Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 5: Chapter 5

New York didn’t sleep.
It simmered.
It pulsed beneath Elena’s heels as she stepped out of the Blackwood Global tower later that evening, the cool night air brushing against her skin like a whispered dare. Traffic hummed like a low growl. Neon signs blinked overhead, and every reflection in a passing car window looked like a question she hadn’t answered yet.
Her head said: Go home, write your findings, stay the course.
But her gut pulled her two blocks south to the address she’d memorized during a quiet moment in the foundation’s database. A name buried in an anonymized grant log. Just one word beside the $50,000 donation: Ashmont.
The building didn’t look like much. A re-entry housing project wedged between a shuttered diner and a laundromat with a cracked window. But something about it gnawed at her the way Adrian had hesitated when she’d mentioned the unlisted programs. The way his jaw had tightened just enough to betray recognition.
This was one of them.
Elena adjusted the strap of her bag and pushed through the doors.
Inside, a bored-looking man glanced up from behind a desk. “You with the Times?”
She blinked. “What?”
He shrugged. “You’ve got the look. Press badge, eyes like a hawk.”
She smiled faintly. “Just visiting.”
“Suit yourself.” He gestured toward a hallway. “Try room fourteen. Marcus just got in.”
Her breath hitched.
Marcus?
She hadn’t said a name.
Still, she nodded and walked toward the hallway, her boots echoing softly against the scuffed linoleum. Room numbers blurred past her eleven, twelve, thirteen
Fourteen.
The door was slightly ajar.
Elena knocked once, then stepped inside.
The man who turned from the window wasn’t what she expected. He was younger than Adrian maybe early thirties with a lean build, expensive taste, and the kind of charisma that settled over a room like smoke.
“Ms. Cruz,” he said without missing a beat. “I was wondering when you’d find me.”
Her blood ran cold. “Do I know you?”
“No. But I know you.” He smiled, and it wasn’t kind. “The journalist with a scandal, a vendetta, and a front-row seat to Adrian Blackwood’s empire. Impressive.”
Elena stepped inside, wary. “And you are?”
“Marcus Vale.” He offered his hand, and when she didn’t take it, let it drop. “Adrian’s former… associate.”
The name. The one whispered in the ballroom. The one tied to untraceable donations and veiled threats.
“What exactly were you two associating on?” she asked.
“Truth?” Marcus said, leaning against the edge of a battered desk. “Saving the world. Or trying to. Until Adrian decided some lives were worth more than others.”
Her spine stiffened. “What does that mean?”
Marcus tilted his head, eyes gleaming. “You think he’s noble, don’t you? Tragic. Misunderstood. Maybe even redeemable.”
“I think he’s hiding something,” Elena said.
“Of course he is. So am I. So are you.” He stepped closer. “But here’s the difference, Ms. Cruz when Adrian lies, people disappear. Sometimes forever.”
Her throat tightened. “You’re saying he’s responsible for”
“I’m saying,” Marcus interrupted smoothly, “that you’re walking through a minefield with your eyes half-open. And the man leading you through it? He built the damn field.”
Elena narrowed her gaze. “If you have evidence, give it to me.”
“Not yet. But I will. When it matters.” He smiled again, all teeth and secrets. “Until then, consider this your first warning.”
He turned his back, dismissing her.
But Elena didn’t move.
“Why warn me at all?” she asked.
Marcus glanced over his shoulder. “Because you’re not the first person Adrian Blackwood has tried to save. And if he fails again…” His smile faded. “You might be the last.”
—
Back at Her Apartment – Later That Night
The city blurred beyond her window as Elena sat on the edge of her bed, the silence ringing louder than the traffic outside.
Marcus Vale. Calculated, charming, and dangerous in his own right.
But not wrong.
Adrian was hiding something. The question was whether he was protecting people—or controlling them.
She reached for her phone and opened her notes.
ASHMONT = unlisted project. Connected to Marcus. Conflicting stories.
Then she added one more line beneath it:
Still can’t stop thinking about him.
Her finger hovered, then tapped delete.
But the ache in her chest didn’t vanish.
Adrian Blackwood wasn’t just a story anymore.
He was the fire she couldn’t look away from.
Even if it burned her alive.
Blackwood Global – The Next Morning
Adrian knew the moment Elena stepped into the building.
There was something about the way her presence registered like static just before a storm. A shift in air pressure. A tightening behind the ribs.
He didn’t need surveillance footage. Or facial recognition.
He just knew.
“Send her in,” he told his assistant without looking up.
Seconds later, Elena pushed through the doors, no hesitation in her stride. But her eyes those sharp, unblinking eyes were charged. Electric.
“I met Marcus Vale last night,” she said before the door had even closed.
Adrian didn’t flinch.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
“Is that so,” he said quietly.
“You didn’t think to mention him?”
“I didn’t think you were ready for him.”
She stepped closer, fury held tight like a glass about to crack. “What does that mean?”
Adrian looked up slowly. “It means Marcus has a talent for saying just enough of the truth to make his lies convincing.”
“He told me you used to work together. That the programs the vigilante projects were your shared idea.”
Adrian stood, his movement controlled, deliberate. “He’s not wrong.”
Her breath caught.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The silence was a blade, sharp and waiting.
“You said you fund second chances,” Elena whispered. “Is that what this is? Redemption? Or just control wrapped in charity?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened. “You want the truth?”
“Try me.”
He walked past her, to the wall of glass behind his desk. “We started Ashmont together. Evelyn, Marcus, and I. Years ago back when we believed change came from disruption, not diplomacy.”
Elena’s heart stuttered at the sound of Evelyn’s name.
“My sister believed in people,” Adrian said, voice low. “She believed that if you gave the forgotten a place to stand, they’d rise. But Marcus? He wanted results. Headlines. Noise. I wanted permanence.”
“So what happened?” she asked.
Adrian turned.
His face was a war zone.
“Evelyn died. And Marcus blamed me for everything.”
Elena felt the weight of his words drop into her stomach.
“How did she die?”
He hesitated.
Then: “Saving someone I sent her to help.”
A beat of silence.
Elena’s voice was soft now. “And that’s why you do this. The anonymous donations. The silence. The masks.”
His nod was barely there.
“Not redemption,” she murmured. “Atonement.”
Adrian met her eyes. No armor now. Just the open, naked ache of someone still bleeding beneath the surface.
“I can’t undo the past,” he said. “But I can keep others from living it.”
She took a step toward him. Not as a journalist. Not as a threat.
Just as a woman who finally saw the man behind the mask.
“Marcus said you fail the people you try to save,” she said. “Is that what this is about? You think I’ll be next?”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “You already are.”
And suddenly, the distance between them wasn’t professional. It wasn’t investigative. It wasn’t safe.
It was a heartbeat.
A breath.
A choice.
“Elena,” he said, her name low and broken in his mouth, “you should walk away now. Before this becomes something we both can’t control.”
Her lips parted.
But the words didn’t come.
Because deep down, they both knew
It already had.
Elena didn’t walk away.
She couldn’t.
Something in Adrian’s voice had changed stripped of the steel, the charm, the power. For a moment, he wasn’t Blackwood the billionaire. He was a man undone by a name.
Evelyn.
Elena moved first.
Slowly. Quietly. As if crossing a fault line she couldn’t afford to shake.
“You said you wanted permanence,” she said. “But you live like everything you touch is already falling apart.”
His gaze met hers, and for the first time, he didn’t look through her. He looked at her—really saw her. Saw the woman beneath the story, beneath the armor, beneath the ambition.
“And what about you, Elena?” he asked softly. “Why are you really here?”
The question slipped between them like a thread pulled too tight.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it again.
Because the answer wasn’t simple anymore.
She was supposed to uncover him. Expose the cracks. Print the truth.
But now—standing here, watching the light catch the haunted edge of his face—she wasn’t sure if the truth would destroy him… or her.
“Do you regret it?” she asked instead. “Sending her that day?”
Adrian didn’t blink.
“I regret not going with her.”
His voice was barely audible. But the words slammed into her chest with the weight of a confession he hadn’t given to anyone else.
“She believed in something I didn’t,” he continued. “That the system could be fixed. That we could work inside it. But Marcus and I… we pushed for results. Fast ones. Dangerous ones.”
“And now?” Elena asked.
His eyes darkened. “Now I pay for it in silence. In checks. In shadows. It’s not justice. But it’s the closest I can offer.”
They stood in that heavy quiet for several seconds. The world outside the windows went on—horns, sirens, the glitter of skyscraper lights—but inside, time held its breath.
Elena’s throat tightened. “You scare me, Adrian.”
That surprised him. “Because of what I’ve done?”
“No.” Her voice wavered. “Because I think I understand why you did it.”
Adrian looked at her—really looked—and for a breathless second, everything between them cracked wide open. Not just tension. Not just secrets.
Longing.
“Don’t,” he said, voice barely a whisper.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t understand me.”
“Why not?”
He took a single step forward. “Because if you do… you won’t be able to walk away.”
She held his gaze.
“I don’t think I can already.”
Their breath mingled in the stillness.
But just when the moment threatened to tip into something neither of them could pull back from—Adrian’s phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
Then it buzzed again. Urgent. Sharp. Followed by a knock on the door.
He turned, shoulders taut.
His assistant’s voice came through, tight with concern. “Mr. Blackwood—there’s been a leak. Channel 9 just aired a segment about Ashmont. They used an anonymous source. They’re connecting your name… to Marcus Vale.”
Adrian’s eyes snapped to Elena.
She froze.
“I didn’t—” Her voice caught. “I never shared anything.”
But suspicion had already clawed its way into the room.
Adrian’s jaw clenched. “Then someone else just moved ahead of you.”
He turned to the window again, the light from the city now fractured against the glass.
And just like that, the wall between them slammed back into place.
Not cold.
Not angry.
But resigned.
As if he’d known this moment would come.
As if he’d been waiting for it.
“Get out, Elena.”
She didn’t move. “Adrian—”
His voice was flat. “Go.”
The ache in her chest was immediate. Sharp.
But she turned.
Because the line had shifted again—and she wasn’t sure anymore who was chasing the truth, and who was being hunted by it.
She left without another word.
And behind her, Adrian stood in the dark, staring down at a city he’d once believed he could save.
But even empires built on secrets…
Eventually burn to ash.