Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 30: Chapter 30

Jakarta – Safe Flat – 9:55 PM
The building groaned under the weight of storm and silence.
Adrian moved through the flat like a ghost—fluid, sharp, controlled. His shoulder brushed the doorframe as he checked the perimeter. Rain lashed the broken window behind them.
Evelyn sat slumped against the far wall, her face pale beneath the red seeping through her sleeve.
Elena crouched beside her, whispering: “Stay with me. You’ve lost blood, but the artery’s intact.”
Evelyn gave a ghost of a smile. “You always this comforting under fire?”
Elena didn’t answer. Her hands were steady—but her heart was chaos.
Across the room, Adrian held up a hand. Silence.
Footsteps outside the hall. Bare. Light.
Not human.
Not rushed.
Hunting.
He turned back to them. “When I open that door, you run down the back stairs. Liana left an exfil kit in the alley—we use it now.”
“What about Unit Alpha?” Elena asked.
Adrian’s voice was steel.
“I’ll slow it down.”
Elena stood. “You’re injured.”
“Exactly,” he said. “It won’t expect me to be stupid.”
He kicked the door open.
Jakarta – Alley Behind the Safe Flat – 10:03 PM
Rain pounded the narrow alley as Elena dragged Evelyn past rusted dumpsters and down toward the van Liana had stashed three days earlier.
The exfil kit sat behind the wheel—gear, detonators, burner phones.
Elena shoved Evelyn into the passenger seat and jumped into the driver’s side. She slammed the door just as—
BOOM.
A second-floor explosion shook the street.
Shattered glass rained down.
She didn’t have time to look back.
Inside the Safe Flat – 10:03 PM
Adrian rolled through smoke, blood dripping down his temple.
The creature had walked through the blast like fog.
Unit Alpha emerged from the shadows, unmoved. No facial features. Just a smooth helmet, matte-black, pulsing faintly blue. Its limbs moved with surreal grace—liquid and mechanical.
It scanned the room.
“Target confirmed.”
Adrian raised his pistol.
“Come find me, ghost.”
And he ran.
New York – 11:08 AM EST – Julia King’s Apartment
Julia’s fingers danced across her keyboard, eyes wide as Ghost Engine files decrypted piece by piece.
The map spread across her screen like a virus—red nodes lighting up across major cities.
Geneva. Tokyo. Nairobi. Jakarta.
“Adrian’s in Jakarta,” she whispered.
Lines of code scrolled by, faster than she could read.
Then a new file name flashed.
PROJECT: CHRYSALIS
Status: Pending Activation
Target Host Identified: CRUZ, E.
Julia froze.
“Elena?”
She clicked into the file—
But the screen blacked out.
Replaced by a static field… then a live transmission.
Marcus’s face appeared.
Smiling.
“Hello, Julia.”
She pushed back from the screen.
“I see you’ve been snooping.”
She stood slowly. “Where is she?”
“Oh, she’s with him. With Adrian. With Evelyn. All your little survivors packed into one city like flammable puppets.”
Julia’s voice trembled. “You’re going to kill them.”
Marcus blinked.
“No. I’m going to recruit one of them.”
The screen went black.
⸻
Jakarta – Underpass, East District – 10:17 PM
Elena gripped the wheel as the van skidded around another corner. Evelyn was fading fast beside her.
“Just hang on,” she whispered. “Ten more minutes.”
Evelyn opened one eye. “He’s fighting it… isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t stop Alpha,” she said. “But you can break the system feeding it.”
“How?”
Evelyn reached into her coat and pulled out something small.
A red chip.
“This. It was supposed to destroy the feedback loop. But I never had the chance.”
Elena stared at it. “What happens if I use it?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“You’ll have five minutes before Alpha turns everything to ash.”
Inside the Safe Flat Ruins – 10:18 PM
Adrian slammed the fire extinguisher against the elevator lock. Sparks flew.
Unit Alpha climbed the stairs without a sound.
Adrian reached the roof.
The wind howled across the open space, lightning crackling over the high-rise skyline. He stood soaked and bleeding—every breath a gamble.
Unit Alpha emerged behind him.
They faced each other like old gods in a storm.
Adrian raised the pistol again.
The creature tilted its head.
“Why do you resist, Adrian Blackwood?”
He exhaled.
“Because I remember who I was before you erased us.”
Then he whispered:
“Now.”
Underpass – 10:19 PM
Elena slammed the red chip into the backup tablet.
The screen lit up—processing.
GHOST ENGINE LOOP INTERRUPTED
SYSTEM COLLAPSING IN: 05:00
She pulled the van around and sped back toward the safe flat.
Rooftop – 10:20 PM
Unit Alpha glitched.
Stumbled back.
Adrian lunged, tackling it across the rooftop. Sparks flew as they rolled toward the edge, metal screeching on metal.
Adrian grunted, pinning it down just long enough to shove a charge against its spine.
“You lose,” he whispered.
Then he detonated.
Rooftop – North Jakarta – 10:22 PM
Smoke coiled into the storm-wracked sky as Elena screeched the van to a stop across the street. Flames licked up the edge of the building. Sirens wailed somewhere distant—but no help was coming. Not for them.
She threw the door open and sprinted through shattered glass, her boots cutting through debris and blood.
“Adrian!”
No answer.
She climbed the stairs, two at a time, heart a cannon in her chest.
The roof door was blown open—hinges twisted, smoke pouring from the blackened stairwell.
“Elena—don’t!” Evelyn’s voice cracked from the comm still clipped to Elena’s vest. “Alpha’s not… not fully offline.”
But Elena was already there.
The rooftop was a warzone. Rubble, heat, metal—twisted remnants of Unit Alpha’s synthetic shell littered the far corner, but its core was gone.
Elena’s breath hitched.
“Adrian?”
She found him slumped against the edge of the roof, half-covered in broken tiles and dust.
Blood slicked the side of his face, but he was breathing.
She dropped to her knees beside him.
“You stupid, stubborn man…”
His eyes fluttered open.
“You came back,” he rasped.
“You’re bleeding again.”
He managed a faint smirk. “You should see the other guy.”
Elena laughed—and it cracked into a sob. She pressed her forehead to his, just for a second, then pulled back.
“Alpha’s not finished.”
Adrian’s gaze sharpened. “Where is it?”
She shook her head. “Gone. Not destroyed. It left something behind.”
He tried to stand. Couldn’t.
Elena wrapped her arms under his shoulders. “I’ve got you.”
Together, they limped toward the stairwell.
Below them, the building groaned.
And deep in the rubble, unnoticed… something clicked.
A light on a detached fragment of Unit Alpha’s core flickered red.
REBOOTING.
New York – Julia King’s Apartment – 11:31 AM
Julia had locked every firewall she knew.
The terminal was scorched.
But the data still pulsed.
She scanned the last decrypted report from Guillermo Blackwood’s archive.
Her hands shook.
“NIGHTFALL was never the end.”
“VELOCITY was never the weapon.”
A final video played.
Evelyn Blackwood appeared onscreen—recorded, young, and urgent.
“If you’ve found this… it means we failed to bury the root protocol.”
“Marcus knew. He always knew. He let NIGHTFALL fall, so VELOCITY could rise.”
“But the one to watch… the true asset…”
“Wasn’t in the vault. She was in the field.”
Julia froze as the video zoomed in on a personnel file.
CRUZ, ELENA — ASSET 0.
“He was testing her.”
“Not to destroy her—but to activate her.”
Back in Jakarta – 10:34 PM
Elena helped Adrian into the van. Evelyn gritted her teeth as she slid over to make space.
But Adrian didn’t let go of Elena’s hand.
“Where to now?” she asked, breathless.
He looked up at her.
His voice was low. Cold.
“To find Marcus.”
“And to make sure whatever he started with me ends with you.”
Elena blinked. “What do you mean?”
Adrian looked at her like she was a stranger.
“You weren’t just chasing the truth.”
“You are part of it.”
Jakarta – Moving Van – 10:36 PM
The van rattled over broken streets, the storm still howling above them like a warning.
Adrian sat slumped against the side window, shirt stained crimson and ash, eyes open but unfocused. Elena drove, one hand tight on the wheel, the other still curled around his.
Evelyn lay stretched out in the back, pressing gauze to her arm, jaw clenched. The red chip Elena had used to disrupt Unit Alpha glinted from the dashboard.
The silence was suffocating.
Then Adrian’s voice broke through it—quiet, hoarse.
“You didn’t hesitate.”
Elena looked over. “To do what?”
“To run. To fight. To stay.”
“I told you,” she said, “I don’t leave people behind.”
He gave a faint, broken smile. “You remind me of her. Evelyn—before she became a ghost.”
Evelyn stirred. “Still here, you know.”
Adrian turned his head toward her. “Barely.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“So did I.”
Elena glanced between them. “You two want to yell, or should I just drop you both on the side of the road?”
Evelyn chuckled—then winced. “Still bossy.”
But her face turned serious again.
“I didn’t come back to be rescued,” she said. “I came back because Marcus was getting close to Phase Two.”
Adrian’s expression darkened. “The Ghost Engine.”
Evelyn nodded. “But there’s more. There’s always more. Marcus had access to something our father developed before his death. A behavioral key.”
Elena blinked. “What does that mean?”
“It means he didn’t just want to create soldiers. He wanted to control them without them knowing.”
Adrian leaned forward. “Conditioned reflexes.”
Evelyn looked at Elena. “Trigger words. Visual anchors. Memory tampering. If Marcus used CHRYSALIS correctly, someone in this car—” she paused, “—might be carrying the protocol without realizing it.”
Elena’s stomach turned cold.
“You think it’s me.”
“We don’t know yet.”
Adrian studied Elena’s face carefully. Too carefully.
“We need to run diagnostics,” he said. “Somewhere secure.”
Elena shook her head, voice low. “You think I’m a sleeper asset.”
“I think you’re too close to this for coincidence.”
Her voice cracked. “You think I’m part of his plan?”
“I think we can’t afford not to ask the question.”
A long silence.
Then Evelyn said, softly, “It’s not your fault, Elena. If Marcus used the CHRYSALIS imprinting method, you’d never know it was there.”
Elena looked out at the storm-slicked road, jaw clenched, eyes burning.
“Then let’s find out.”
Elsewhere – Inside a Moving Train – Unknown Location – 11:03 PM
Marcus sat with a laptop on his knees, the cabin quiet but humming with tension.
Across from him, Theta stood motionless.
A countdown ticked across the screen.
CHRYSALIS TRIGGER PREPARATION: 72 HOURS
Marcus leaned back, folding his arms.
“Three days,” he murmured. “Then she’ll unlock what even Guillermo couldn’t.”
Theta didn’t blink.
“Will she resist?” he asked.
Marcus smiled faintly.
“She already is.”
“Which means it’s working.”
New York – Julia’s Apartment – 11:39 AM
Julia poured over the remnants of the CHRYSALIS files, the shadows under her eyes darkening with every passing moment.
Everything she knew about Elena—the woman she’d mentored, trusted, defended—was unraveling like a thread.
Then her screen buzzed.
A satellite alert flashed across the top.
Signal spike detected: BLACKWOOD NORTH ESTATE.
She opened the live feed.
And froze.
Someone had activated the vault system.
Someone was already inside.
Julia whispered, almost against her own breath:
“He’s unlocking the archive.”
She reached for her phone.
“Elena, pick up. Pick up—”
Jakarta – Abandoned Safehouse – 11:11 PM
Adrian set Elena up in the scan chair—old, rusted, but still functional.
Evelyn input the algorithm.
“We’re looking for heat signatures in the hippocampus, triggered spikes in recall when exposed to encoded frequencies,” she said.
Elena stared forward, jaw tight.
“Do it.”
Adrian watched her silently.
The screen came to life—waves and pulses across her neural mapping.
Then a single word pulsed across the display.
IMPRINT DETECTED.
Adrian froze.
Evelyn’s breath caught.
Elena turned to them.
“What did it find?”
No one answered.
So she looked.
She saw it.
A code string buried inside her memory response.
Just six letters.
But enough.
PHASE Z
And a voice line embedded in the data.
Her own voice.
“Project PHASE Z active. Awaiting final command.”