Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 43: Chapter 43
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Undisclosed SIGMA Blacksite – Training Compound Sigma-Rho – 4:12 AM
The cold hum of fluorescent light buzzed overhead. A sterile hallway stretched in both directions, lined with locked observation cells—each one empty.
Except for the last.
Inside, NOVA stood in stillness.
Six-foot-one. Seventeen years old, though he moved like a man twice that. Built not just for combat, but for perfection. DNA-engineered from Adrian Blackwood’s command instincts and spliced with early-generation CRUZ-line neuroplasticity.
He wasn’t raised. He was readied.
And now he was activated.
A voice came over the intercom.
“NOVA, primary target identified: Subject MARA CRUZ. Status: destabilized. Secondary directive: Terminate Elena Cruz if interference occurs.”
He rolled his neck slowly. Unclenched his fists. No expression crossed his face.
“Understood.”
The door hissed open.
NOVA walked out.
Safe Zone Theta – Main Compound – 6:22 AM
Elena hadn’t slept.
She stared at the data file projected across the wall. MARA’s genome sequence. Her own psychological imprint. The neural map SIGMA had stolen when she was just a teenager trapped in a lab.
And now… NOVA.
The “King” to her “Queen.”
“He was built to replace leadership,” Julia explained from across the room. “To function without the unpredictability of conscience. He doesn’t feel failure—he calculates it.”
Adrian stood silently.
Until he spoke.
“They used me.”
Julia nodded. “They used both of you. But with him… it’s not just what he’s made of. It’s what they taught him to destroy.”
Elena turned. “Which is?”
Julia met her eyes.
“You.”
Somewhere in the Desert – Transport Convoy – 7:44 AM
Dust swirled behind a nondescript SIGMA military convoy disguised as humanitarian aid.
Inside the lead truck, NOVA sat surrounded by silent black-clad operatives.
No orders. No emotion. Only a countdown.
He looked at the photo of Elena—stolen from a classified case file.
He tilted his head slightly, as if studying a puzzle he’d already solved.
Then he whispered—just once:
“She bleeds.”
Safe Zone Theta – Briefing Room – 9:03 AM
The Cruz-Line children were unusually quiet.
Mara sat near the front, flanked by two other girls—Fae and Sonar. They watched Elena not with fear, but expectation.
“You’re not kids anymore,” Elena said. “You were made for war. But we get to choose what kind.”
She touched the scar on her wrist.
“SIGMA built you from pieces of people they wanted to break. But we don’t break anymore. We rebuild.”
Mara stood slowly.
“If the King is coming,” she said, voice steady, “then let’s show him the Queen doesn’t run.”
Safe Zone Theta – Surveillance Tower Delta – 10:12 AM
A flicker on the motion scanner.
Too fast. Too precise.
Liana frowned, rewound, enhanced. There it was again—a blur against the outer dunes. Human. Alone. Moving like shadow wrapped in armor.
“Elena,” she said into the comm. “We’ve got a breach.”
“Cruz-Line?”
“No.” A pause. “Something faster.”
Training Yard – Same Time
Mara spun against Fae’s strike, disarming her with fluid grace. Sweat clung to her skin, but her focus never broke.
She felt it—before the alarm.
A shift in the air. A silence too sharp.
Then it came:
INTRUDER ALERT. ALL UNITS TO STATION ZERO.
Mara’s eyes darkened.
“He’s here.”
Main Gate – Perimeter Lockdown – 10:37 AM
Elena and Adrian arrived just as the outer gate sealed with a thundering slam.
Dust hung in the wind. No enemy in sight.
Then a voice crackled through their comms.
Not SIGMA.
Not any known frequency.
But it was crystal clear.
“You built a house of ghosts, Elena.
I’ve come to bury the living.”
Liana swore under her breath. “He patched into our internal channel. How?”
Julia answered from the bunker lab: “He didn’t. He’s inside already.”
Safe Zone Theta – Lower Utility Tunnels – 10:42 AM
Down below, where old SIGMA tunnels had been repurposed into storage and fallback zones, a boy moved through the dark.
Not disguised.
Not hidden.
Just untouchable.
NOVA moved like a whisper of war—every step a calculation, every blink a scan.
He passed one of the Cruz children—Dax—who stood motionless, eyes vacant, expression empty.
“Do you remember your real name?” NOVA asked quietly.
Dax didn’t speak, but he nodded once.
And walked away toward the weapons cache.
The King had his first pawn.
Operations Deck – 11:09 AM
Julia’s system lit up with access pings—someone was rewriting clearance levels inside the compound.
“Elena,” she called, panic tightening her voice. “He’s breaching nodes that should be isolated. He has your biometrics.”
“How?” Adrian snapped.
Elena went still. “Because SIGMA didn’t just build him with my DNA…”
She met Julia’s horrified gaze.
“They gave him my memories.”
Hall of Echoes – Private Reflection Chamber – 11:23 AM
Mara entered slowly, weapon drawn.
The room was circular, lined with memory projection tech from the old Cruz trials—images flickering on the walls of simulations, war games, crying children.
In the center stood NOVA.
He turned, calmly, as if he’d been waiting for her.
“Mara.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“No. I’m returning home.”
She raised her blade. “You’re not welcome here.”
NOVA smiled faintly. “Neither were you.”
Without warning, he lunged.
They collided with brutal speed—blades clashing, elbows flying, neural reflexes sparking like lightning between them.
Mara’s strike nearly connected—
—but he was faster.
He grabbed her wrist, twisted, disarmed her.
Then whispered into her ear:
“You’re not the Queen. You’re the sacrifice.
Hall of Echoes – 11:31 AM
Mara’s breath came in short, jagged bursts. Her shoulder throbbed from where NOVA had slammed her into the memory console.
The images on the wall flickered—flashes of training files, failed Cruz experiments, children screaming into silence.
NOVA circled her like a wolf. Calm. Clean.
“You were designed to follow,” he said. “Not lead.”
Mara gritted her teeth. “And you were designed to obey.”
“I do,” he said simply. “But not to SIGMA. To order. To function.”
He reached into his belt, pulled out a sleek neural blade.
“Chaos is inefficient. You are inefficient.”
“Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”
A faint twitch crossed his eye.
“Because I was told to make an example.”
Safe Zone Theta – Emergency Control Hub – 11:34 AM
“His location?” Elena asked.
Julia’s fingers flew. “Somewhere near the old simulation hall. I’m triggering lockdown—”
“No,” Elena snapped. “That’ll trap Mara inside with him.”
Adrian stepped forward. “Then we go in. Together.”
“No,” Elena said again, calmer this time. “He wants us to follow. We’ll blind him instead.”
She pointed to the simulation archive.
“Wipe it. Everything. The code, the backups. Erase the reason he came.”
Julia hesitated. “That’s decades of research—your entire Cruz project.”
Elena’s voice was steady.
“Then it dies with me.”
Hall of Echoes – 11:38 AM
Mara wiped blood from her mouth, smiled crookedly.
“You know the difference between us?” she asked.
NOVA blinked.
“I earned my pain.”
She lunged again—not at him, but at the console. She slammed her palm into the override, overloading the projection wall. Sparks erupted, blinding both of them.
In the chaos, she snatched her fallen blade and slashed upward—
Drawing first blood.
NOVA staggered back, clutching his side. His fingers came away red.
His first mistake.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
He stared at the blood.
And for the first time…
He looked surprised.
Safe Zone Theta – Archive Terminal – 11:43 AM
Julia hit execute.
All Cruz-Line backups. Cruz mind maps. Tactical learning simulations. Neural coding from VIREX and SIGMA’s earliest experiments.
Gone.
The archive dissolved into digital ash.
Behind her, Elena watched the screen go black.
“Now,” she said, voice barely audible, “he has nothing to rule.”
Hall of Echoes – Exit Corridor – 11:47 AM
Mara stumbled toward the reinforced doors, limping. Her comms buzzed.
“Elena—he’s hurt. But he’s not done.”
Elena’s voice came through like ice.
“Then run. And don’t stop.”
Behind Mara, NOVA rose from the smoke—face calm, unreadable, blood staining his side like spilled ink.
“You’ve set the system back,” he said. “But I am not the system.”
Mara turned, blade shaking in her hand.
“No,” she said.
“You’re the virus.”
Safe Zone Theta – Medical Wing – 1:02 PM
Mara sat on the edge of the infirmary bed, her knuckles bandaged, her ribs taped. She winced as the med-bot scanned her vitals.
“He could’ve killed me,” she whispered.
Elena stood in the doorway, arms folded, face unreadable. “But he didn’t.”
“Because he was ordered not to. That’s not mercy—it’s manipulation.”
Elena stepped forward. “Maybe. Or maybe he wanted you to see what’s coming. That was a warning.”
“Then we need to warn the others,” Mara said. “They need to know what’s waiting beyond these walls.”
Adrian entered silently, tossing a tablet onto the med bench.
“You won’t like this,” he said.
The screen displayed a live broadcast from the darknet. A glitchy logo in the corner:
▓▒░ SIGMA: BLACKMIRROR // Broadcast Node 7 ░▒▓
The video was looping—NOVA, standing inside a desolate city block. The caption burned beneath him in red:
“The Queen has abandoned her code. The throne is unguarded.
Let the heirs rise.”
Julia’s voice crackled in from Ops.
“There are more. Not just NOVA. SIGMA didn’t just build a king…”
A second video loaded.
Four shadows.
Four Cruz-line hybrids.
All active.
Mara’s pulse quickened.
Elena’s stomach sank.
And Adrian said what none of them wanted to believe:
“They didn’t send one.”
“They sent a royal court.”
Elsewhere – SIGMA Echo Hive – Location Unknown – 1:09 PM
A woman in a porcelain mask walked into the chamber.
Behind her, the four new operatives stood silent.
NOVA was kneeling now—not in obedience, but in calculation.
“I’ve delivered the message,” he said. “And I’ve seen their fear.”
The woman smiled beneath her mask.
“Good,” she whispered. “Now let’s make them bleed for forgetting who built their crown.”
She turned toward a holographic table.
Elena Cruz’s face hovered there—lined with red target indicators.
Safe Zone Theta – Elena’s Quarters – 2:13 PM
The lights were dim. Rain had started to fall, the soft hiss against steel echoing through the silence.
Elena sat alone, staring at a sealed black drive on her desk. No label. No signature.
It had arrived through an encrypted drop line, traced back to a dead email address.
Her father’s.
She opened it.
One line of code blinked on the screen.
PROJECT: MONARCH – If NOVA is the King, who do you think was the Ace?
Her eyes widened.
She looked up, and for the first time in weeks—Elena Cruz didn’t feel hunted.
She felt chosen.
Safe Zone Theta – Command Bunker – 3:07 PM
Rain had turned to thunder. Storm clouds cloaked the desert skies, lightning flickering like cracks in the world.
Inside the compound, the leadership team gathered—Elena, Adrian, Julia, Liana, and Mara—around the flickering projection of NOVA’s latest transmission.
He wasn’t hiding anymore.
“You erased the archive,” NOVA said on-screen. “But you forget—code doesn’t need storage to survive. It only needs a host.”
The screen cut to black.
Then flickered.
PROJECT: VIREX [REBOOTING]
Julia paled. “He’s going to trigger the VIREX protocol manually.”
Liana swore under her breath. “You said it needed a neural interface—someone connected to the Cruz-Line to sustain it.”
Mara froze.
“It’s me.”
SIGMA Substation – Hidden Outpost – 4:12 PM
NOVA walked past rows of dormant servers—some half-destroyed, others flickering back to life as he passed.
Four figures followed him.
They weren’t like the Cruz children.
These were weapon-born—imperfect, but brutal. One had a scorched eye implant. Another moved with a limp but carried a modified shock rifle longer than his arm.
They weren’t royalty.
They were executioners.
And behind them stood a throne made of discarded tech.
NOVA turned to them.
“We take the Queen alive. The rest…” His gaze cut cold. “Scorch them.”
Safe Zone Theta – Hall of Echoes – 5:03 PM
Mara wandered back to the very place she had fought NOVA.
But this time, something felt different.
The projections had reset.
A single memory looped in the center:
A child. Crying. Hooked to a Cruz-Lab nerve rig. Whispering one name:
“Elena.”
Mara’s eyes widened.
“That’s not me.”
Julia’s voice came over her comm. “It’s not. That’s Subject Zero. The first test. The one they erased.”
“Who is she?”
A pause.
Then Julia’s voice dropped:
“I think it’s your mother.”
Command Bunker – 6:17 PM
Adrian threw a report onto the table. “Multiple SIGMA agents seen near Black Ridge. They’re moving.”
Elena stared at the screen.
“We can’t win with defense,” she said. “NOVA’s not trying to kill us—he’s forcing us to fracture.”
Adrian stepped forward. “What are you thinking?”
Elena turned slowly.
“I’m thinking we give him what he wants.”
Liana narrowed her eyes. “You want to surrender?”
“No,” Elena whispered. “I want to trade.”
Safe Zone Theta – Landing Platform – 7:02 PM
Lightning carved the sky.
Elena stood alone on the platform, wind tearing through her coat, a small case in her hand.
Inside it: the last Cruz-Line seed file. The master key. The very origin of VIREX.
Behind her, Mara’s voice cracked through her earpiece.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Elena’s voice was calm.
“Because I’d rather give the devil a throne than let him build one from our bones.”
A black drone appeared above the skyline.
A single red light blinked in its core.
Elena stepped forward…
And held up the case.
The cold hum of fluorescent light buzzed overhead. A sterile hallway stretched in both directions, lined with locked observation cells—each one empty.
Except for the last.
Inside, NOVA stood in stillness.
Six-foot-one. Seventeen years old, though he moved like a man twice that. Built not just for combat, but for perfection. DNA-engineered from Adrian Blackwood’s command instincts and spliced with early-generation CRUZ-line neuroplasticity.
He wasn’t raised. He was readied.
And now he was activated.
A voice came over the intercom.
“NOVA, primary target identified: Subject MARA CRUZ. Status: destabilized. Secondary directive: Terminate Elena Cruz if interference occurs.”
He rolled his neck slowly. Unclenched his fists. No expression crossed his face.
“Understood.”
The door hissed open.
NOVA walked out.
Safe Zone Theta – Main Compound – 6:22 AM
Elena hadn’t slept.
She stared at the data file projected across the wall. MARA’s genome sequence. Her own psychological imprint. The neural map SIGMA had stolen when she was just a teenager trapped in a lab.
And now… NOVA.
The “King” to her “Queen.”
“He was built to replace leadership,” Julia explained from across the room. “To function without the unpredictability of conscience. He doesn’t feel failure—he calculates it.”
Adrian stood silently.
Until he spoke.
“They used me.”
Julia nodded. “They used both of you. But with him… it’s not just what he’s made of. It’s what they taught him to destroy.”
Elena turned. “Which is?”
Julia met her eyes.
“You.”
Somewhere in the Desert – Transport Convoy – 7:44 AM
Dust swirled behind a nondescript SIGMA military convoy disguised as humanitarian aid.
Inside the lead truck, NOVA sat surrounded by silent black-clad operatives.
No orders. No emotion. Only a countdown.
He looked at the photo of Elena—stolen from a classified case file.
He tilted his head slightly, as if studying a puzzle he’d already solved.
Then he whispered—just once:
“She bleeds.”
Safe Zone Theta – Briefing Room – 9:03 AM
The Cruz-Line children were unusually quiet.
Mara sat near the front, flanked by two other girls—Fae and Sonar. They watched Elena not with fear, but expectation.
“You’re not kids anymore,” Elena said. “You were made for war. But we get to choose what kind.”
She touched the scar on her wrist.
“SIGMA built you from pieces of people they wanted to break. But we don’t break anymore. We rebuild.”
Mara stood slowly.
“If the King is coming,” she said, voice steady, “then let’s show him the Queen doesn’t run.”
Safe Zone Theta – Surveillance Tower Delta – 10:12 AM
A flicker on the motion scanner.
Too fast. Too precise.
Liana frowned, rewound, enhanced. There it was again—a blur against the outer dunes. Human. Alone. Moving like shadow wrapped in armor.
“Elena,” she said into the comm. “We’ve got a breach.”
“Cruz-Line?”
“No.” A pause. “Something faster.”
Training Yard – Same Time
Mara spun against Fae’s strike, disarming her with fluid grace. Sweat clung to her skin, but her focus never broke.
She felt it—before the alarm.
A shift in the air. A silence too sharp.
Then it came:
INTRUDER ALERT. ALL UNITS TO STATION ZERO.
Mara’s eyes darkened.
“He’s here.”
Main Gate – Perimeter Lockdown – 10:37 AM
Elena and Adrian arrived just as the outer gate sealed with a thundering slam.
Dust hung in the wind. No enemy in sight.
Then a voice crackled through their comms.
Not SIGMA.
Not any known frequency.
But it was crystal clear.
“You built a house of ghosts, Elena.
I’ve come to bury the living.”
Liana swore under her breath. “He patched into our internal channel. How?”
Julia answered from the bunker lab: “He didn’t. He’s inside already.”
Safe Zone Theta – Lower Utility Tunnels – 10:42 AM
Down below, where old SIGMA tunnels had been repurposed into storage and fallback zones, a boy moved through the dark.
Not disguised.
Not hidden.
Just untouchable.
NOVA moved like a whisper of war—every step a calculation, every blink a scan.
He passed one of the Cruz children—Dax—who stood motionless, eyes vacant, expression empty.
“Do you remember your real name?” NOVA asked quietly.
Dax didn’t speak, but he nodded once.
And walked away toward the weapons cache.
The King had his first pawn.
Operations Deck – 11:09 AM
Julia’s system lit up with access pings—someone was rewriting clearance levels inside the compound.
“Elena,” she called, panic tightening her voice. “He’s breaching nodes that should be isolated. He has your biometrics.”
“How?” Adrian snapped.
Elena went still. “Because SIGMA didn’t just build him with my DNA…”
She met Julia’s horrified gaze.
“They gave him my memories.”
Hall of Echoes – Private Reflection Chamber – 11:23 AM
Mara entered slowly, weapon drawn.
The room was circular, lined with memory projection tech from the old Cruz trials—images flickering on the walls of simulations, war games, crying children.
In the center stood NOVA.
He turned, calmly, as if he’d been waiting for her.
“Mara.”
“You’re trespassing.”
“No. I’m returning home.”
She raised her blade. “You’re not welcome here.”
NOVA smiled faintly. “Neither were you.”
Without warning, he lunged.
They collided with brutal speed—blades clashing, elbows flying, neural reflexes sparking like lightning between them.
Mara’s strike nearly connected—
—but he was faster.
He grabbed her wrist, twisted, disarmed her.
Then whispered into her ear:
“You’re not the Queen. You’re the sacrifice.
Hall of Echoes – 11:31 AM
Mara’s breath came in short, jagged bursts. Her shoulder throbbed from where NOVA had slammed her into the memory console.
The images on the wall flickered—flashes of training files, failed Cruz experiments, children screaming into silence.
NOVA circled her like a wolf. Calm. Clean.
“You were designed to follow,” he said. “Not lead.”
Mara gritted her teeth. “And you were designed to obey.”
“I do,” he said simply. “But not to SIGMA. To order. To function.”
He reached into his belt, pulled out a sleek neural blade.
“Chaos is inefficient. You are inefficient.”
“Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”
A faint twitch crossed his eye.
“Because I was told to make an example.”
Safe Zone Theta – Emergency Control Hub – 11:34 AM
“His location?” Elena asked.
Julia’s fingers flew. “Somewhere near the old simulation hall. I’m triggering lockdown—”
“No,” Elena snapped. “That’ll trap Mara inside with him.”
Adrian stepped forward. “Then we go in. Together.”
“No,” Elena said again, calmer this time. “He wants us to follow. We’ll blind him instead.”
She pointed to the simulation archive.
“Wipe it. Everything. The code, the backups. Erase the reason he came.”
Julia hesitated. “That’s decades of research—your entire Cruz project.”
Elena’s voice was steady.
“Then it dies with me.”
Hall of Echoes – 11:38 AM
Mara wiped blood from her mouth, smiled crookedly.
“You know the difference between us?” she asked.
NOVA blinked.
“I earned my pain.”
She lunged again—not at him, but at the console. She slammed her palm into the override, overloading the projection wall. Sparks erupted, blinding both of them.
In the chaos, she snatched her fallen blade and slashed upward—
Drawing first blood.
NOVA staggered back, clutching his side. His fingers came away red.
His first mistake.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
He stared at the blood.
And for the first time…
He looked surprised.
Safe Zone Theta – Archive Terminal – 11:43 AM
Julia hit execute.
All Cruz-Line backups. Cruz mind maps. Tactical learning simulations. Neural coding from VIREX and SIGMA’s earliest experiments.
Gone.
The archive dissolved into digital ash.
Behind her, Elena watched the screen go black.
“Now,” she said, voice barely audible, “he has nothing to rule.”
Hall of Echoes – Exit Corridor – 11:47 AM
Mara stumbled toward the reinforced doors, limping. Her comms buzzed.
“Elena—he’s hurt. But he’s not done.”
Elena’s voice came through like ice.
“Then run. And don’t stop.”
Behind Mara, NOVA rose from the smoke—face calm, unreadable, blood staining his side like spilled ink.
“You’ve set the system back,” he said. “But I am not the system.”
Mara turned, blade shaking in her hand.
“No,” she said.
“You’re the virus.”
Safe Zone Theta – Medical Wing – 1:02 PM
Mara sat on the edge of the infirmary bed, her knuckles bandaged, her ribs taped. She winced as the med-bot scanned her vitals.
“He could’ve killed me,” she whispered.
Elena stood in the doorway, arms folded, face unreadable. “But he didn’t.”
“Because he was ordered not to. That’s not mercy—it’s manipulation.”
Elena stepped forward. “Maybe. Or maybe he wanted you to see what’s coming. That was a warning.”
“Then we need to warn the others,” Mara said. “They need to know what’s waiting beyond these walls.”
Adrian entered silently, tossing a tablet onto the med bench.
“You won’t like this,” he said.
The screen displayed a live broadcast from the darknet. A glitchy logo in the corner:
▓▒░ SIGMA: BLACKMIRROR // Broadcast Node 7 ░▒▓
The video was looping—NOVA, standing inside a desolate city block. The caption burned beneath him in red:
“The Queen has abandoned her code. The throne is unguarded.
Let the heirs rise.”
Julia’s voice crackled in from Ops.
“There are more. Not just NOVA. SIGMA didn’t just build a king…”
A second video loaded.
Four shadows.
Four Cruz-line hybrids.
All active.
Mara’s pulse quickened.
Elena’s stomach sank.
And Adrian said what none of them wanted to believe:
“They didn’t send one.”
“They sent a royal court.”
Elsewhere – SIGMA Echo Hive – Location Unknown – 1:09 PM
A woman in a porcelain mask walked into the chamber.
Behind her, the four new operatives stood silent.
NOVA was kneeling now—not in obedience, but in calculation.
“I’ve delivered the message,” he said. “And I’ve seen their fear.”
The woman smiled beneath her mask.
“Good,” she whispered. “Now let’s make them bleed for forgetting who built their crown.”
She turned toward a holographic table.
Elena Cruz’s face hovered there—lined with red target indicators.
Safe Zone Theta – Elena’s Quarters – 2:13 PM
The lights were dim. Rain had started to fall, the soft hiss against steel echoing through the silence.
Elena sat alone, staring at a sealed black drive on her desk. No label. No signature.
It had arrived through an encrypted drop line, traced back to a dead email address.
Her father’s.
She opened it.
One line of code blinked on the screen.
PROJECT: MONARCH – If NOVA is the King, who do you think was the Ace?
Her eyes widened.
She looked up, and for the first time in weeks—Elena Cruz didn’t feel hunted.
She felt chosen.
Safe Zone Theta – Command Bunker – 3:07 PM
Rain had turned to thunder. Storm clouds cloaked the desert skies, lightning flickering like cracks in the world.
Inside the compound, the leadership team gathered—Elena, Adrian, Julia, Liana, and Mara—around the flickering projection of NOVA’s latest transmission.
He wasn’t hiding anymore.
“You erased the archive,” NOVA said on-screen. “But you forget—code doesn’t need storage to survive. It only needs a host.”
The screen cut to black.
Then flickered.
PROJECT: VIREX [REBOOTING]
Julia paled. “He’s going to trigger the VIREX protocol manually.”
Liana swore under her breath. “You said it needed a neural interface—someone connected to the Cruz-Line to sustain it.”
Mara froze.
“It’s me.”
SIGMA Substation – Hidden Outpost – 4:12 PM
NOVA walked past rows of dormant servers—some half-destroyed, others flickering back to life as he passed.
Four figures followed him.
They weren’t like the Cruz children.
These were weapon-born—imperfect, but brutal. One had a scorched eye implant. Another moved with a limp but carried a modified shock rifle longer than his arm.
They weren’t royalty.
They were executioners.
And behind them stood a throne made of discarded tech.
NOVA turned to them.
“We take the Queen alive. The rest…” His gaze cut cold. “Scorch them.”
Safe Zone Theta – Hall of Echoes – 5:03 PM
Mara wandered back to the very place she had fought NOVA.
But this time, something felt different.
The projections had reset.
A single memory looped in the center:
A child. Crying. Hooked to a Cruz-Lab nerve rig. Whispering one name:
“Elena.”
Mara’s eyes widened.
“That’s not me.”
Julia’s voice came over her comm. “It’s not. That’s Subject Zero. The first test. The one they erased.”
“Who is she?”
A pause.
Then Julia’s voice dropped:
“I think it’s your mother.”
Command Bunker – 6:17 PM
Adrian threw a report onto the table. “Multiple SIGMA agents seen near Black Ridge. They’re moving.”
Elena stared at the screen.
“We can’t win with defense,” she said. “NOVA’s not trying to kill us—he’s forcing us to fracture.”
Adrian stepped forward. “What are you thinking?”
Elena turned slowly.
“I’m thinking we give him what he wants.”
Liana narrowed her eyes. “You want to surrender?”
“No,” Elena whispered. “I want to trade.”
Safe Zone Theta – Landing Platform – 7:02 PM
Lightning carved the sky.
Elena stood alone on the platform, wind tearing through her coat, a small case in her hand.
Inside it: the last Cruz-Line seed file. The master key. The very origin of VIREX.
Behind her, Mara’s voice cracked through her earpiece.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Elena’s voice was calm.
“Because I’d rather give the devil a throne than let him build one from our bones.”
A black drone appeared above the skyline.
A single red light blinked in its core.
Elena stepped forward…
And held up the case.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 43. Continue reading Chapter 44 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.