Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 20: Chapter 20

Piedra Ciega – Vault Perimeter – 12:29 AM
Adrian didn’t move. His eyes locked on Marcus, a man who once stood at his side in boardrooms and warzones alike. Now that same man held a weapon—and no hesitation.
“You’ve come a long way,” Adrian said quietly, “to prove I was right about you.”
Marcus’s smile was slow, deliberate. “We both know it’s not about being right. It’s about being remembered.”
The gun didn’t waver.
Adrian’s fingers twitched behind his back, edging toward the detonator still clutched in his palm. One press, and the vault below would collapse, taking every piece of Project Blackwood—and his father’s legacy—with it.
But Marcus was watching him like a predator.
“You think blowing it all up gives you redemption?” Marcus asked, stepping closer. “That it makes you the martyr and me the villain?”
“I don’t care what I look like in your story.”
“No,” Marcus said with a bitter laugh. “You only care what she thinks.”
Adrian didn’t respond.
“She was never yours,” Marcus continued. “Just a girl chasing a ghost. You just happened to wear the right mask.”
Adrian’s jaw clenched. “You don’t get to say her name.”
“Why not? I gave her the trail. I led her straight to you. And she walked into it blind.”
The implication hit like a bullet.
Adrian’s pulse stopped. “What did you do?”
Marcus’s eyes gleamed. “I offered her a choice—truth or loyalty. But she’s more like her father than she realizes. Always choosing the fire.”
Adrian moved, lunging before Marcus could fire—but the shot went off anyway, slicing through Adrian’s shoulder. He dropped to one knee with a sharp gasp, blood spreading like ink across his shirt.
“You always bleed for the wrong people,” Marcus murmured.
He stepped forward, raising the gun again—
—but a voice split the air.
“Step away from him.”
Elena.
She stood at the far end of the corridor, breathing hard, a pistol in her shaking hands—one of Liana’s backups. Her eyes were wide, glassy—but steady.
Marcus turned slowly, like a man watching a bomb tick.
“Elena,” he said smoothly. “You’re early. I was going to save the finale for you.”
“I heard everything,” she snapped. “And I’m done listening.”
Her eyes flicked to Adrian—wounded, bleeding, refusing to fall.
“I came here chasing the truth,” she said, her voice cracking, “but I didn’t know it would mean choosing who to save.”
Marcus shrugged. “That’s the problem with truth, darling. It’s rarely clean.”
Elena took one step closer. “Drop the weapon.”
“You won’t shoot me.”
“I’ve got nothing left to lose.”
Marcus’s smile slipped.
Adrian raised his hand weakly, voice gravel-rough. “Elena… if he gets the file—everything we’ve done means nothing.”
“I know.”
Her hands tightened on the gun. Her father’s badge still hung from her neck.
“You hurt him,” she said to Marcus. “You hurt both of them. My father… and Adrian. And now you’re going to pay.”
Marcus raised the gun toward her—but she didn’t flinch.
A shot rang out.
Marcus stumbled backward, blood blooming at his shoulder. His gun clattered to the ground.
Elena’s grip trembled. “I told you.”
Adrian exhaled shakily. “I was going to do that.”
“I beat you to it.”
Liana arrived seconds later, breathless, armed to the teeth. “We’ve got to move—this place is about to blow.”
Adrian handed her the detonator.
“Do it.”
“No!” Elena said. “We haven’t copied the Black Archive. My father’s file—”
“It’s already gone,” Adrian said quietly. “The minute you opened that folder, it uploaded to an off-grid relay. Julia has it. It’s safe.”
She blinked. “You planned that?”
“I plan everything,” he said, barely conscious. “Even this.”
Then he collapsed.
Piedra Ciega – Extraction Chopper – 1:03 AM
The compound burned behind them, swallowed in smoke and dust. From the sky, it looked like the end of something ancient.
Elena held Adrian’s hand in the back of the chopper, pressing gauze to his wound.
“He’s stable,” Liana said. “Barely.”
Elena didn’t speak. She watched the fire below.
Watched the masks burn.
Her father had built something terrible. But he’d also tried to end it. So had Adrian.
And now… she had the power to finish what they started.
She leaned down, whispering into Adrian’s ear.
“You’re not the villain,” she said. “You never were.”
His fingers curled around hers.
Barely.
But enough.
Safehouse Echo – Perimeter of Bogotá – 3:47 AM
Rain battered the steel roof like gunfire.
Elena sat beside Adrian’s bed, eyes fixed on the faint rise and fall of his chest. His shirt had been cut away, bandages swathed across his shoulder and torso, pink-stained and pulsing with fresh antiseptic. He hadn’t woken since the chopper touched down.
“You need sleep,” Liana said quietly from the doorway, arms crossed.
“I’m fine.”
Liana raised an eyebrow. “You were almost shot. Again.”
“Feels like routine at this point.”
But her voice trembled.
The silence between them grew thick—sour with things neither wanted to admit. Finally, Elena exhaled.
“I didn’t come here to fall for him.”
“I know.”
“I came to tear him down. Expose the cracks. Prove he was a monster hiding behind charity and PR spin.”
Liana tilted her head. “Did you find a monster?”
Elena looked at Adrian’s hand—rough, scarred, slack with exhaustion.
“No,” she whispered. “I found a man who didn’t know how to stop paying for his past.”
Liana stepped into the room, her expression softer now. “People like us—we don’t get happy endings, Elena. We just get through the wreckage.”
Elsewhere – Unknown Location – 4:12 AM
Blood dripped from Marcus Vale’s sleeve as the SUV sped through narrow mountain roads. A man in a black mask sat across from him, silent, tapping something on a tablet.
“They bought it,” Marcus rasped, voice slurred from blood loss. “She shot me. She thinks I lost.”
The masked man didn’t look up.
“And the file?” he asked.
“Compromised. But there’s more. Always more.”
He smiled then—slow, wicked.
“Let them think they’ve won.”
New York City – Julia King’s Apartment – 6:07 AM
Julia sat at her kitchen table, barefoot, laptop open, coffee untouched. Her screen flickered with encrypted code as the Black Archive decrypted line by line.
Every name. Every deal. Every death.
She read Guillermo Cruz’s final memo three times before the message at the bottom blinked to life:
“If you’re reading this, I’m either dead… or worse.
Tell Elena I never stopped protecting her.
But she needs to stop protecting me.
The people I ran from aren’t done yet.
And they’re already watching.”
Julia leaned back, heart racing.
There was a second attachment.
One word.
PROJECT: NIGHTFALL.
She didn’t open it.
Not yet.
Safehouse Echo – Adrian’s Room – 7:00 AM
Elena dozed in the chair. Her head leaned against the bedframe, fingers still curled around Adrian’s.
A quiet inhale stirred her awake.
“Blackwood?” she whispered.
Adrian’s eyes fluttered open, bloodshot but sharp.
“Still here?” he rasped.
She exhaled a shaky laugh. “Didn’t really have anywhere else to go.”
He winced as he shifted. “Tell me I didn’t bleed all over your shoes.”
“Just the left one.”
Their eyes met.
So much sat in the space between them—regret, truth, a thousand apologies.
“You lied to me,” she said softly. “But you never let me fall.”
Adrian swallowed. “You deserved to know everything. I just couldn’t find the right way to break you.”
“You didn’t break me,” she said. “But you did change me.”
A beat passed.
“I shot Marcus,” she added, voice lower now. “He’s gone, but not dead.”
“I know.”
“And I think it’s just starting.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed. “That file you saw… Project VIREX… your father’s signature? There’s more.”
She tensed. “How much more?”
“Enough that we’ll need to burn the rest of the mask before we put it on again.”
Elena stood slowly.
Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out the last remaining chip—the encrypted key that could access the rest of the archive from Julia’s side.
She placed it on the bed beside him.
“Then let’s stop hiding.”