Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 58: Chapter 58
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 58: Chapter 58. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Abandoned Church — Outskirts of New Jersey — 11:47 PM
Rain whispered against the stained glass windows, streaking the cracked faces of long-forgotten saints.
Elena sat in the third pew, soaked through, heart pounding in her chest. The hard drive burned like ice in her pocket. Adrian paced at the altar, his movements tight, restless.
Liana stood watch at the shattered doorway, her assault rifle balanced loosely across her chest.
“Julia confirmed it,” Elena said quietly. “Cassian initiated a nationwide grid destabilization. Banking systems are frozen. Transit in five states is down. Hospitals are going dark.”
Adrian stopped pacing.
“He’s pulling the world to its knees just to erase us.”
“It’s not just us anymore,” Liana said without turning. “It’s whoever tries to speak. Whoever gets close to the truth.”
A beat of silence. Then Adrian pulled a battered envelope from his inner jacket.
“My father wrote this the day before he died. I never opened it.”
Elena’s breath caught. “And now?”
He opened it.
Inside was a single flash chip… and a handwritten note:
“The real virus was never in the files. It was in the people we trusted to protect them.”
G.C.
Hidden Blackwood Server – Church Crypt Below – 12:09 AM
The crypt was cold, lit only by the flicker of Liana’s flashlight and the glow of the server interface Adrian had once installed beneath the chapel. Dust coated the drives, but the system booted with a low whir of obedience.
Adrian slid in the chip.
Lines of code flickered across the screen, parsing, decrypting…
Then paused.
A single file name pulsed on the display:
“PROJECT: HELIX — Authorized Eyes Only Approved by President L. Monroe (1999)”
Liana frowned. “Project Helix?”
“It predates VIREX,” Adrian murmured. “And it’s got presidential clearance.”
The screen unlocked.
And what they saw next hollowed the air from the room.
Digital Footage.
Grainy. Timestamped 2002. A lab. Monitors. White coats.
And a child strapped to a table. Screaming.
Experiment 12-C: Gene Splicing – Post-Mortem Trial.
Cassian’s voice off-screen:
“This one won’t survive. She’s unstable.”
Then another voice—clearer. Firm.
Elena’s father.
“She’s not a subject. She’s a child. Shut it down.”
The video froze. Elena’s face went pale.
“My father… tried to stop it.”
“And they buried him for it,” Adrian said, stunned.
Cassian’s Private Suite — Surveillance Feed — 12:28 AM
Cassian leaned forward in his chair, watching the live tap from the Blackwood crypt server.
He smirked.
“Let them watch. It’ll break them faster than bullets ever could.”
He turned to the masked man beside him.
“Initiate Phase Three. Target anyone who’s seen the footage.”
“Including her?” the man asked.
Cassian’s smile sharpened.
“Especially her.”
Back at the Church — 12:36 AM
Sirens. Distant thunder. A new alert rang out from the server.
“They’re tracking us,” Liana said. “We have four minutes, tops.”
Adrian grabbed the hard drive.
“We go dark. Vanish.”
But Elena didn’t move. Her eyes were still locked on the frozen image of her father standing between the child and the men in lab coats.
“He died protecting the truth.”
“And now it’s our job to finish what he started,” Adrian said softly.
She finally looked at him.
“Then let’s burn Helix to the ground.”
Abandoned Church – Underground Crypt 12:39 AM
Elena tore her eyes away from the screen, her breath jagged.
“Why didn’t I know?” she whispered. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
Adrian approached her carefully. “Because he knew what it would cost you.”
“He left me in the dark. My whole life—thinking he was complicit. And all this time…” She clenched her fists. “He was trying to stop them.”
“And now you know,” Liana said, already slinging her pack over her shoulder. “Which means you’ve got a target on your back twice as big.”
A low, mechanical hum began to rise from the back corner of the crypt. Adrian spun toward it.
“Backup generators?” Elena asked.
“No,” Adrian said darkly. “That’s not ours.”
They froze.
The stone wall behind the server groaned—then split open with a hiss of hydraulics.
A trapdoor. Hidden. Sealed with military-grade clearance.
Adrian stepped forward slowly. “This wasn’t here before.”
Liana drew her weapon.
“Either your father kept more secrets than he let on… or someone’s guiding us.”
Elena felt it too—a hum in her bones, like something ancient was waking beneath their feet.
Adrian keyed into the next terminal. The system demanded one password.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then typed: “E-L-E-N-A”
The door clicked open.
Interior — Sub-Crypt Lab — 12:44 AM
The room smelled like copper, cold steel, and dust. Rows of suspended drives lined the walls. One terminal flickered on by itself as they entered.
A video began playing. No prompt. No keyboard.
“That’s not creepy at all,” Liana muttered.
But Elena was already moving closer.
On the screen, her father appeared again—this time older, gaunter, eyes sunken.
“If you’re seeing this,” he began, “I’m gone. Probably erased. But that means you’ve found the truth.”
He looked into the camera—directly into Elena’s eyes.
“I never stopped protecting you. I let the world believe the worst because it kept you alive. But I couldn’t stop them forever. Cassian… is just a pawn. The real architect is someone closer. Someone you know. Someone you trust.”
Static.
Elena stepped back. “Someone I trust?”
Adrian moved beside her, his brow furrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Who else would your father have known?” Liana asked.
“Everyone,” Elena said softly. “But… no one I’d think could—”
She stopped.
Eyes wide. Breath caught.
“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be…”
Adrian touched her arm. “Who, Elena?”
But she didn’t answer.
She was already running for the exit.
Elsewhere — 1:02 AM
Cassian stood before a large touchscreen, watching the encrypted lab feed.
Behind him, a tall silhouette emerged from the shadows—a figure with a calm voice, laced in menace.
“She’s seen too much,” the voice said.
“So has Blackwood.”
“Then clean it up.”
Cassian turned, uncertain.
“And what about her father’s failsafe?”
The voice paused… then smiled.
“We’ll use it.”
Abandoned Church – Rear Courtyard – 1:09 AM
Rain poured like knives as Elena pushed open the church’s back doors and stormed into the courtyard. Thunder cracked above, but she barely felt it. Her father’s words echoed in her ears.
“Someone you trust.”
Adrian caught up to her, his voice low but urgent.
“Elena, stop—”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s not just about VIREX or Cassian anymore. There’s someone else in the middle of this. Someone feeding him intel. Someone inside.”
Adrian glanced around warily. “What do you mean inside?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I felt it the moment I saw that feed. My father’s tone—he wasn’t warning me about Cassian.”
“Then who?”
Her eyes met his.
For a fraction of a second, there was fear. Not of Adrian—but for him.
“Julia?” Adrian offered, hesitantly. “She had access”
“No,” Elena said quickly. “If Julia wanted me silenced, I’d be dead already.”
Liana emerged behind them, weapon drawn. “Then we need to move. If your father was right, they’re already closing in.”
Just then, a low whine pierced the air.
Above them, a black drone zipped over the courtyard—then stopped mid-air, holding position like a hawk.
Adrian’s eyes widened.
“That’s not surveillance. That’s target acquisition.”
“MOVE!” Liana shouted.
The trio dove behind the old stone columns as the drone lit up red—then fired. A direct energy blast sliced through the pews inside the church, lighting up the sanctuary in flame.
“They’re not here to warn us,” Elena said, teeth clenched. “They’re here to erase every trace.”
Back Inside — Server Room Ruins – 1:17 AM
Smoke choked the air. Sparks flew from the server racks. Adrian crawled to the shattered terminal and grabbed the still-glowing flash chip from the reader.
“This chip has the last line of code for Project Helix,” he said. “We lose this, we lose everything.”
Liana handed him a burner case. “Seal it. We’re going dark.”
“Where to?”
She hesitated. “I know someone in Montreal. Off-grid. Former white-hat. She can decrypt this faster than anyone stateside.”
Elena looked at Adrian. “If what we just saw is only part of the truth…”
“Then what’s buried on that chip could bring the whole machine down,” he finished.
“Or detonate the wrong people,” Liana added grimly. “Depending on whose name shows up next.”
They stared at each other for a beat too long.
Then Elena said the one thing none of them wanted to admit:
“What if the name that breaks this… is mine?”
Elsewhere — 1:21 AM
Inside a limousine gliding through D.C. traffic, Cassian sat across from a shadowed figure—only half-lit by the soft blue of a secure tablet screen.
The tablet showed a paused frame of Elena’s face in the church’s crypt.
“It’s begun,” the figure said.
Cassian didn’t reply, but his grip tightened.
“You were right to let her find the chip. It’ll lead her straight to the archive… and straight to us.”
Cassian glanced sideways.
“And when she does?”
“We’ll offer her the truth. Or we’ll bury her with it.”
Montreal Safehouse 5:17 AM
They made it out just before the second drone struck.
Now, the cold silence of Montreal’s outskirts wrapped around them like fog. The safehouse was bare—just concrete walls, a cracked skylight, and the hum of computers that hadn’t been online in years.
Adrian paced near the windows, half-shadowed by the blinds. Liana worked with the decryption software, her fingers flying. And Elena stood in the doorway between two rooms—caught between everything she had learned and everything she was afraid to admit.
“I keep wondering,” she murmured. “If he hadn’t died… would my father have ever told me?”
Adrian didn’t turn. “Sometimes the people closest to us are the ones who silence us the most.”
She crossed her arms. “Do you ever wish you’d stayed silent?”
He looked at her then, eyes hollow.
“Every second. But silence never saved anyone.”
A chime rang from the computer.
Liana looked up. “It’s done. The file decrypted.”
They crowded around the screen.
PROJECT: HELIX
Objective: Human Behavior Rewriting via Viral Neural Conditioning.
Elena’s blood ran cold. The file scrolled faster than her eyes could keep up test subjects, age ranges, neurological adaptation markers. And at the bottom:
Prototype Sequence Successful: Case 17B – Elena Cruz (Retention Viable)
Her breath caught.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Liana stared. “You weren’t just being protected, Elena. You were part of it.”
Adrian leaned in, eyes fixed.
“You weren’t just chasing a story. You are the story.”
Elena backed away from the monitor, chest heaving. “No. That’s not possible. I was just a kid”
“Exactly,” Adrian whispered. “And your father tried to reverse it.”
The screen flickered.
Another file loaded.
VIDEO FILE: 17B – INTERVENTION LOG ENCRYPTED
“Play it,” Elena said.
The screen remained black.
But a voice clear, familiar, and haunting cut through:
“If she ever finds this, tell her I’m sorry. I never wanted her to be part of this. But she’s the only one strong enough to finish it.”
Her father’s voice.
“And when the time comes… she’ll know who to trust.”
A final beep sounded.
Then one more screen blinked to life. No code. Just a name.
“Next Contact: Ezra Vale”
Adrian froze.
“That’s not possible. Ezra’s dead. He died in Berlin six years ago.”
But Elena was already whispering—
“No… he didn’t.”
Adrian turned to her.
“What are you saying?”
She looked up.
“Ezra Vale is my godfather.”
Montreal Safehouse – Lower Level – 6:02 AM
Elena sat alone in the cold concrete room, staring at the file still open on the screen.
PROJECT: HELIX.
She read the words again and again, hoping they’d change.
Case 17B – Elena Cruz (Retention Viable)
It didn’t make sense.
Except… it did.
The migraines. The strange flashes of memory. The way she always sensed danger before it struck. The dream that had haunted her since she was thirteen — wires, a white light, her father’s voice telling her “just breathe.”
She had never told anyone.
Not even her mother.
The door creaked open behind her.
Adrian entered, quiet, like he’d been standing outside listening for a while.
“You okay?”
“No,” she said simply. “But I think I finally understand.”
He approached slowly. “Understand what?”
“Why he kept me out of the foundation. Why he lied to me. Why… I was always two steps behind.”
Her voice shook.
“I wasn’t supposed to find this. Not now. Not until it was too late to stop it.”
Adrian didn’t speak.
Then Elena turned to him, eyes wet and fierce.
“You knew. Didn’t you?”
Adrian’s silence was answer enough.
“How long?”
“I didn’t know everything,” he said. “Just… that you were more than you thought. Your father made me promise—if anything happened to him, I’d help protect what he left behind.”
“You mean me.”
He nodded once.
“You weren’t a mission, Elena. But the mission always led back to you.”
Upstairs – Control Room – 6:16 AM
Liana sat alone, watching the decrypted data flow across multiple monitors. Maps. Labs. Bank trails. Medical scans.
Everything pointed back to one name: Ezra Vale.
But the more she read, the more disturbed she became.
Ezra wasn’t just a rogue analyst or a family friend.
He was the co-architect of Project Helix. The one responsible for designing the memory-trigger algorithms. The same algorithms embedded in Elena’s brain.
A file caught her eye.
Encrypted audio. Labelled:
“VALE_DOSSIER_R-CLASSIFIED”
She clicked it.
Static… then a man’s voice, low and distorted:
“She’s waking up faster than we planned. We’ll need a failsafe.”
“What kind?”
“One she won’t see coming. Someone she trusts. Someone close enough to break her… if necessary.”
Liana’s stomach turned.
She leaned back, eyes wide with realization.
“Oh my god…”
Montreal Safehouse – Back Corridor – 6:32 AM
Elena stood by the window now, watching early snow fall in slow, muffled sheets. Her father was dead. The enemy was alive. And the truth?
The truth was inside her.
Adrian joined her again, this time without speaking.
Just stood beside her, close but not touching.
Then softly, Elena asked:
“If Ezra is still alive, why would he disappear?”
Adrian’s voice was hollow. “Maybe because he knew one day you’d come looking.”
“And now I have.”
She turned to him, eyes full of something between rage and fear.
“What happens next?”
He didn’t blink.
“We burn the rest of the lies.”
Rain whispered against the stained glass windows, streaking the cracked faces of long-forgotten saints.
Elena sat in the third pew, soaked through, heart pounding in her chest. The hard drive burned like ice in her pocket. Adrian paced at the altar, his movements tight, restless.
Liana stood watch at the shattered doorway, her assault rifle balanced loosely across her chest.
“Julia confirmed it,” Elena said quietly. “Cassian initiated a nationwide grid destabilization. Banking systems are frozen. Transit in five states is down. Hospitals are going dark.”
Adrian stopped pacing.
“He’s pulling the world to its knees just to erase us.”
“It’s not just us anymore,” Liana said without turning. “It’s whoever tries to speak. Whoever gets close to the truth.”
A beat of silence. Then Adrian pulled a battered envelope from his inner jacket.
“My father wrote this the day before he died. I never opened it.”
Elena’s breath caught. “And now?”
He opened it.
Inside was a single flash chip… and a handwritten note:
“The real virus was never in the files. It was in the people we trusted to protect them.”
G.C.
Hidden Blackwood Server – Church Crypt Below – 12:09 AM
The crypt was cold, lit only by the flicker of Liana’s flashlight and the glow of the server interface Adrian had once installed beneath the chapel. Dust coated the drives, but the system booted with a low whir of obedience.
Adrian slid in the chip.
Lines of code flickered across the screen, parsing, decrypting…
Then paused.
A single file name pulsed on the display:
“PROJECT: HELIX — Authorized Eyes Only Approved by President L. Monroe (1999)”
Liana frowned. “Project Helix?”
“It predates VIREX,” Adrian murmured. “And it’s got presidential clearance.”
The screen unlocked.
And what they saw next hollowed the air from the room.
Digital Footage.
Grainy. Timestamped 2002. A lab. Monitors. White coats.
And a child strapped to a table. Screaming.
Experiment 12-C: Gene Splicing – Post-Mortem Trial.
Cassian’s voice off-screen:
“This one won’t survive. She’s unstable.”
Then another voice—clearer. Firm.
Elena’s father.
“She’s not a subject. She’s a child. Shut it down.”
The video froze. Elena’s face went pale.
“My father… tried to stop it.”
“And they buried him for it,” Adrian said, stunned.
Cassian’s Private Suite — Surveillance Feed — 12:28 AM
Cassian leaned forward in his chair, watching the live tap from the Blackwood crypt server.
He smirked.
“Let them watch. It’ll break them faster than bullets ever could.”
He turned to the masked man beside him.
“Initiate Phase Three. Target anyone who’s seen the footage.”
“Including her?” the man asked.
Cassian’s smile sharpened.
“Especially her.”
Back at the Church — 12:36 AM
Sirens. Distant thunder. A new alert rang out from the server.
“They’re tracking us,” Liana said. “We have four minutes, tops.”
Adrian grabbed the hard drive.
“We go dark. Vanish.”
But Elena didn’t move. Her eyes were still locked on the frozen image of her father standing between the child and the men in lab coats.
“He died protecting the truth.”
“And now it’s our job to finish what he started,” Adrian said softly.
She finally looked at him.
“Then let’s burn Helix to the ground.”
Abandoned Church – Underground Crypt 12:39 AM
Elena tore her eyes away from the screen, her breath jagged.
“Why didn’t I know?” she whispered. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
Adrian approached her carefully. “Because he knew what it would cost you.”
“He left me in the dark. My whole life—thinking he was complicit. And all this time…” She clenched her fists. “He was trying to stop them.”
“And now you know,” Liana said, already slinging her pack over her shoulder. “Which means you’ve got a target on your back twice as big.”
A low, mechanical hum began to rise from the back corner of the crypt. Adrian spun toward it.
“Backup generators?” Elena asked.
“No,” Adrian said darkly. “That’s not ours.”
They froze.
The stone wall behind the server groaned—then split open with a hiss of hydraulics.
A trapdoor. Hidden. Sealed with military-grade clearance.
Adrian stepped forward slowly. “This wasn’t here before.”
Liana drew her weapon.
“Either your father kept more secrets than he let on… or someone’s guiding us.”
Elena felt it too—a hum in her bones, like something ancient was waking beneath their feet.
Adrian keyed into the next terminal. The system demanded one password.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then typed: “E-L-E-N-A”
The door clicked open.
Interior — Sub-Crypt Lab — 12:44 AM
The room smelled like copper, cold steel, and dust. Rows of suspended drives lined the walls. One terminal flickered on by itself as they entered.
A video began playing. No prompt. No keyboard.
“That’s not creepy at all,” Liana muttered.
But Elena was already moving closer.
On the screen, her father appeared again—this time older, gaunter, eyes sunken.
“If you’re seeing this,” he began, “I’m gone. Probably erased. But that means you’ve found the truth.”
He looked into the camera—directly into Elena’s eyes.
“I never stopped protecting you. I let the world believe the worst because it kept you alive. But I couldn’t stop them forever. Cassian… is just a pawn. The real architect is someone closer. Someone you know. Someone you trust.”
Static.
Elena stepped back. “Someone I trust?”
Adrian moved beside her, his brow furrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Who else would your father have known?” Liana asked.
“Everyone,” Elena said softly. “But… no one I’d think could—”
She stopped.
Eyes wide. Breath caught.
“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be…”
Adrian touched her arm. “Who, Elena?”
But she didn’t answer.
She was already running for the exit.
Elsewhere — 1:02 AM
Cassian stood before a large touchscreen, watching the encrypted lab feed.
Behind him, a tall silhouette emerged from the shadows—a figure with a calm voice, laced in menace.
“She’s seen too much,” the voice said.
“So has Blackwood.”
“Then clean it up.”
Cassian turned, uncertain.
“And what about her father’s failsafe?”
The voice paused… then smiled.
“We’ll use it.”
Abandoned Church – Rear Courtyard – 1:09 AM
Rain poured like knives as Elena pushed open the church’s back doors and stormed into the courtyard. Thunder cracked above, but she barely felt it. Her father’s words echoed in her ears.
“Someone you trust.”
Adrian caught up to her, his voice low but urgent.
“Elena, stop—”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s not just about VIREX or Cassian anymore. There’s someone else in the middle of this. Someone feeding him intel. Someone inside.”
Adrian glanced around warily. “What do you mean inside?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I felt it the moment I saw that feed. My father’s tone—he wasn’t warning me about Cassian.”
“Then who?”
Her eyes met his.
For a fraction of a second, there was fear. Not of Adrian—but for him.
“Julia?” Adrian offered, hesitantly. “She had access”
“No,” Elena said quickly. “If Julia wanted me silenced, I’d be dead already.”
Liana emerged behind them, weapon drawn. “Then we need to move. If your father was right, they’re already closing in.”
Just then, a low whine pierced the air.
Above them, a black drone zipped over the courtyard—then stopped mid-air, holding position like a hawk.
Adrian’s eyes widened.
“That’s not surveillance. That’s target acquisition.”
“MOVE!” Liana shouted.
The trio dove behind the old stone columns as the drone lit up red—then fired. A direct energy blast sliced through the pews inside the church, lighting up the sanctuary in flame.
“They’re not here to warn us,” Elena said, teeth clenched. “They’re here to erase every trace.”
Back Inside — Server Room Ruins – 1:17 AM
Smoke choked the air. Sparks flew from the server racks. Adrian crawled to the shattered terminal and grabbed the still-glowing flash chip from the reader.
“This chip has the last line of code for Project Helix,” he said. “We lose this, we lose everything.”
Liana handed him a burner case. “Seal it. We’re going dark.”
“Where to?”
She hesitated. “I know someone in Montreal. Off-grid. Former white-hat. She can decrypt this faster than anyone stateside.”
Elena looked at Adrian. “If what we just saw is only part of the truth…”
“Then what’s buried on that chip could bring the whole machine down,” he finished.
“Or detonate the wrong people,” Liana added grimly. “Depending on whose name shows up next.”
They stared at each other for a beat too long.
Then Elena said the one thing none of them wanted to admit:
“What if the name that breaks this… is mine?”
Elsewhere — 1:21 AM
Inside a limousine gliding through D.C. traffic, Cassian sat across from a shadowed figure—only half-lit by the soft blue of a secure tablet screen.
The tablet showed a paused frame of Elena’s face in the church’s crypt.
“It’s begun,” the figure said.
Cassian didn’t reply, but his grip tightened.
“You were right to let her find the chip. It’ll lead her straight to the archive… and straight to us.”
Cassian glanced sideways.
“And when she does?”
“We’ll offer her the truth. Or we’ll bury her with it.”
Montreal Safehouse 5:17 AM
They made it out just before the second drone struck.
Now, the cold silence of Montreal’s outskirts wrapped around them like fog. The safehouse was bare—just concrete walls, a cracked skylight, and the hum of computers that hadn’t been online in years.
Adrian paced near the windows, half-shadowed by the blinds. Liana worked with the decryption software, her fingers flying. And Elena stood in the doorway between two rooms—caught between everything she had learned and everything she was afraid to admit.
“I keep wondering,” she murmured. “If he hadn’t died… would my father have ever told me?”
Adrian didn’t turn. “Sometimes the people closest to us are the ones who silence us the most.”
She crossed her arms. “Do you ever wish you’d stayed silent?”
He looked at her then, eyes hollow.
“Every second. But silence never saved anyone.”
A chime rang from the computer.
Liana looked up. “It’s done. The file decrypted.”
They crowded around the screen.
PROJECT: HELIX
Objective: Human Behavior Rewriting via Viral Neural Conditioning.
Elena’s blood ran cold. The file scrolled faster than her eyes could keep up test subjects, age ranges, neurological adaptation markers. And at the bottom:
Prototype Sequence Successful: Case 17B – Elena Cruz (Retention Viable)
Her breath caught.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Liana stared. “You weren’t just being protected, Elena. You were part of it.”
Adrian leaned in, eyes fixed.
“You weren’t just chasing a story. You are the story.”
Elena backed away from the monitor, chest heaving. “No. That’s not possible. I was just a kid”
“Exactly,” Adrian whispered. “And your father tried to reverse it.”
The screen flickered.
Another file loaded.
VIDEO FILE: 17B – INTERVENTION LOG ENCRYPTED
“Play it,” Elena said.
The screen remained black.
But a voice clear, familiar, and haunting cut through:
“If she ever finds this, tell her I’m sorry. I never wanted her to be part of this. But she’s the only one strong enough to finish it.”
Her father’s voice.
“And when the time comes… she’ll know who to trust.”
A final beep sounded.
Then one more screen blinked to life. No code. Just a name.
“Next Contact: Ezra Vale”
Adrian froze.
“That’s not possible. Ezra’s dead. He died in Berlin six years ago.”
But Elena was already whispering—
“No… he didn’t.”
Adrian turned to her.
“What are you saying?”
She looked up.
“Ezra Vale is my godfather.”
Montreal Safehouse – Lower Level – 6:02 AM
Elena sat alone in the cold concrete room, staring at the file still open on the screen.
PROJECT: HELIX.
She read the words again and again, hoping they’d change.
Case 17B – Elena Cruz (Retention Viable)
It didn’t make sense.
Except… it did.
The migraines. The strange flashes of memory. The way she always sensed danger before it struck. The dream that had haunted her since she was thirteen — wires, a white light, her father’s voice telling her “just breathe.”
She had never told anyone.
Not even her mother.
The door creaked open behind her.
Adrian entered, quiet, like he’d been standing outside listening for a while.
“You okay?”
“No,” she said simply. “But I think I finally understand.”
He approached slowly. “Understand what?”
“Why he kept me out of the foundation. Why he lied to me. Why… I was always two steps behind.”
Her voice shook.
“I wasn’t supposed to find this. Not now. Not until it was too late to stop it.”
Adrian didn’t speak.
Then Elena turned to him, eyes wet and fierce.
“You knew. Didn’t you?”
Adrian’s silence was answer enough.
“How long?”
“I didn’t know everything,” he said. “Just… that you were more than you thought. Your father made me promise—if anything happened to him, I’d help protect what he left behind.”
“You mean me.”
He nodded once.
“You weren’t a mission, Elena. But the mission always led back to you.”
Upstairs – Control Room – 6:16 AM
Liana sat alone, watching the decrypted data flow across multiple monitors. Maps. Labs. Bank trails. Medical scans.
Everything pointed back to one name: Ezra Vale.
But the more she read, the more disturbed she became.
Ezra wasn’t just a rogue analyst or a family friend.
He was the co-architect of Project Helix. The one responsible for designing the memory-trigger algorithms. The same algorithms embedded in Elena’s brain.
A file caught her eye.
Encrypted audio. Labelled:
“VALE_DOSSIER_R-CLASSIFIED”
She clicked it.
Static… then a man’s voice, low and distorted:
“She’s waking up faster than we planned. We’ll need a failsafe.”
“What kind?”
“One she won’t see coming. Someone she trusts. Someone close enough to break her… if necessary.”
Liana’s stomach turned.
She leaned back, eyes wide with realization.
“Oh my god…”
Montreal Safehouse – Back Corridor – 6:32 AM
Elena stood by the window now, watching early snow fall in slow, muffled sheets. Her father was dead. The enemy was alive. And the truth?
The truth was inside her.
Adrian joined her again, this time without speaking.
Just stood beside her, close but not touching.
Then softly, Elena asked:
“If Ezra is still alive, why would he disappear?”
Adrian’s voice was hollow. “Maybe because he knew one day you’d come looking.”
“And now I have.”
She turned to him, eyes full of something between rage and fear.
“What happens next?”
He didn’t blink.
“We burn the rest of the lies.”
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 58. Continue reading Chapter 59 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.