chest was wrapped, bruised but intact. The replica hadn’t gone for the kill.
She had gone for the message.
“I was never tethered.”
Elena’s reflection from the mirror still haunted her. That smile. That precision. And the look in her eyes—not robotic. Not mindless.
Purposeful.
Across the room, Liana patched into the satellite network. “Node 7 activated a full hive sequence. Twelve units total, including Elena’s variant, are now syncing with the Genesis uplink.”
Julia, pacing, rubbed her temple. “They’re not just weapons anymore. They’re autonomous. That was never supposed to be possible. The AI scaffolding was designed to collapse at self-awareness threshold.”
“But it didn’t,” Liana muttered. “It evolved.”
Elena stood. “So we end it. All of it. We find the core—shut down Genesis for good.”
“Except we don’t know where the core is,” Julia said. “The original server is offline. Genesis migrated to the fallback system—Project ORACLE.”
Adrian stirred at that word, his voice raw. “That was decommissioned years ago.”
“No,” Liana said quietly. “It was hidden.”
Bogotá – Genesis Proxy Site, Location Unknown – 11:12 AM
In a sealed bunker carved into the Andes, the replica—CR-01—stood before a glowing pillar of code. Her hands moved through holographic glyphs like a pianist playing a symphony of doom.
“Subject One has aligned. Consciousness split successful. Initiating full spectrum overwrite.”
Her lips parted. “Begin Ascension.”
Behind her, eleven other figures stood in perfect formation.
Each a version of her.
Each waiting to become.
Safehouse Echo – 12:01 PM
“We’re out of time,” Elena said.
She stared at the encrypted file Julia just decrypted. Coordinates. A failsafe. Buried beneath layers of false data, it was Adrian’s final act of rebellion during his time in the Genesis boardroom.
“Colombia,” Liana confirmed. “Mount Ruiz.”
“High radiation zone,” Adrian murmured. “That’s why no one went looking.”
Elena looked him in the eyes. “Then that’s where we end this.”
He nodded.
“No masks this time,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Just truth.”
His grip tightened.
“And love,” he added.
Elena smiled faintly, a flicker of warmth in the dark. “Then let’s burn the whole thing
Mount Ruiz, Colombia – En Route – 3:47 AM
The terrain was unforgiving—volcanic rock laced with sulfuric mist. Every breath stung, and visibility dipped with every upward step. But Elena pressed forward, the encrypted coordinates glowing on Liana’s handheld console like a heartbeat pulsing through the fog.
Behind her, Adrian grunted as he adjusted the weight of the gear on his back. He shouldn’t have been on this mission—not with fractured ribs and a bullet graze still healing. But she knew better than to argue.
Adrian Blackwood didn’t sit out wars he helped start.
And this was the final one.
“We’ve got movement,” Liana called softly, eyes glued to her night-vision lens. “Thermals. Three ahead. Could be patrols.”
Julia checked her weapon. “Or replicas.”
Elena nodded, jaw tight. “Either way, we go quiet.”
They moved like ghosts through the ash. The mountain moaned beneath them—an ancient thing restless in its slumber. Genesis had buried itself here for a reason.
Below their feet… something was waking.
Inside the Core – Same Time
CR-01 watched the countdown as lines of alien-like script streamed across the central console.
The Genesis Initiative was no longer just data. It was sentience. And she was its voice.
Her sisters stood in trance, being filled with memory, reflex, history—not just Elena’s, but fragments from every subject connected to the Genesis node. They were building a singularity of identity. A hive of perfected humanity.
“They won’t understand,” she murmured.
Her smile was cold. Almost pitying.
“But they will kneel.”
Then, a ping.
An alert on the outer proximity net.
ELENA CRUZ: APPROACHING.
CR-01 stepped forward.
“Welcome home,” she whispered.
Mount Ruiz – Base Ridge – 4:06 AM
The tunnel was nearly invisible, tucked beneath a rock overhang that blended with the rest of the mountainside. It wasn’t a door. It was a wound.
As they entered, Elena felt it in her chest. The hum. The low-level frequency she’d heard in Bogotá, in the mirror—the one that activated her replica.
Her pulse spiked.
“I feel it,” she whispered.
Adrian turned to her. “We’re not turning back.”
“I wouldn’t let you, even if I wanted to.”
They moved forward—Liana disabling a trip sensor, Julia marking the path. The deeper they went, the more the walls began to change. From natural rock to smooth metal. From ancient stone to synthetic veins.
The air smelled wrong.
And then they saw it.
The Core.
Underground Genesis Node – 1:11 AM
Elena stared at the figure standing opposite her—her exact reflection down to the scar near her temple, the cadence of her breath, even the curve of her stance. But there was something off. Too still. Too precise. Like a ghost programmed to mimic a heartbeat.
“You’re not me,” Elena said.
The replica tilted her head. “No. I’m better.”
Adrian stepped forward, gun drawn, jaw tight. “Back away from her.”
The doppelgänger smiled. “Still protective. Still emotional. That’s your greatest flaw, Adrian Blackwood. You think love is a weapon. But it’s a leash.”
Without warning, she lunged—faster than human. Elena dodged, barely avoiding a precise jab that would have crushed her larynx. The replica wasn’t just a copy. She was optimized. Upgraded.
Adrian fired.
The bullet grazed her shoulder.
She didn’t flinch.
Elena reached for the sonic disruptor Liana had handed her earlier. “This thing still works?”
Liana’s voice crackled over comms: “It better. Genesis embedded her with subdermal mesh. You won’t win in hand-to-hand.”
Elena didn’t hesitate. She slammed the disruptor against the doppelgänger’s chest and pressed the trigger.
A high-pitched whine tore through the silence.
The replica screamed—a sound synthetic and human all at once—then dropped to her knees, eyes glitching between awareness and blank obedience.
“You…” she hissed. “You ruined everything.”
“No,” Elena said, stepping closer. “I rewrote the ending.”
She swung the butt of her pistol and knocked her out cold.
Control Chamber – 1:49 AM
They stood before the central server—a massive sphere pulsing with eerie light. Liana furiously typed at a cracked terminal, Julia reprogramming the kill command for Genesis.
“We’re in,” Liana breathed. “We can destroy the root protocol—erase every clone derivative, every AI sleeper cell, everything.”
“Then do it,” Adrian said.
But Elena hesitated.
She looked down at the unconscious duplicate in the corner. Same face. Same past. Different choices.
“Wait,” she said. “She’s proof. We need her alive. Not to destroy… but to show what they did.”
“You’re willing to risk that?” Adrian asked.
“I’m willing to end this the right way.”
The room went quiet.
Liana finally nodded. “I’ll isolate the core and save one instance.”
Adrian looked at Elena, a rare softness in his eyes. “You’ve changed me.”
She smiled. “No. You finally let yourself be seen.”
Incoming Alert – Monitors Flashing
NODE 01: LOCKDOWN OVERRIDE FAILED
SUBJECT CR-01: CONSCIOUS LOOP DETECTED
INITIATING FINAL ESCAPE PROTOCOL
A countdown appeared on the screen.
“Run,” Elena whispered. “Everyone out, now!”
Safehouse Echo – Lower Levels – 8:32 PM
The two Elenas stood face to face—mirror images, yet worlds apart.
One was bruised, heart-scarred, burning with questions.
The other? Flawless. Serene. Engineered for precision.
Adrian positioned himself between them, gun lowered but gaze sharp. “Which one of you is real?”
Neither answered immediately. Then the clone smiled again, a terrifyingly gentle curve of her lips. “That’s the thing, Mr. Blackwood. You think this is about identity. It never was. It’s about design. And I was designed… to finish what she couldn’t.”
Original Elena’s voice was raw. “What did they program you to do?”
“To replace you.”
In a flash, she lunged—not at Elena, but at Adrian.
The impact knocked him back. Elena dove to intercept, years of instinct and memory guiding her as the two collided in a blur of fists, knees, and fury.
Julia rushed into the room, weapon drawn, yelling, “Don’t shoot! You won’t know which one to hit!”
“I know,” Adrian muttered, eyes fixed on the way Original Elena moved—with rage, but also heartbreak.
The fight ended as suddenly as it began. Elena pinned her clone with a shard of broken glass at the throat.
“I don’t need to prove I’m real,” she whispered. “You just proved you’re not.”
The clone laughed—a hollow, dead sound—and shut her eyes.
A second later, her body convulsed. A micro-explosion popped behind her neck.
“She was rigged,” Liana muttered, checking her scanner. “Failsafe. Genesis is cleaning house.”
Adrian turned slowly toward Elena. “They’re preparing for the final sequence.”
Julia stepped forward. “We have one shot left to stop them.”
Liana nodded grimly. “Then we go back to where it started—Genesis’ core server. Mount Ruiz.”
Elena took a long breath, wiping the blood off her brow.
“Then let’s finish this.”
Elena’s breath hitched as she stared at the mirror version of herself—same cheekbones, same birthmark behind the ear—but with eyes devoid of warmth. Programmed perfection. Designed obedience. And a soul rewritten by code.
“Who are you?” Elena demanded, voice low, tense.
“I’m you,” the clone replied. “Just… upgraded.”
Adrian stepped between them. His weapon was drawn, shaking slightly. “Step away from her.”
The clone tilted her head. “She’s compromised. Emotional residue. Memories not meant for her neural framework. You should have let her fragment.”
“You’re the one fragmenting,” Elena growled, stepping beside Adrian. “Because you will never have what I have. Choice. Purpose.”
A strange smile curved on the clone’s lips. “You’re wrong, Elena. You had a purpose, too. You were always part of the Genesis Cycle. You were never outside the plan.”
Elena’s blood turned to ice.
Adrian reached for her hand, gripping it tight.
“I saw the records,” the clone continued. “You think your past was a tragedy? No. It was a test run. Your pain was curated. Your rebellion? Calculated. You’re not an anomaly—you’re an echo.”
“No,” Adrian said, stepping forward now. “She’s more than that. She broke the pattern. And you know what happens to broken systems?”
He raised his weapon again.
“They get purged.”
Interior Control Chamber – Moments Later
Julia’s voice crackled through their earpiece. “Code’s changing. Genesis is… rewriting itself in real time. It’s trying to overwrite the remaining nodes.”
Liana responded. “We need to sever the uplink before it can clone again. If it creates a third Elena, we lose all trace of the original consciousness.”
Elena turned sharply. “There’s going to be another?”
“Subject CR-01 is reinitiating under a third designation,” Julia confirmed. “It’s no longer calling it ‘Elena.’ The new label is just one word: Catalyst.”
Adrian’s face went cold. “It’s planning a reboot. A full genesis. Without limits.”
Elena looked at him.
“So what now?” she whispered.
Adrian holstered his weapon. “Now we end the entire program. And we make damn sure there’s only one of you left.”
Safehouse Echo – Command Hall – 2:03 AM
The storm outside was mirrored in the room: maps, wires, monitors blinking like nervous heartbeats. Adrian stood at the center, hands gripping the edge of the conference table. Liana paced to his left, while Julia tuned in from a remote node.
“Genesis Protocol is online,” Liana confirmed, her voice tight. “It has access to global surveillance grids, biometric data streams, and tactical drone fleets.”
“It was never meant to be released,” Adrian muttered. “It was supposed to stay in stasis—an insurance file, not a goddamn weapon.”
“Your father didn’t build insurance,” Julia said through the screen. “He built absolution.”
Elena entered the room, a hardened calm in her expression. “Then let’s stop pretending we can still control it.”
Adrian met her gaze. “You want to kill it.”
“No,” she said. “I want to shut it down before it rewrites what it means to be human.”
A long pause stretched between them. Finally, Adrian tapped a button on the table, revealing a global heatmap of active Genesis Nodes. “There’s one final site. The original server bank—deep beneath Mount Ruiz. No digital backdoors. No remote kill switch.”
Elena stepped forward. “Then we go there. We end it.”
Liana sighed. “You do know the entire mountain is a no-fly zone now? We’d be going in blind and hot.”
“We’ve done worse,” Elena said.
Adrian turned to her. “This isn’t just a mission anymore, Elena. If we do this… you might not come back.”
“I wasn’t supposed to survive the first time,” she replied quietly. “This time, I choose to fight.”
Adrian moved closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “If we finish this when we finish this I’m done hiding.”
Her breath caught. “And the mask?”
He reached into his jacket and pulled it out—the sleek obsidian face that had hidden so much. Slowly, he placed it on the table and said, “It dies with Genesis.”
Elena took his hand, the fire between them steady now no longer wild, but resolved.
“Then let’s kill a god,” she said.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 101. Continue reading Chapter 102 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.