Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 31: Chapter 31

Jakarta – Abandoned Safehouse – 11:17 PM
The silence was heavier than the rain outside.
Elena sat in the scan chair, her breath coming in shallow bursts, staring at the glowing words still pulsing on the monitor:
PHASE Z: ACTIVE
HOST: CRUZ, E.
A faint audio file played in a loop beside it—her voice, but not her memory.
“Project PHASE Z active. Awaiting final command.”
Elena’s heart thundered. “That’s not me,” she whispered. “I never said that.”
Adrian stood stiff, arms crossed, jaw locked tight.
“It’s your voice,” Evelyn said quietly. “But it was recorded under a trance-state or cognitive conditioning. You wouldn’t remember.”
“Which means Marcus didn’t just use my father’s files,” Elena said. “He used me.”
She looked up at Adrian.
“Say something.”
He didn’t. His eyes stayed on the screen, calculating, distant.
“Adrian.”
Still nothing.
She stood, her voice rising. “You think I’m a threat.”
“No,” he finally said. “I think Marcus turned you into one.”
The words landed like a slap.
Evelyn stepped in. “We don’t know what PHASE Z is. The protocol could be dormant. A failsafe. Or a dead end.”
Elena laughed bitterly. “You think that matters to the world if they find out I’m carrying a buried program?”
She looked at Adrian again.
“I trusted you,” she said. “With everything. And now you’re looking at me like I’m another weapon you forgot to disarm.”
His face hardened. “Because I don’t know what you are anymore.”
Elena blinked, once.
Then she turned and walked out.
Jakarta – Safehouse Roof – 11:29 PM
Rain hammered the rooftop as Elena leaned against the wall, head bowed, breathing in the smoke-soaked air.
Inside her head, questions roared louder than the storm.
Had Marcus known all along? Was she ever truly in control? Was anything she felt for Adrian even real—or programmed?
Footsteps behind her.
She didn’t turn.
Evelyn’s voice was soft. “Don’t let him decide who you are.”
Elena closed her eyes. “He’s not wrong. If Marcus flipped a switch and I turned on you all… would you blame him?”
Evelyn stepped beside her, her arm still bandaged. “You think I haven’t lived with that fear? That I haven’t looked in the mirror and wondered if I’m still me?”
They stood there, shoulder to shoulder, as the rain traced rivers down their faces.
“You’re not the file in your blood,” Evelyn said. “You’re the choice you make after.”
Elena finally looked at her. “Then help me make it.”
Elsewhere – Remote Server Hub – 12:02 AM UTC
Marcus walked through a chamber of glass pods and cold light.
Inside one of the pods: a perfect digital mirror of Elena.
Not her. But a construct—modeled from her files, her voice, her behavioral imprints.
Theta watched silently as the code loaded.
Marcus smiled.
“She’s rejecting it. Fighting back.”
Theta tilted his head. “That compromises your plan.”
“No,” Marcus said. “It proves she’s ready.”
He tapped the glass.
The digital Elena blinked once—then repeated:
“Project PHASE Z active. Awaiting final command.”
Marcus smiled wider.
“Now we just have to make her desperate enough to say it herself.”
New York – Julia’s Apartment – 12:31 PM EST
Julia’s phone rang.
An encrypted number. She answered anyway.
“Elena’s compromised,” came Adrian’s voice.
Julia’s blood went cold. “How bad?”
“There’s a keycode in her. A trigger. Marcus put it there before any of us knew she existed.”
“What’s the activation phrase?”
“We don’t know,” Adrian said. “But she’s starting to remember things she shouldn’t.”
Julia paused.
“Then listen carefully.”
She sent a file.
“This is from her father. Unfiltered. Never decrypted. He left her a message—maybe even a counter-sequence.”
“But it comes with a warning.”
Adrian’s voice lowered. “What kind?”
“Once she hears this… there’s no going back.”
Jakarta – 12:44 AM
Elena returned to the safehouse, drenched, eyes clear.
Adrian sat in the corner, bruised and silent.
“I want the truth,” she said. “Whatever my father left. Whatever Julia just sent. I want it now.”
Adrian held up the chip.
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.”
Evelyn plugged it into the projector.
A holographic file blinked open.
Guillermo Cruz appeared. Haggard. Eyes full of regret.
“Elena… if you’re hearing this, I failed.”
“Not just as a father—but as a man.”
She watched, frozen.
“They used you. They marked you. But inside you, there’s a gate they can’t breach unless you let them in.”
“Phase Z… isn’t a weapon.”
“It’s a map.”
“To a vault even I couldn’t access. Because only one person had the biological key.”
He looked straight at her.
“You.”
The video glitched once.
Then cut to black.
Adrian stood slowly.
“A vault?”
Evelyn’s voice was a whisper. “Oh god… Marcus never wanted to control her.”
“He wanted to follow her.”
Elena looked down at her hands.
Then into Adrian’s eyes.
“Then it’s time we stop running.”
“Let’s find the vault.”
Jakarta – Safehouse Interior – 12:53 AM
Elena sat on the edge of the metal cot, arms wrapped around herself as the echo of her father’s voice still hung in the air.
“Only one person had the biological key.”
Her.
She felt like a maze with no center—layers of questions wrapped in silence. A ghost built from other people’s decisions.
Adrian leaned against the wall, arms crossed, unreadable. His silence had changed. Less accusation. More fear.
Evelyn approached the terminal and began scrubbing through what was left of the Cruz file. Code flickered across the screen like it was alive.
“There’s more,” she said softly. “A string embedded in his last metadata transmission.”
“What kind of string?” Adrian asked.
Evelyn hesitated.
“A location.”
Elena’s breath caught. “Where?”
Evelyn rotated the screen.
A satellite image appeared—tucked deep in the Andes.
A structure half-buried in mountain snow.
“Latitude trace links to a project site that was never registered. Not on Blackwood’s files. Not in Guillermo’s logs. It’s labeled in only one archive.”
Adrian stepped forward, brow furrowed.
Evelyn tapped a name.
VAULT: DUSKEND
Elena whispered it aloud.
“Duskend.”
The word felt wrong in her mouth. Ancient. Final.
Evelyn looked at her. “If Marcus has a copy of the map inside you—and he does—then he’s already on his way.”
Adrian locked eyes with Elena. “We have to get there first.”
She stood. “Then let’s stop waiting to be hunted.”
Adrian tilted his head. “You’re sure?”
“No,” Elena said. “But I’d rather run toward the fire than keep pretending it won’t reach us.”
Flight Path – En Route to Lima – 2:22 AM
The private jet cut through midnight sky like a silver blade. Liana had secured it before they even left the safehouse—her voice crisp over encrypted lines, no questions asked.
Evelyn slept across from Elena, her wound cleaned but still raw.
Adrian sat beside her, silent.
Elena finally broke the quiet. “You were right to be afraid of me.”
Adrian turned slowly. “I wasn’t afraid of you.”
“Then what?”
“I was afraid that I couldn’t protect you from who you used to be.”
Her eyes stayed on the dark glass.
“And now?”
He reached over, fingers brushing hers.
“Now I want to protect you from who they think you are.”
The words settled between them like a fragile truth.
Unknown Location – Inside the Vault
Marcus stood in a narrow corridor of obsidian stone and frost. He exhaled, watching his breath fog.
Theta followed behind.
At the end of the hall was a sealed biometric door.
A genetic reader blinked red.
Marcus touched his thumb to the scanner. Nothing.
He frowned. Then reached into his coat.
A small vial. Inside—blood. Fresh.
He smeared it across the panel.
Elena’s blood.
The scanner blinked once. Then—
ACCESS GRANTED.
The door slid open.
Marcus smiled.
“And so the final game begins.”
Flight – Above the Andes – 4:06 AM
Snow-capped peaks rose like blades beneath them, sharp and blinding in the moonlight.
Elena stared out the window of the jet, her hand resting on her lap—still stained faintly with blood, her own and Adrian’s. The file from her father echoed in her head.
“They marked you.”
Marked. Manipulated. Molded.
What else had Marcus buried inside her?
Adrian sat across from her, no longer guarding distance, but watching her quietly, as if committing every expression to memory.
“Do you believe him?” Elena asked. “My father?”
“I believe he died trying to protect you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Adrian paused, then said, “I believe you’re stronger than whatever Marcus planted. And I believe he’s scared of what happens if you realize that too soon.”
Her breath hitched.
A silence passed. Then, softly:
“If he turned me into the key…” she said, “then maybe I’m the lock too.”
Elsewhere – Vault Duskend – Interior
Marcus moved deeper into the sublevels, following a holographic path drawn by Elena’s extracted neural pattern.
Theta walked beside him, impassive.
“Her memory led us here,” Marcus said, voice low. “Buried deep inside a stolen childhood. She’s never even seen this place awake—but her DNA remembers it.”
He ran his fingers along a wall etched with numbers and names.
Test Groups.
Control Branch.
VIREX-β3.
Z-Protocol.
And then, near the center of the wall:
E.C. – PROTOTYPE Z/001.
Marcus smiled.
“They thought she was an accident.”
“But she’s the blueprint.”
Andes Basecamp – Landing Zone – 5:12 AM
Snow crunched beneath heavy boots as Adrian, Elena, and Evelyn stepped off the jet into icy wind.
The private landing pad sat in a secluded ravine, surrounded by cliffs. The ruins of an old mining road stretched toward a jagged peak.
Elena squinted up the path. “That leads to Duskend?”
“Not directly,” Evelyn said. “The real entrance is underground. The structure is sealed beneath the summit.”
Adrian checked his weapon, then handed Elena a small tracker. “This stays on you. If Marcus found the vault, he’s inside by now.”
“What if it’s a trap?”
He looked at her. “It is.”
And she nodded.
“Then let’s walk into it together.”
Vault Duskend – Core Lab – 5:41 AM
Marcus stood in a cavern of flickering monitors and frozen metal, watching as Elena’s bio-signature decrypted sealed logs one by one.
Files flooded the screen—images, footage, test subjects, and one headline repeated in different languages:
GHOST ENGINE DEPLOYMENT ABORTED
PROJECT: Z
“Why stop the engine,” Marcus murmured, “when you could install the key inside a person?”
He reached toward the console.
A new prompt blinked.
LIVE HOST DETECTED.
INCOMING MATCH – 0.9km.
Theta’s eyes narrowed.
“She’s here.”
Marcus smiled wider.
“Perfect.”
Mountain Pass – 6:02 AM
Elena’s teeth clenched against the cold as they made their way up the trail, wind screaming like a warning between stone cliffs.
Evelyn’s comm crackled. “Thermal picked up movement in the vault’s perimeter.”
“Marcus?” Adrian asked.
“No—just one signal. Faint.”
Elena stiffened.
“What is it?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away.
Then: “It’s mine.”
Evelyn looked at the scanner. “It’s broadcasting Elena’s neural ID. But… from inside.”
They froze.
Adrian drew his weapon. “He cloned it.”
“No,” Elena said slowly. Her voice was shaking now. “He unlocked it.”
She turned toward them.
“There’s another me in there.”
“And I think she’s already awake.”