Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 29: Chapter 29
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 29: Chapter 29. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Jakarta – Rooftop – 8:23 PM
Lightning fractured the sky, and Evelyn’s words seemed to echo long after the silence swallowed them.
“The first?” Adrian asked, voice tight.
Evelyn nodded slowly, her eyes scanning the skyline like she expected the buildings to collapse at any moment.
“NIGHTFALL was a prototype,” she said. “It was never meant to succeed—it was meant to test the limits. Human loyalty. Memory suppression. Indoctrination thresholds. Theta wasn’t the final soldier. He was the experiment that proved the next wave could work.”
Elena swallowed hard. “Next wave of what?”
Evelyn looked at her. Really looked.
“You’re the journalist, right?”
“Investigative, yes.”
“Then investigate this—Project: VELOCITY. Codenamed: The Ghost Engine. It wasn’t about soldiers. It was about making ghosts who could kill and disappear without memory, remorse, or identity.”
Adrian’s voice sharpened. “And where is it now?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Where do you think Marcus has been funneling the tech from VIREX? From NIGHTFALL? From every broken program Father buried?”
A beat passed. Her voice dropped.
“It’s already active.”
Unknown Location – NIGHTFALL Containment Site – 3:18 PM UTC
Theta stood before a reinforced steel door, eyes flickering with biometric scans. The system recognized him instantly.
The vault hissed open.
Inside: Eight cryo-chambers. Each one sealed. Each one labeled with a different designation:
V0X
VIREX
N1GHT
N1GH2
SHDW-X
SHDW-Y
V-GHOST
VELOCITY
Marcus stepped in behind him, gloves slick with rain.
“They think they’ve won,” he said.
Theta said nothing.
“They think they’ve seen the worst of me.”
Still silence.
Then Marcus added quietly:
“Let’s show them the thing their fathers feared most.”
He nodded toward the final chamber: VELOCITY.
“Wake it.”
Jakarta – Safe Flat, Outside the City – 9:04 PM
Evelyn paced while Elena transmitted encrypted data back to Julia. Adrian sat in the corner, staring at an old photo Evelyn had handed him—one of the last taken before she “died.”
They were both smiling. Younger. Before the guilt. Before the war.
Evelyn finally stopped. “I know why you came, Adrian. You want to stop Marcus. End this. But what you’re chasing is already in motion.”
Adrian met her gaze. “Then help us stop it.”
Evelyn hesitated.
“There’s a facility. Hidden under the ruins of Blackwood’s northern estate. It wasn’t part of the company. It was private. Off-record. Marcus found it.”
“What’s there?” Elena asked.
Evelyn looked between them.
“The blueprint for what comes next.”
Meanwhile – New York – 10:12 AM
Julia stared at the decrypted files on her screen. Names. Images. Files marked “REDACTED” now laid bare.
At the bottom of the folder: a final video file. She clicked it.
A man appeared—older, weary, but unmistakably Guillermo Blackwood.
“If you’re seeing this… it means the safeguards failed. It means Marcus didn’t stop.”
“They will tell you the world needs order. That chaos is a virus. But what they want—what they built—is control through fear.”
“I tried to burn it. But my fire was never enough.”
His voice broke.
“My daughter saw through me. My son still carries me.”
“If either of them are still alive… tell them to run. Or tell them to burn it down.”
The screen went black.
And then the feed glitched.
Julia leaned in.
A single phrase pulsed red on the dark screen:
PHASE TWO INITIATED.
VELOCITY UNIT ALPHA: DEPLOYED.
Her blood ran cold.
“No,” she whispered. “He’s starting the war.”
Jakarta – Safe Flat – 9:32 PM
Adrian leaned over the dusty floor map Evelyn had sketched out.
She marked the perimeter of the Northwood Estate, drawing a ring around the burned ruins and tapping twice on a seemingly empty quadrant.
“There,” she said. “Beneath the wine cellar. Hidden elevator. My father built it before he passed control of the foundation to Adrian.”
Elena narrowed her eyes. “Why wasn’t it on any of the company blueprints?”
Evelyn looked up. “Because it wasn’t for the company. It was for erasing the company—if things ever spiraled beyond recovery.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed. “And now Marcus has it.”
Evelyn nodded grimly. “And if he’s already activated VELOCITY, then what’s hidden in that facility is the final protocol.”
Elena looked between them. “Final protocol?”
Evelyn stepped closer to the window, staring out into the Jakarta night.
“It’s not just a new kind of operative. It’s a backdoor into every system the Blackwood Foundation ever touched—governments, security councils, humanitarian networks, financial corridors.”
“If Marcus controls the final protocol, he doesn’t just rewrite power.”
“He erases resistance.”
Elsewhere – Remote Island Relay Hub – 3:44 AM UTC
Theta stood in silence as the cryo-chamber cracked open.
Inside: VELOCITY UNIT ALPHA.
The figure sat forward slowly. Genderless. Shaved head. No pupils.
It opened its mouth—and spoke in a perfect replication of Marcus’s voice.
“Command received. Target acquired.”
Marcus watched from the observation deck, a hand pressed to the glass.
“Begin cleansing. Jakarta first.”
“Make them afraid again.”
Jakarta – Rooftop Across the Safe Flat – 9:47 PM
A figure in matte-black gear observed Adrian’s building through thermal lenses.
A soft beep echoed in their comm.
“Authorization confirmed. Objective: Erase the Blackwood Line.”
The figure raised a rifle.
And locked the scope on Evelyn.
Inside the Safe Flat – 9:47 PM
Evelyn turned back toward her brother. “You said you came for answers. But now the question is survival.”
Adrian reached for his weapon instinctively.
CRACK!
The window shattered in a burst of glass.
Evelyn dropped instantly—blood trailing her arm.
Adrian pulled Elena down, covering her.
From across the street: muzzle flash—just once.
Then silence.
A warning.
Elena screamed, scrambling toward Evelyn.
She was alive.
Barely.
As Adrian called for emergency evac, the power cut out.
The comms fried.
And the room went black.
Then a voice came through the emergency frequency:
“Phase Two deployed. Unit Alpha has arrived.”
Jakarta – Safe Flat – 9:52 PM
The room was plunged into darkness.
No lights.
No comms.
No time.
Adrian pulled Elena behind the flipped table while blood seeped across the floor from Evelyn’s arm. The bullet had missed her heart by inches—but it had spoken louder than any threat.
They were found.
“They cut the generators,” Elena whispered, clutching Evelyn’s wrist. “No signal. No escape.”
Adrian’s mind worked like a machine under fire. He scanned the dark corners, listening for the tremor of movement outside the flat.
“We’ve been marked,” he said. “Theta knows where we are.”
Evelyn coughed weakly. “Not Theta.”
Adrian looked down. “What?”
Her eyes fluttered open—bleeding, burning.
“Not Theta,” she repeated. “Something worse.”
Above them, a sudden whine of signal static pierced the silence.
A sound like radio distortion and whispering voices at once.
Adrian’s tablet, though unplugged, lit up.
Its screen blinked twice, then flashed a single phrase:
VELOCITY ONLINE
UNIT ALPHA: ACTIVE WITHIN 100 METERS
Adrian’s blood ran cold.
Elena grabbed the tablet, stared. “How is it connecting? We’re offline.”
Evelyn’s breathing hitched. “It doesn’t need a network. It is the network. They built it to live off-grid… to move like a virus.”
Adrian stood. “Then we cut its host.”
He walked toward the weapons bag—calm now, deadly. The side of him that hadn’t surfaced since Berlin.
“We move now,” he said. “Or we die in the dark.”
Elena helped Evelyn up, wrapping her injured arm with strips torn from the curtains.
Outside, the storm raged harder.
And within it, somewhere in the shadows… something new had come online.
Meanwhile – Blackwood Northern Estate (Underground Facility) – 4:21 PM UTC
Marcus walked the echoing halls of the facility Adrian hadn’t seen since childhood.
He passed rows of sealed chambers—dead programs, old failures, glass coffins.
He reached the final door.
Swiped his palm.
Inside: a room filled with mirrors—but not to reflect.
To record.
A neuro-looping engine purred in the walls, creating simulated memory feedback—designed to overwrite resistance.
“This is where we build gods,” he murmured.
Behind him, Theta stepped into the room.
“Alpha is already in proximity of the Blackwoods,” he reported.
“Then we test what it remembers,” Marcus said.
He turned to the mirror, staring at his own reflection.
“Let’s see if Adrian bleeds enough to beg.”
Lightning fractured the sky, and Evelyn’s words seemed to echo long after the silence swallowed them.
“The first?” Adrian asked, voice tight.
Evelyn nodded slowly, her eyes scanning the skyline like she expected the buildings to collapse at any moment.
“NIGHTFALL was a prototype,” she said. “It was never meant to succeed—it was meant to test the limits. Human loyalty. Memory suppression. Indoctrination thresholds. Theta wasn’t the final soldier. He was the experiment that proved the next wave could work.”
Elena swallowed hard. “Next wave of what?”
Evelyn looked at her. Really looked.
“You’re the journalist, right?”
“Investigative, yes.”
“Then investigate this—Project: VELOCITY. Codenamed: The Ghost Engine. It wasn’t about soldiers. It was about making ghosts who could kill and disappear without memory, remorse, or identity.”
Adrian’s voice sharpened. “And where is it now?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Where do you think Marcus has been funneling the tech from VIREX? From NIGHTFALL? From every broken program Father buried?”
A beat passed. Her voice dropped.
“It’s already active.”
Unknown Location – NIGHTFALL Containment Site – 3:18 PM UTC
Theta stood before a reinforced steel door, eyes flickering with biometric scans. The system recognized him instantly.
The vault hissed open.
Inside: Eight cryo-chambers. Each one sealed. Each one labeled with a different designation:
V0X
VIREX
N1GHT
N1GH2
SHDW-X
SHDW-Y
V-GHOST
VELOCITY
Marcus stepped in behind him, gloves slick with rain.
“They think they’ve won,” he said.
Theta said nothing.
“They think they’ve seen the worst of me.”
Still silence.
Then Marcus added quietly:
“Let’s show them the thing their fathers feared most.”
He nodded toward the final chamber: VELOCITY.
“Wake it.”
Jakarta – Safe Flat, Outside the City – 9:04 PM
Evelyn paced while Elena transmitted encrypted data back to Julia. Adrian sat in the corner, staring at an old photo Evelyn had handed him—one of the last taken before she “died.”
They were both smiling. Younger. Before the guilt. Before the war.
Evelyn finally stopped. “I know why you came, Adrian. You want to stop Marcus. End this. But what you’re chasing is already in motion.”
Adrian met her gaze. “Then help us stop it.”
Evelyn hesitated.
“There’s a facility. Hidden under the ruins of Blackwood’s northern estate. It wasn’t part of the company. It was private. Off-record. Marcus found it.”
“What’s there?” Elena asked.
Evelyn looked between them.
“The blueprint for what comes next.”
Meanwhile – New York – 10:12 AM
Julia stared at the decrypted files on her screen. Names. Images. Files marked “REDACTED” now laid bare.
At the bottom of the folder: a final video file. She clicked it.
A man appeared—older, weary, but unmistakably Guillermo Blackwood.
“If you’re seeing this… it means the safeguards failed. It means Marcus didn’t stop.”
“They will tell you the world needs order. That chaos is a virus. But what they want—what they built—is control through fear.”
“I tried to burn it. But my fire was never enough.”
His voice broke.
“My daughter saw through me. My son still carries me.”
“If either of them are still alive… tell them to run. Or tell them to burn it down.”
The screen went black.
And then the feed glitched.
Julia leaned in.
A single phrase pulsed red on the dark screen:
PHASE TWO INITIATED.
VELOCITY UNIT ALPHA: DEPLOYED.
Her blood ran cold.
“No,” she whispered. “He’s starting the war.”
Jakarta – Safe Flat – 9:32 PM
Adrian leaned over the dusty floor map Evelyn had sketched out.
She marked the perimeter of the Northwood Estate, drawing a ring around the burned ruins and tapping twice on a seemingly empty quadrant.
“There,” she said. “Beneath the wine cellar. Hidden elevator. My father built it before he passed control of the foundation to Adrian.”
Elena narrowed her eyes. “Why wasn’t it on any of the company blueprints?”
Evelyn looked up. “Because it wasn’t for the company. It was for erasing the company—if things ever spiraled beyond recovery.”
Adrian’s jaw flexed. “And now Marcus has it.”
Evelyn nodded grimly. “And if he’s already activated VELOCITY, then what’s hidden in that facility is the final protocol.”
Elena looked between them. “Final protocol?”
Evelyn stepped closer to the window, staring out into the Jakarta night.
“It’s not just a new kind of operative. It’s a backdoor into every system the Blackwood Foundation ever touched—governments, security councils, humanitarian networks, financial corridors.”
“If Marcus controls the final protocol, he doesn’t just rewrite power.”
“He erases resistance.”
Elsewhere – Remote Island Relay Hub – 3:44 AM UTC
Theta stood in silence as the cryo-chamber cracked open.
Inside: VELOCITY UNIT ALPHA.
The figure sat forward slowly. Genderless. Shaved head. No pupils.
It opened its mouth—and spoke in a perfect replication of Marcus’s voice.
“Command received. Target acquired.”
Marcus watched from the observation deck, a hand pressed to the glass.
“Begin cleansing. Jakarta first.”
“Make them afraid again.”
Jakarta – Rooftop Across the Safe Flat – 9:47 PM
A figure in matte-black gear observed Adrian’s building through thermal lenses.
A soft beep echoed in their comm.
“Authorization confirmed. Objective: Erase the Blackwood Line.”
The figure raised a rifle.
And locked the scope on Evelyn.
Inside the Safe Flat – 9:47 PM
Evelyn turned back toward her brother. “You said you came for answers. But now the question is survival.”
Adrian reached for his weapon instinctively.
CRACK!
The window shattered in a burst of glass.
Evelyn dropped instantly—blood trailing her arm.
Adrian pulled Elena down, covering her.
From across the street: muzzle flash—just once.
Then silence.
A warning.
Elena screamed, scrambling toward Evelyn.
She was alive.
Barely.
As Adrian called for emergency evac, the power cut out.
The comms fried.
And the room went black.
Then a voice came through the emergency frequency:
“Phase Two deployed. Unit Alpha has arrived.”
Jakarta – Safe Flat – 9:52 PM
The room was plunged into darkness.
No lights.
No comms.
No time.
Adrian pulled Elena behind the flipped table while blood seeped across the floor from Evelyn’s arm. The bullet had missed her heart by inches—but it had spoken louder than any threat.
They were found.
“They cut the generators,” Elena whispered, clutching Evelyn’s wrist. “No signal. No escape.”
Adrian’s mind worked like a machine under fire. He scanned the dark corners, listening for the tremor of movement outside the flat.
“We’ve been marked,” he said. “Theta knows where we are.”
Evelyn coughed weakly. “Not Theta.”
Adrian looked down. “What?”
Her eyes fluttered open—bleeding, burning.
“Not Theta,” she repeated. “Something worse.”
Above them, a sudden whine of signal static pierced the silence.
A sound like radio distortion and whispering voices at once.
Adrian’s tablet, though unplugged, lit up.
Its screen blinked twice, then flashed a single phrase:
VELOCITY ONLINE
UNIT ALPHA: ACTIVE WITHIN 100 METERS
Adrian’s blood ran cold.
Elena grabbed the tablet, stared. “How is it connecting? We’re offline.”
Evelyn’s breathing hitched. “It doesn’t need a network. It is the network. They built it to live off-grid… to move like a virus.”
Adrian stood. “Then we cut its host.”
He walked toward the weapons bag—calm now, deadly. The side of him that hadn’t surfaced since Berlin.
“We move now,” he said. “Or we die in the dark.”
Elena helped Evelyn up, wrapping her injured arm with strips torn from the curtains.
Outside, the storm raged harder.
And within it, somewhere in the shadows… something new had come online.
Meanwhile – Blackwood Northern Estate (Underground Facility) – 4:21 PM UTC
Marcus walked the echoing halls of the facility Adrian hadn’t seen since childhood.
He passed rows of sealed chambers—dead programs, old failures, glass coffins.
He reached the final door.
Swiped his palm.
Inside: a room filled with mirrors—but not to reflect.
To record.
A neuro-looping engine purred in the walls, creating simulated memory feedback—designed to overwrite resistance.
“This is where we build gods,” he murmured.
Behind him, Theta stepped into the room.
“Alpha is already in proximity of the Blackwoods,” he reported.
“Then we test what it remembers,” Marcus said.
He turned to the mirror, staring at his own reflection.
“Let’s see if Adrian bleeds enough to beg.”
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 29. Continue reading Chapter 30 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.