Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 13: Chapter 13
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 13: Chapter 13. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Undisclosed Safehouse – Westchester County – 6:42 AM
Elena awoke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The strategic kind.
The kind of silence that came with reinforced walls, encrypted signals, and the knowledge that the outside world was no longer safe.
She sat up slowly, the weight of the previous day pressing against her ribs. The confession. The headlines. The sealed letter from Veritas that now sat like a threat-shaped paperweight on the desk across the room.
The air smelled like cedar and cold steel. Adrian’s safehouse—hidden in the woods, off-grid, and monitored by enough surveillance to make the Pentagon jealous.
She wrapped her arms around herself, unsure if she was cold or simply unsteady.
The truth was out.
But now came the price.
Elsewhere in the Safehouse – Adrian’s Surveillance Room
Adrian stood before a bank of screens, each displaying a live feed from cameras placed around the safehouse perimeter. His eyes didn’t blink as he watched two vehicles pause briefly on the county road and drive off again.
Harmless.
For now.
His mind wasn’t on the cameras, though.
It was on the notebook Elena had given him—the list of names Evelyn had compiled. Nearly every one of them had died… or vanished. But one name, written in Evelyn’s own looping handwriting, kept standing out:
Marcus Vale.
He hadn’t seen that name in five years.
Hadn’t spoken it in ten.
Not since the fire.
Not since everything changed.
He closed the notebook and left the room.
Living Room – 7:18 AM
Elena sat curled on a window seat, scrolling through her inbox. Death threats, praise, offers for interviews, even a book deal. The world loved a whistleblower.
But it didn’t love them long.
Adrian entered quietly, setting two mugs of coffee down.
“Still no sleep?” he asked.
“I’m getting used to sleeping with ghosts,” she said without looking up.
He sat across from her.
“I’ve started tracing the leak in the Foundation,” he said. “There’s someone inside who’s been feeding Veritas everything. Not just about me. About you.”
She looked up. “A mole?”
He nodded.
Her eyes darkened. “Then we don’t just have enemies. We have traitors.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“There’s more.”
He slid a printed image toward her—blown up from old surveillance footage.
Elena took it slowly.
It showed a man, mid-30s, with a clean-shaven jaw, sharp cheekbones, and eyes that didn’t smile.
She looked up. “Who is this?”
Adrian’s voice was steady—but colder than she’d heard before.
“Marcus Vale.”
Her lips parted. “The ex-partner?”
“He’s not just that,” Adrian said. “He was family. And the first person Evelyn ever warned me about.”
⸻
Midtown Manhattan – That Same Morning
Marcus Vale stood in front of the Blackwood Global building like he owned it.
He hadn’t returned in five years.
But now, the world was finally burning just enough for him to step back in.
He adjusted his cufflinks and entered the lobby, drawing more than a few double-takes. His tailored crimson coat. His polished charm. His reputation.
He approached the front desk and flashed a familiar smile.
“Tell Adrian I’m back,” he said. “And this time, I’m staying.”
Safehouse – Afternoon
Elena watched Adrian pace the study like a storm barely restrained.
“He won’t come quietly,” she said.
“I know.”
“You think he’s Veritas?”
“I think he’s something worse,” Adrian replied. “He doesn’t want to destroy me.”
Elena’s brows lifted. “Then what?”
Adrian stopped. Looked her dead in the eye.
“He wants to be me.”
A long silence fell between them.
Then a sharp ping from Adrian’s secure tablet.
He picked it up, his eyes narrowing.
Then he turned the screen to Elena.
A breaking news alert:
“Veritas Insider Claims Adrian Blackwood Orchestrated His Sister’s Death.”
Her heart plummeted.
A photograph followed the headline.
Grainy. Shadowed. Evelyn.
Standing beside Adrian.
Behind them: flames.
And the man who sent the photo?
Marcus Vale.
Safehouse – Study – Moments Later
Elena stared at the headline again.
“Adrian Blackwood Orchestrated His Sister’s Death, Source Claims.”
Her throat tightened.
The implication was monstrous. Twisted.
But what hit harder was Adrian’s face.
Still. Blank. But not unreadable—not to her.
She saw the flicker of pain in his eyes. Not surprise. Not guilt. Grief.
And something else.
Regret.
“Tell me this is a lie,” she said quietly.
Adrian didn’t speak. Not at first.
He walked slowly to the bar cabinet, poured a finger of something sharp, and downed it in one gulp.
Then he turned to her.
“The fire was real. Evelyn was inside.”
“I know that.”
“But I wasn’t there when it started.”
He paused.
“I was the one who was supposed to be.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
“She was covering for me,” he said. “I was tracking a Veritas trail through the foundation accounts. A leak. She took my shift at the drop site so I wouldn’t draw suspicion.”
His voice cracked, just slightly. “They found her instead.”
Elena’s chest ached. “So you’ve carried it. All this time.”
“I didn’t kill my sister,” he said. “But I gave her the target. I handed her the coordinates. She died for my mistake.”
A long silence.
Then: “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way I look at myself.”
Her hands curled into fists. “And Marcus—he knew?”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened. “Marcus was the one who convinced her to go in my place. He said I was too high-profile. That I’d risk exposing the entire mission.”
He stared at the screen again, the photo burning into his memory.
“He played both of us. He always does.”
Blackwood Global – Marcus’s Temporary Office – That Evening
Marcus poured a drink from Adrian’s private reserve, savoring the irony. He watched the media frenzy swirl across the screens, commentators dissecting every angle of the headline he’d leaked.
It wasn’t even a real photo.
But it didn’t have to be.
He understood something Adrian never had.
Perception was always more powerful than truth.
The office door opened.
Julius Grant stepped inside, uninvited.
“I told you not to push the sister angle,” he said coolly.
Marcus smiled without turning. “And I told you—we don’t win by facts. We win by fear.”
“Careful,” Julius warned. “He’s unpredictable when cornered.”
Marcus raised his glass.
“So am I.”
Safehouse – Bedroom – 10:03 PM
Elena sat on the edge of the bed, still in the same clothes, heart spinning.
She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. But belief didn’t erase the danger of what was now out there.
Adrian entered without a word and sat beside her.
For a while, they didn’t speak.
Just the low hum of wind outside and the shared weight of memory between them.
Then he said, “They’re not coming after me.”
She turned to him.
“They’re coming after you. Through me.”
Elena looked down at her hands. “They want to make you doubt yourself.”
“They want to make you doubt me.”
She finally met his eyes.
“I don’t.”
A pause.
“But you’re going to have to tell me everything now, Adrian. No more veiled truths. No more shadows.”
He nodded once.
“I will.”
Then: “Starting tomorrow… we go to the place it happened. The fire. Evelyn’s last call. Everything begins there.”
Veritas Underground Node – Location Unknown – Midnight
A cold chamber.
Low light. Stone walls. One long table.
Julius Grant stood before a projection—Adrian’s public confession playing in eerie silence, with the volume off. His shadow loomed across the screen.
Around the table, masked figures watched in perfect stillness.
“I warned you,” Julius said flatly. “Blackwood has nothing left to lose.”
One of the masked figures, a woman with a scar split across her neck, leaned forward.
“And the girl?”
Julius pressed a button. Elena’s face filled the screen.
“She’s not just a liability anymore,” he said. “She’s the match he’s willing to burn everything for.”
Another voice: “Then she needs to be extinguished.”
Julius smiled faintly.
“No,” he said. “She needs to be shown the truth… the way we want her to see it.”
Westchester Safehouse – Roof – 1:17 AM
Elena couldn’t sleep.
She stepped onto the rooftop terrace, pulling a blanket tight around her shoulders. The trees rustled below. Above, the stars were fading behind creeping clouds.
Adrian joined her in silence, offering her a cup of tea.
They stood side by side without speaking for a long while.
Then she said, “When Evelyn died… did you ever want to walk away from all of it?”
“Yes,” he said. “Every day for a year.”
“And now?”
“I can’t,” he replied. “Because they’re still out there.”
She looked at him. “So what happens if we lose?”
Adrian turned to face her fully.
“Then we lose together.”
There was no vow. No dramatic kiss. Just a look.
And in that look: unspoken trust.
Maybe even something more dangerous than that.
Hope.
Safehouse – Guest Room – 3:12 AM
Elena sat in bed, the room cast in blue-grey shadows, her laptop open beside her. She wasn’t reading the articles or the hate threads or even the trending hashtags anymore.
She was watching Evelyn.
A video file from the Foundation archives—one Julia had dug up from a private server before it was purged. Just sixty seconds long. A training reel. Evelyn teaching a group of women how to disappear in plain sight.
How to fight back.
How to survive.
Elena paused the video on Evelyn’s face.
She looked nothing like Adrian. But the fire behind her eyes… that was unmistakable.
And suddenly, Elena understood the weight Adrian carried — not just grief. Legacy.
A soft knock.
Adrian leaned against the doorframe, barefoot, his usual composure stripped down to something rawer. Quieter.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“I was watching her.”
He nodded, stepping inside. “She always made it look easier than it was.”
Elena turned to face him fully. “Do you still hear her?”
He met her eyes. “Every day.”
They sat in silence for a while, both staring at the frozen screen.
“I think she left us something,” Elena whispered. “Something we missed.”
Adrian didn’t ask how she knew. He just nodded once.
Then: “We’ll go there tomorrow. To where it ended.”
“No,” Elena said. “To where it began.”
Elsewhere – Unknown Veritas Location – Same Time
Julius stared at a wall of monitors, watching live feeds from the city, and something colder: heat maps from their own operatives.
One red dot blinked, isolated, far outside Manhattan.
Another—Elena—was marked now.
He tapped the screen slowly.
Then spoke into his earpiece.
“Activate contingency.
Her faith in him is still intact.
Let’s… erode that.”
Elena awoke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The strategic kind.
The kind of silence that came with reinforced walls, encrypted signals, and the knowledge that the outside world was no longer safe.
She sat up slowly, the weight of the previous day pressing against her ribs. The confession. The headlines. The sealed letter from Veritas that now sat like a threat-shaped paperweight on the desk across the room.
The air smelled like cedar and cold steel. Adrian’s safehouse—hidden in the woods, off-grid, and monitored by enough surveillance to make the Pentagon jealous.
She wrapped her arms around herself, unsure if she was cold or simply unsteady.
The truth was out.
But now came the price.
Elsewhere in the Safehouse – Adrian’s Surveillance Room
Adrian stood before a bank of screens, each displaying a live feed from cameras placed around the safehouse perimeter. His eyes didn’t blink as he watched two vehicles pause briefly on the county road and drive off again.
Harmless.
For now.
His mind wasn’t on the cameras, though.
It was on the notebook Elena had given him—the list of names Evelyn had compiled. Nearly every one of them had died… or vanished. But one name, written in Evelyn’s own looping handwriting, kept standing out:
Marcus Vale.
He hadn’t seen that name in five years.
Hadn’t spoken it in ten.
Not since the fire.
Not since everything changed.
He closed the notebook and left the room.
Living Room – 7:18 AM
Elena sat curled on a window seat, scrolling through her inbox. Death threats, praise, offers for interviews, even a book deal. The world loved a whistleblower.
But it didn’t love them long.
Adrian entered quietly, setting two mugs of coffee down.
“Still no sleep?” he asked.
“I’m getting used to sleeping with ghosts,” she said without looking up.
He sat across from her.
“I’ve started tracing the leak in the Foundation,” he said. “There’s someone inside who’s been feeding Veritas everything. Not just about me. About you.”
She looked up. “A mole?”
He nodded.
Her eyes darkened. “Then we don’t just have enemies. We have traitors.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“There’s more.”
He slid a printed image toward her—blown up from old surveillance footage.
Elena took it slowly.
It showed a man, mid-30s, with a clean-shaven jaw, sharp cheekbones, and eyes that didn’t smile.
She looked up. “Who is this?”
Adrian’s voice was steady—but colder than she’d heard before.
“Marcus Vale.”
Her lips parted. “The ex-partner?”
“He’s not just that,” Adrian said. “He was family. And the first person Evelyn ever warned me about.”
⸻
Midtown Manhattan – That Same Morning
Marcus Vale stood in front of the Blackwood Global building like he owned it.
He hadn’t returned in five years.
But now, the world was finally burning just enough for him to step back in.
He adjusted his cufflinks and entered the lobby, drawing more than a few double-takes. His tailored crimson coat. His polished charm. His reputation.
He approached the front desk and flashed a familiar smile.
“Tell Adrian I’m back,” he said. “And this time, I’m staying.”
Safehouse – Afternoon
Elena watched Adrian pace the study like a storm barely restrained.
“He won’t come quietly,” she said.
“I know.”
“You think he’s Veritas?”
“I think he’s something worse,” Adrian replied. “He doesn’t want to destroy me.”
Elena’s brows lifted. “Then what?”
Adrian stopped. Looked her dead in the eye.
“He wants to be me.”
A long silence fell between them.
Then a sharp ping from Adrian’s secure tablet.
He picked it up, his eyes narrowing.
Then he turned the screen to Elena.
A breaking news alert:
“Veritas Insider Claims Adrian Blackwood Orchestrated His Sister’s Death.”
Her heart plummeted.
A photograph followed the headline.
Grainy. Shadowed. Evelyn.
Standing beside Adrian.
Behind them: flames.
And the man who sent the photo?
Marcus Vale.
Safehouse – Study – Moments Later
Elena stared at the headline again.
“Adrian Blackwood Orchestrated His Sister’s Death, Source Claims.”
Her throat tightened.
The implication was monstrous. Twisted.
But what hit harder was Adrian’s face.
Still. Blank. But not unreadable—not to her.
She saw the flicker of pain in his eyes. Not surprise. Not guilt. Grief.
And something else.
Regret.
“Tell me this is a lie,” she said quietly.
Adrian didn’t speak. Not at first.
He walked slowly to the bar cabinet, poured a finger of something sharp, and downed it in one gulp.
Then he turned to her.
“The fire was real. Evelyn was inside.”
“I know that.”
“But I wasn’t there when it started.”
He paused.
“I was the one who was supposed to be.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
“She was covering for me,” he said. “I was tracking a Veritas trail through the foundation accounts. A leak. She took my shift at the drop site so I wouldn’t draw suspicion.”
His voice cracked, just slightly. “They found her instead.”
Elena’s chest ached. “So you’ve carried it. All this time.”
“I didn’t kill my sister,” he said. “But I gave her the target. I handed her the coordinates. She died for my mistake.”
A long silence.
Then: “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way I look at myself.”
Her hands curled into fists. “And Marcus—he knew?”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened. “Marcus was the one who convinced her to go in my place. He said I was too high-profile. That I’d risk exposing the entire mission.”
He stared at the screen again, the photo burning into his memory.
“He played both of us. He always does.”
Blackwood Global – Marcus’s Temporary Office – That Evening
Marcus poured a drink from Adrian’s private reserve, savoring the irony. He watched the media frenzy swirl across the screens, commentators dissecting every angle of the headline he’d leaked.
It wasn’t even a real photo.
But it didn’t have to be.
He understood something Adrian never had.
Perception was always more powerful than truth.
The office door opened.
Julius Grant stepped inside, uninvited.
“I told you not to push the sister angle,” he said coolly.
Marcus smiled without turning. “And I told you—we don’t win by facts. We win by fear.”
“Careful,” Julius warned. “He’s unpredictable when cornered.”
Marcus raised his glass.
“So am I.”
Safehouse – Bedroom – 10:03 PM
Elena sat on the edge of the bed, still in the same clothes, heart spinning.
She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. But belief didn’t erase the danger of what was now out there.
Adrian entered without a word and sat beside her.
For a while, they didn’t speak.
Just the low hum of wind outside and the shared weight of memory between them.
Then he said, “They’re not coming after me.”
She turned to him.
“They’re coming after you. Through me.”
Elena looked down at her hands. “They want to make you doubt yourself.”
“They want to make you doubt me.”
She finally met his eyes.
“I don’t.”
A pause.
“But you’re going to have to tell me everything now, Adrian. No more veiled truths. No more shadows.”
He nodded once.
“I will.”
Then: “Starting tomorrow… we go to the place it happened. The fire. Evelyn’s last call. Everything begins there.”
Veritas Underground Node – Location Unknown – Midnight
A cold chamber.
Low light. Stone walls. One long table.
Julius Grant stood before a projection—Adrian’s public confession playing in eerie silence, with the volume off. His shadow loomed across the screen.
Around the table, masked figures watched in perfect stillness.
“I warned you,” Julius said flatly. “Blackwood has nothing left to lose.”
One of the masked figures, a woman with a scar split across her neck, leaned forward.
“And the girl?”
Julius pressed a button. Elena’s face filled the screen.
“She’s not just a liability anymore,” he said. “She’s the match he’s willing to burn everything for.”
Another voice: “Then she needs to be extinguished.”
Julius smiled faintly.
“No,” he said. “She needs to be shown the truth… the way we want her to see it.”
Westchester Safehouse – Roof – 1:17 AM
Elena couldn’t sleep.
She stepped onto the rooftop terrace, pulling a blanket tight around her shoulders. The trees rustled below. Above, the stars were fading behind creeping clouds.
Adrian joined her in silence, offering her a cup of tea.
They stood side by side without speaking for a long while.
Then she said, “When Evelyn died… did you ever want to walk away from all of it?”
“Yes,” he said. “Every day for a year.”
“And now?”
“I can’t,” he replied. “Because they’re still out there.”
She looked at him. “So what happens if we lose?”
Adrian turned to face her fully.
“Then we lose together.”
There was no vow. No dramatic kiss. Just a look.
And in that look: unspoken trust.
Maybe even something more dangerous than that.
Hope.
Safehouse – Guest Room – 3:12 AM
Elena sat in bed, the room cast in blue-grey shadows, her laptop open beside her. She wasn’t reading the articles or the hate threads or even the trending hashtags anymore.
She was watching Evelyn.
A video file from the Foundation archives—one Julia had dug up from a private server before it was purged. Just sixty seconds long. A training reel. Evelyn teaching a group of women how to disappear in plain sight.
How to fight back.
How to survive.
Elena paused the video on Evelyn’s face.
She looked nothing like Adrian. But the fire behind her eyes… that was unmistakable.
And suddenly, Elena understood the weight Adrian carried — not just grief. Legacy.
A soft knock.
Adrian leaned against the doorframe, barefoot, his usual composure stripped down to something rawer. Quieter.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“I was watching her.”
He nodded, stepping inside. “She always made it look easier than it was.”
Elena turned to face him fully. “Do you still hear her?”
He met her eyes. “Every day.”
They sat in silence for a while, both staring at the frozen screen.
“I think she left us something,” Elena whispered. “Something we missed.”
Adrian didn’t ask how she knew. He just nodded once.
Then: “We’ll go there tomorrow. To where it ended.”
“No,” Elena said. “To where it began.”
Elsewhere – Unknown Veritas Location – Same Time
Julius stared at a wall of monitors, watching live feeds from the city, and something colder: heat maps from their own operatives.
One red dot blinked, isolated, far outside Manhattan.
Another—Elena—was marked now.
He tapped the screen slowly.
Then spoke into his earpiece.
“Activate contingency.
Her faith in him is still intact.
Let’s… erode that.”
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 13. Continue reading Chapter 14 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.