Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 70: Chapter 70
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 70: Chapter 70. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Geneva – 9:47 AM – Safehouse Compound
Elena stood beneath the glass dome of the mountain-side observatory, the Black Archive tablet in her hands glowing like a live pulse. Names flickered across the screen—ones they’d buried, ones that had hunted them, and one that had just resurfaced.
Marcus Vale.
Dead… but not gone.
Adrian entered the room, tension riding his posture. He’d discarded his tailored armor in favor of something simpler—dark denim, a worn leather jacket. He looked almost human. Almost at peace.
“Liana just confirmed it,” he said quietly. “Node 9 lit up. They found Marcus’s signature embedded in a third-party relay. He’s alive. Off-grid. And building something new.”
Elena didn’t look up. “Project: NIGHTFALL?”
Adrian nodded. “It’s not just a continuation. It’s a weaponized version of CR-01. Portable. Scalable. And it’s already been tested.”
She turned now, fire dancing in her eyes. “Where?”
A pause. Then: “Jakarta.”
Elena’s jaw tightened. “And casualties?”
“Seventeen. All journalists.”
Silence stretched.
“Then we finish it,” she said. “No more shadows. No more masks. We end Marcus Vale.”
Elsewhere – Undisclosed Location – Same Time
Marcus stood before a wall of displays—each screen showing biometric data, traffic cams, decrypted intel feeds. At his side stood a girl no older than fifteen, her eyes blank. Her pulse slow. Her body… obedient.
“CR-09 was always my favorite,” he murmured, brushing her hair back.
He turned to the camera.
“She’ll come for me,” he said. “Let her.”
He smiled.
“I want her to see what I’ve made of her legacy.”
Back in Geneva – Safehouse War Room – 10:12 AM
Liana slammed the schematic down on the table. “You want to go after Marcus in his own terrain? Fine. But understand something—this isn’t vengeance anymore. It’s a reckoning. And there’s no backup coming.”
Elena glanced at Adrian. “We never had backup.”
He gave a small, knowing smile. “Only each other.”
Liana rolled her eyes. “Ugh. I’m surrounded by emotionally wounded vigilantes.”
“But we’re effective,” Adrian said.
A beat.
Then Liana pulled out three burner phones. “You leave in five hours. Wheels up for Jakarta.”
Adrian met Elena’s gaze. “You ready?”
Her reply was immediate.
“I was built for this.”
Private Jet — En Route to Jakarta — 3:26 PM
The turbulence did little to shake Elena. She sat rigid in the leather seat, hands wrapped around a chipped metal flash drive—one of the last remnants of her father’s code. Her reflection wavered in the window beside her, but her thoughts were a thousand miles ahead.
Adrian sat across from her, reviewing encrypted schematics pulled from the clone lab in Geneva. “We’ll touch down in two hours,” he said, not looking up. “We go in quiet. No comms. No trail.”
Elena nodded. “You think Marcus knows we’re coming?”
“I think Marcus wants us to.”
Liana chimed in from the cockpit doorway. “I picked up something weird on the last frequency scan—coded pulses from an abandoned telecommunications tower. East Jakarta. Low band. Could be nothing… or could be a trap.”
“Either way,” Elena said, slipping the flash drive into her pocket, “we spring it.”
Adrian arched a brow. “You always run toward the fire?”
“Only when it’s mine to finish.”
Jakarta – Ex-Comm Tower Perimeter – 11:03 PM
The compound was silent—too silent.
Elena crept forward through a maze of rusted satellite dishes and scaffolding, with Adrian flanking left and Liana providing overwatch from a sniper perch above.
“Three heat signatures on level two,” Liana whispered through their encrypted link. “One’s pacing. One’s strapped to what looks like a chair. Third’s not moving. Could be Vale. Could be bait.”
Elena took point, pressing her back to the cracked concrete wall. Her heartbeat synced with the countdown in her head.
Five… four… three
A scream echoed from inside.
They moved.
Inside – Experimental Wing
The door burst open. Adrian swept in first, weapon raised. The room was filled with screens… and a girl, maybe fourteen, shaking violently in the chair, wires drilled into her spine.
She looked up at Elena.
“Help…” she rasped. “They made me like you.”
Elena’s breath hitched. “What’s your name?”
The girl blinked. “CR-10.”
Adrian’s voice was grim. “She’s connected to the server. This entire wing is pulsing with signal. Marcus is streaming through her.”
Suddenly, the girl smiled—but it wasn’t hers.
It was his.
Marcus’s voice poured from her throat. “Elena. You’re here. And right on time.”
The screens flashed white.
Then black.
Then:
INITIATING: NIGHTFALL PROTOCOL
Adrian lunged for the cord.
But it was too late.
Experimental Wing – Tower Collapse – 11:12 PM
The darkness wasn’t just an absence of light. It was pulsing, coded—alive.
Adrian hit the ground hard, shielding Elena as sparks rained from the overhead power conduits. The scream of metal shearing echoed as a support beam crashed inches from them.
“Elena!” Liana’s voice crackled in the comms, static-laced. “You’ve got sixty seconds. The whole place is rigged to go offline—permanently.”
Adrian dragged himself upright, reaching for CR-10—still slumped, her body twitching from the neural overload.
“She’s a live wire now,” he muttered. “That burst activated something in her neural net.”
Elena knelt, staring into the terrified eyes of the clone. “Tell me where he is. Where’s Marcus?”
The girl’s lips trembled. “Everywhere.”
A loud whir kicked in—a hidden countdown displayed across the monitors:
Server Purge In: 00:58… 00:57… 00:56…
Adrian’s fists clenched. “He’s not just launching the protocol. He’s wiping his tracks. If we don’t get what’s in this server now, it’s gone forever.”
Elena’s eyes snapped to the main terminal. “Then we download it straight to the chip.”
She shoved the flash drive her father created into the port. It blinked once, twice… then started siphoning data.
Thirty seconds left.
“Elena, now!” Adrian growled.
The walls began to crack. CR-10 cried out—somewhere between human and static. “He said I’d burn first. He said I was his message to you…”
Elena hesitated. “We can’t leave her.”
Adrian didn’t blink. “We won’t.”
He tore the cables from CR-10’s back, scooped her up, and ran—Elena behind him with the chip still in hand.
Server Purge In: 00:07… 00:06…
Liana’s voice again. “I’ve got a clean path! Northeast hallway—window to the service chute!”
They dove.
00:03… 00:02… 00:01…
The tower erupted in a wave of white heat behind them.
Jakarta Jungle Perimeter – 12:03 AM
They emerged into the thick canopy, coughing on smoke and adrenaline. CR-10 was breathing—barely. The flash drive was intact.
Adrian dropped to his knees, winded. “Tell me we got it.”
Elena pulled the drive from her pocket, still hot.
She nodded, jaw tight. “We got it.”
But her gaze was distant.
Because on the last screen she saw before the purge, one phrase had burned itself into her memory:
SLEEPWALKER PROTOCOL: INITIATED IN SUBJECT CR-02
And she was CR-02.
Undisclosed Safehouse – Outskirts of Jakarta – 1:47 AM
Rain battered the rusted roof of the safehouse as if trying to warn them that nothing would ever be normal again.
Elena sat by CR-10’s side, a wet cloth in her hand, gently wiping sweat from the girl’s pale skin. She hadn’t spoken since they pulled her from the collapsing tower. Her small chest rose and fell in shallow, painful breaths. A machine beeped quietly beside her—one of the last portable med units Liana salvaged.
“She’s stabilizing,” Liana said from the shadows. “For now.”
Elena nodded, silent.
Adrian stood by the door, his face unreadable, arms crossed. He hadn’t spoken much either—not since Elena told him what she saw flash on the terminal: CR-02. Her designation. Her truth.
“Say it,” Elena said finally, not turning. “Say what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking,” Adrian said slowly, “that if you’re right… and Marcus already triggered Sleepwalker in you…”
She looked up, eyes hollow. “Then I’m not the same person anymore.”
Adrian stepped forward, kneeling. “No. You’re more. You’re someone who still chose to fight. Someone who still chose us. Whatever they programmed… you rewrote it. You’re not just CR-02.”
She swallowed hard, her voice fragile. “Then who am I?”
“You’re Elena Cruz,” he said firmly. “And you don’t need a code to be dangerous.”
The moment sat heavy between them—until Liana walked in holding the drive Elena saved.
“The clone registry files weren’t the only thing downloaded,” she said, handing it over.
Elena took it, confused. “What else?”
Liana’s eyes narrowed. “A partial map of the Black Archive’s hidden directory. Stuff not even Guillermo knew existed.”
Adrian stepped closer. “What’s in it?”
Liana’s voice dropped.
“Coordinates. Buried deep under Zurich. Labeled: PROJECT: LEGION.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
But Elena only asked one question:
“What if I wasn’t the first Elena… and I’m not the last?”
Undisclosed Safehouse – Underground Medical Bay – 3:11 AM
The hum of the generator echoed faintly as dim yellow lights flickered overhead. CR-10 lay unconscious on a narrow cot, her skin pallid under the harsh fluorescents. Electrodes lined her temples, tracking every brainwave. But the readings on the screen beside her were wrong—too fast, too sharp.
Too familiar.
Elena stared at the monitor, her throat dry.
“This pattern,” she murmured, pointing to the neural spikes. “They match mine from the last scan.”
Liana’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I thought so too. I overlaid both graphs.”
The two sets of readings synced… perfectly.
“She’s not just like me,” Elena whispered. “She’s syncing to me. Like… a failsafe. A mirror.”
Liana looked up, serious now. “Or a backup.”
Adrian leaned in the doorway, the words hitting like a punch. “If Marcus couldn’t control you anymore, he had CR-10 as a shadow version… someone easier to trigger.”
Elena’s gaze went cold. “That’s why she called me ‘the original.’”
A long silence.
Then CR-10 gasped—sharp, rattling. Her eyes flew open.
“Elena?” she croaked.
“I’m here,” Elena said, gripping her hand.
“You have to stop it,” CR-10 said through gritted teeth. “He’s not just watching. He’s inside.”
Elena tensed. “Inside what?”
“The code. The drives. The neural link. You thought you shut down Project Nightfall, but that was just Phase One.”
Adrian stepped forward. “Then what’s Phase Two?”
CR-10’s pupils dilated.
And she whispered:
“Project Legion isn’t about controlling you… it’s about replacing you.”
Elena stood beneath the glass dome of the mountain-side observatory, the Black Archive tablet in her hands glowing like a live pulse. Names flickered across the screen—ones they’d buried, ones that had hunted them, and one that had just resurfaced.
Marcus Vale.
Dead… but not gone.
Adrian entered the room, tension riding his posture. He’d discarded his tailored armor in favor of something simpler—dark denim, a worn leather jacket. He looked almost human. Almost at peace.
“Liana just confirmed it,” he said quietly. “Node 9 lit up. They found Marcus’s signature embedded in a third-party relay. He’s alive. Off-grid. And building something new.”
Elena didn’t look up. “Project: NIGHTFALL?”
Adrian nodded. “It’s not just a continuation. It’s a weaponized version of CR-01. Portable. Scalable. And it’s already been tested.”
She turned now, fire dancing in her eyes. “Where?”
A pause. Then: “Jakarta.”
Elena’s jaw tightened. “And casualties?”
“Seventeen. All journalists.”
Silence stretched.
“Then we finish it,” she said. “No more shadows. No more masks. We end Marcus Vale.”
Elsewhere – Undisclosed Location – Same Time
Marcus stood before a wall of displays—each screen showing biometric data, traffic cams, decrypted intel feeds. At his side stood a girl no older than fifteen, her eyes blank. Her pulse slow. Her body… obedient.
“CR-09 was always my favorite,” he murmured, brushing her hair back.
He turned to the camera.
“She’ll come for me,” he said. “Let her.”
He smiled.
“I want her to see what I’ve made of her legacy.”
Back in Geneva – Safehouse War Room – 10:12 AM
Liana slammed the schematic down on the table. “You want to go after Marcus in his own terrain? Fine. But understand something—this isn’t vengeance anymore. It’s a reckoning. And there’s no backup coming.”
Elena glanced at Adrian. “We never had backup.”
He gave a small, knowing smile. “Only each other.”
Liana rolled her eyes. “Ugh. I’m surrounded by emotionally wounded vigilantes.”
“But we’re effective,” Adrian said.
A beat.
Then Liana pulled out three burner phones. “You leave in five hours. Wheels up for Jakarta.”
Adrian met Elena’s gaze. “You ready?”
Her reply was immediate.
“I was built for this.”
Private Jet — En Route to Jakarta — 3:26 PM
The turbulence did little to shake Elena. She sat rigid in the leather seat, hands wrapped around a chipped metal flash drive—one of the last remnants of her father’s code. Her reflection wavered in the window beside her, but her thoughts were a thousand miles ahead.
Adrian sat across from her, reviewing encrypted schematics pulled from the clone lab in Geneva. “We’ll touch down in two hours,” he said, not looking up. “We go in quiet. No comms. No trail.”
Elena nodded. “You think Marcus knows we’re coming?”
“I think Marcus wants us to.”
Liana chimed in from the cockpit doorway. “I picked up something weird on the last frequency scan—coded pulses from an abandoned telecommunications tower. East Jakarta. Low band. Could be nothing… or could be a trap.”
“Either way,” Elena said, slipping the flash drive into her pocket, “we spring it.”
Adrian arched a brow. “You always run toward the fire?”
“Only when it’s mine to finish.”
Jakarta – Ex-Comm Tower Perimeter – 11:03 PM
The compound was silent—too silent.
Elena crept forward through a maze of rusted satellite dishes and scaffolding, with Adrian flanking left and Liana providing overwatch from a sniper perch above.
“Three heat signatures on level two,” Liana whispered through their encrypted link. “One’s pacing. One’s strapped to what looks like a chair. Third’s not moving. Could be Vale. Could be bait.”
Elena took point, pressing her back to the cracked concrete wall. Her heartbeat synced with the countdown in her head.
Five… four… three
A scream echoed from inside.
They moved.
Inside – Experimental Wing
The door burst open. Adrian swept in first, weapon raised. The room was filled with screens… and a girl, maybe fourteen, shaking violently in the chair, wires drilled into her spine.
She looked up at Elena.
“Help…” she rasped. “They made me like you.”
Elena’s breath hitched. “What’s your name?”
The girl blinked. “CR-10.”
Adrian’s voice was grim. “She’s connected to the server. This entire wing is pulsing with signal. Marcus is streaming through her.”
Suddenly, the girl smiled—but it wasn’t hers.
It was his.
Marcus’s voice poured from her throat. “Elena. You’re here. And right on time.”
The screens flashed white.
Then black.
Then:
INITIATING: NIGHTFALL PROTOCOL
Adrian lunged for the cord.
But it was too late.
Experimental Wing – Tower Collapse – 11:12 PM
The darkness wasn’t just an absence of light. It was pulsing, coded—alive.
Adrian hit the ground hard, shielding Elena as sparks rained from the overhead power conduits. The scream of metal shearing echoed as a support beam crashed inches from them.
“Elena!” Liana’s voice crackled in the comms, static-laced. “You’ve got sixty seconds. The whole place is rigged to go offline—permanently.”
Adrian dragged himself upright, reaching for CR-10—still slumped, her body twitching from the neural overload.
“She’s a live wire now,” he muttered. “That burst activated something in her neural net.”
Elena knelt, staring into the terrified eyes of the clone. “Tell me where he is. Where’s Marcus?”
The girl’s lips trembled. “Everywhere.”
A loud whir kicked in—a hidden countdown displayed across the monitors:
Server Purge In: 00:58… 00:57… 00:56…
Adrian’s fists clenched. “He’s not just launching the protocol. He’s wiping his tracks. If we don’t get what’s in this server now, it’s gone forever.”
Elena’s eyes snapped to the main terminal. “Then we download it straight to the chip.”
She shoved the flash drive her father created into the port. It blinked once, twice… then started siphoning data.
Thirty seconds left.
“Elena, now!” Adrian growled.
The walls began to crack. CR-10 cried out—somewhere between human and static. “He said I’d burn first. He said I was his message to you…”
Elena hesitated. “We can’t leave her.”
Adrian didn’t blink. “We won’t.”
He tore the cables from CR-10’s back, scooped her up, and ran—Elena behind him with the chip still in hand.
Server Purge In: 00:07… 00:06…
Liana’s voice again. “I’ve got a clean path! Northeast hallway—window to the service chute!”
They dove.
00:03… 00:02… 00:01…
The tower erupted in a wave of white heat behind them.
Jakarta Jungle Perimeter – 12:03 AM
They emerged into the thick canopy, coughing on smoke and adrenaline. CR-10 was breathing—barely. The flash drive was intact.
Adrian dropped to his knees, winded. “Tell me we got it.”
Elena pulled the drive from her pocket, still hot.
She nodded, jaw tight. “We got it.”
But her gaze was distant.
Because on the last screen she saw before the purge, one phrase had burned itself into her memory:
SLEEPWALKER PROTOCOL: INITIATED IN SUBJECT CR-02
And she was CR-02.
Undisclosed Safehouse – Outskirts of Jakarta – 1:47 AM
Rain battered the rusted roof of the safehouse as if trying to warn them that nothing would ever be normal again.
Elena sat by CR-10’s side, a wet cloth in her hand, gently wiping sweat from the girl’s pale skin. She hadn’t spoken since they pulled her from the collapsing tower. Her small chest rose and fell in shallow, painful breaths. A machine beeped quietly beside her—one of the last portable med units Liana salvaged.
“She’s stabilizing,” Liana said from the shadows. “For now.”
Elena nodded, silent.
Adrian stood by the door, his face unreadable, arms crossed. He hadn’t spoken much either—not since Elena told him what she saw flash on the terminal: CR-02. Her designation. Her truth.
“Say it,” Elena said finally, not turning. “Say what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking,” Adrian said slowly, “that if you’re right… and Marcus already triggered Sleepwalker in you…”
She looked up, eyes hollow. “Then I’m not the same person anymore.”
Adrian stepped forward, kneeling. “No. You’re more. You’re someone who still chose to fight. Someone who still chose us. Whatever they programmed… you rewrote it. You’re not just CR-02.”
She swallowed hard, her voice fragile. “Then who am I?”
“You’re Elena Cruz,” he said firmly. “And you don’t need a code to be dangerous.”
The moment sat heavy between them—until Liana walked in holding the drive Elena saved.
“The clone registry files weren’t the only thing downloaded,” she said, handing it over.
Elena took it, confused. “What else?”
Liana’s eyes narrowed. “A partial map of the Black Archive’s hidden directory. Stuff not even Guillermo knew existed.”
Adrian stepped closer. “What’s in it?”
Liana’s voice dropped.
“Coordinates. Buried deep under Zurich. Labeled: PROJECT: LEGION.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
But Elena only asked one question:
“What if I wasn’t the first Elena… and I’m not the last?”
Undisclosed Safehouse – Underground Medical Bay – 3:11 AM
The hum of the generator echoed faintly as dim yellow lights flickered overhead. CR-10 lay unconscious on a narrow cot, her skin pallid under the harsh fluorescents. Electrodes lined her temples, tracking every brainwave. But the readings on the screen beside her were wrong—too fast, too sharp.
Too familiar.
Elena stared at the monitor, her throat dry.
“This pattern,” she murmured, pointing to the neural spikes. “They match mine from the last scan.”
Liana’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I thought so too. I overlaid both graphs.”
The two sets of readings synced… perfectly.
“She’s not just like me,” Elena whispered. “She’s syncing to me. Like… a failsafe. A mirror.”
Liana looked up, serious now. “Or a backup.”
Adrian leaned in the doorway, the words hitting like a punch. “If Marcus couldn’t control you anymore, he had CR-10 as a shadow version… someone easier to trigger.”
Elena’s gaze went cold. “That’s why she called me ‘the original.’”
A long silence.
Then CR-10 gasped—sharp, rattling. Her eyes flew open.
“Elena?” she croaked.
“I’m here,” Elena said, gripping her hand.
“You have to stop it,” CR-10 said through gritted teeth. “He’s not just watching. He’s inside.”
Elena tensed. “Inside what?”
“The code. The drives. The neural link. You thought you shut down Project Nightfall, but that was just Phase One.”
Adrian stepped forward. “Then what’s Phase Two?”
CR-10’s pupils dilated.
And she whispered:
“Project Legion isn’t about controlling you… it’s about replacing you.”
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 70. Continue reading Chapter 71 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.