Beneath the Billionaire Mask - Chapter 98: Chapter 98
You are reading Beneath the Billionaire Mask, Chapter 98: Chapter 98. Read more chapters of Beneath the Billionaire Mask.
Location: Unknown – 11:32 PM
The silence in the cabin was unnatural. Even the crickets outside seemed to know something was wrong.
Liana stared at the screen. The blue-eyed version of Elena — Subject CR-02 — blinked once from the frozen feed, as if aware she’d been found. Unlike CR-01, there was no trace of vulnerability in her posture. No hesitation. Just clinical calm.
“Where are you?” Liana muttered, fingers darting over the keyboard.
The server was buried deep beneath one of Blackwood’s now-defunct R&D satellite labs in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Active.
Unmonitored.
And… moving.
Her fingers froze.
CR-02: STATUS – OPERATIONAL
LAST SYNC: 2 HOURS AGO
MISSION: NULL
OVERRIDE CODE PENDING…
Suddenly, a message blinked into her inbox.
FROM: UNKNOWN
SUBJECT: SOVEREIGN WAKES
MESSAGE: “The original was the experiment. The second… is the result.”
Her heart dropped.
“Adrian, Elena… you need to see this.”
South Pacific Safehouse – Next Morning
Adrian leaned against the wooden railing, shirt unbuttoned, sunlight brushing across the faded bruises along his jaw. Elena stepped out beside him, hair damp, skin glowing from the salty morning air.
“You’ve been quiet since last night,” she said gently.
“I keep thinking about her… the one we lost.”
Elena exhaled. “She wasn’t you. But she was part of us.”
Adrian nodded slowly. “There’s one last thing I haven’t shown you.”
Her brow lifted.
He stepped inside, motioning to a locked drawer beneath the old study desk. When he opened it, Elena’s breath hitched.
Inside were files stamped with the words:
SOVEREIGN
DO NOT REPLICATE
AUTHORIZED BY: A. BLACKWOOD
Adrian looked at her. “This project started before I ever met you. It was meant to be a way to perfect human instinct—bypass trauma, emotion, guilt. Create an elite force with no moral limits. But I buried it… until someone resurrected it behind my back.”
Elena picked up one of the files. Her own photo was clipped to the front, only her eyes were a pale, icy blue.
“Someone’s trying to replace me.”
“Not replace,” Adrian said. “Erase.”
Just then, his encrypted phone lit up with a message from Liana.
SOVEREIGN is heading to New York.
Your boardroom is compromised.
She’s planning to take Blackwood… from the inside.
Elena looked up, fire rising behind her eyes. “Then we stop her. We end what you started.”
Adrian didn’t blink. “We end everything.”
New York City – Blackwood Tower – Midnight
A black car pulled up to the rear entrance. Out stepped a woman in a tailored navy suit, heels clicking like war drums.
Her eyes? Arctic blue.
Her name tag?
E. CRUZ – SPECIAL BOARD CONSULTANT
And behind her, the building lit up as security doors unlocked one by one.
Sovereign had arrived.
Private Jet – En Route to New York – 2:14 AM
The jet’s cabin was dim, but the air inside it was far from calm.
Elena flipped through the SOVEREIGN files, her jaw tight. Page after page revealed not only her own psychological profile, but detailed predictions of how she would react in love, in betrayal, under pressure—even in heartbreak.
“They mapped me,” she said, not looking up. “They didn’t just copy my face. They anticipated me.”
Adrian sat across from her, staring at a photo of his former board. Men and women who had once pledged allegiance to him—some of whom were now backing Sovereign.
“She doesn’t want to kill me,” he said. “She wants to inherit me. Take the Blackwood name, the company, and rewrite its legacy under her control.”
“And she knows how to manipulate your image. The public trusts her face. My face.”
Adrian’s lips thinned. “That’s why you need to stay behind.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
She stood. “If we don’t go in there together, they’ll never know who’s real.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then gave a slow nod.
“You don’t stay in the shadows anymore,” she said. “Not when they’re using your legacy as a weapon.”
“Then we go in,” he replied. “And burn it all down if we have to.”
Blackwood Tower – Executive Boardroom – 3:08 AM
Sovereign sat at the head of the long obsidian table, her posture regal, unnervingly still. Around her, the remaining board members—those not yet ousted or detained—watched her with reverence. Or fear.
“We need to be the future,” she said, voice calm. “Adrian clung to guilt. I offer clarity. No sentiment. No fragility. Just results.”
A few heads nodded slowly.
Just as she reached for the gavel to formally assume control—
The doors burst open.
Adrian Blackwood walked in like a storm—flanked by Elena and Liana, who held a portable decryption pad.
Gasps. Stunned silence.
Sovereign turned her head.
The two Elenas faced each other.
Same face. Same fire. But one had ice in her veins.
“Impostor,” Sovereign sneered.
“No,” Elena replied, eyes burning. “I’m the woman who earned his trust. Who bled for this company. Who chose humanity over precision.”
“You’re flawed,” Sovereign said.
“I’m real.”
Liana hit a key on the pad.
A hologram lit the room—projecting Sovereign’s classified directives: corporate seizure, elimination of Adrian, and a full neural override of CR-01.
Board members reeled.
One stood. “This is treason.”
Sovereign’s smile vanished.
“I warned you,” Adrian said, stepping forward. “There’s no throne here. Only judgment.”
In a blur, Sovereign leapt forward.
Gun.
Raised.
But Elena was faster.
Two shots rang out.
Sovereign collapsed—glass shattering behind her as her body hit the edge of the boardroom table.
She stared up at the ceiling, her breath ragged, lips curling in something between contempt and recognition.
“I was… perfect,” she whispered.
“No,” Elena said softly, lowering the weapon. “You were planned. I chose.”
Sovereign’s eyes dimmed. Then closed.
Later That Morning – Blackwood Tower Rooftop
Sunrise painted the sky in hues of orange and gold.
Adrian stood at the edge, wind rustling through his coat. Elena stepped beside him.
“It’s done,” he said.
She nodded. “So what happens now?”
Adrian turned to her. “We rebuild. But not just the company. The legacy. With transparency. With truth.”
“And us?” she asked, voice barely audible.
He took her hand.
“We stop hiding. You were never beneath the mask, Elena. You were the reason I took it off.”
She looked at him—truly, fully—and smiled.
Then leaned into his chest as the sun rose higher.
Blackwood Tower Rooftop – 7:21 AM
The first rays of dawn bled over the skyline, casting long shadows behind the two figures at the edge of the rooftop.
Elena’s fingers tightened around Adrian’s.
There was a fragile peace hanging in the air—earned, not given.
But beneath it, something simmered. Something unfinished.
“They’ll come after you,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the horizon. “The press. The investors. The ones who never liked seeing a man like you walk away clean.”
Adrian exhaled slowly. “Then I’ll give them what they want. The full truth. About the Blackwood Program. About Sovereign. About me.”
She turned toward him. “And if that truth destroys you?”
He gave a faint smile. “Then at least I go down on my own terms. Not hidden behind a mask. Not alone.”
Before Elena could respond, Liana stepped onto the rooftop, her tablet in hand.
“They just found the third CR unit,” she said. “The original replication that was never activated.”
Adrian frowned. “Where?”
Liana hesitated. “Here. In the tower. Twenty floors below us. In stasis.”
Elena’s heart stuttered.
“You’re saying…” she began.
“That version of you never woke up,” Liana confirmed. “She was locked away. But if Sovereign uploaded anything into the core AI, it’s there too.”
Adrian looked at Elena, his eyes searching hers. “We finish it. All of it. No more shadows. No more ghosts.”
Sublevel 20 – Blackwood Tower – 7:45 AM
The room was freezing. The CR-01 capsule stood upright—frosted glass, faintly humming.
Inside was her. Same face. Same body. A mirror made of silence.
Elena approached it slowly. She saw the slight rise and fall of breath—she was alive, but unaware. Still dreaming.
Liana whispered, “We could shut it down. Permanently. No pain. No memory.”
Elena shook her head. “No. I want her to wake up. And choose who she wants to be.”
Adrian stared at her. “That’s risky.”
“She deserves the choice I had.”
He nodded once, solemn. “Then we let her wake. And we watch over her.”
Elena pressed a palm to the glass, and for a moment—it felt like closure. A loop slowly folding inward.
Later – Private Broadcast Room – 9:00 AM
Adrian stepped before the camera.
Live feed. Dozens of networks. One truth.
“I’m Adrian Blackwood. And for years, I built an empire on secrets. Today, I unmask them. All of them.”
Elena watched from the wings, her heart in her throat.
Adrian’s voice was steady, but raw. Real. He exposed the experiments. The clones. His complicity. Sovereign’s betrayal. And the future he wanted rebuilt—not with fear, but with accountability.
When it ended, he walked offstage.
The silence between them was weightless this time.
“You just burned it all down,” Elena said softly.
“No,” he replied. “I finally let it breathe.”
She reached for his hand. “So what now?”
Adrian smiled—quietly, vulnerably. “Now… we build something true. Together.”
Blackwood Tower – Adrian’s Penthouse – 12:34 PM
Elena stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the chaos unfold below. News vans were circling the building. Aerial drones buzzed like flies in the morning heat. The world had just heard the truth—and now it wanted blood, answers, and absolution.
Adrian emerged from the next room, changed into a simple black shirt and slacks, no designer labels, no armor of power. Just… him.
“No turning back now,” he said, voice tired but resolute.
Elena turned to him. “You could still run.”
He crossed the room slowly, eyes only on her. “I’m done running. I buried too many parts of myself behind boardrooms, bodyguards, and bulletproof glass. You made me face them. Now I face the world.”
She reached out and touched the edge of his jaw, her fingers tracing the tension still coiled there.
“And if the world doesn’t forgive you?”
“I already forgave myself.”
He kissed her.
Not with desperation. Not with heat.
But with something softer. Something final.
A man letting go of the mask for good.
Meanwhile – Sublevel 20
The CR-01 pod hissed as the systems warmed.
Inside, the alternate Elena’s eyes fluttered open for the first time.
No memories. No identity. Just breath.
Liana stood in the observation chamber, recording biometric data.
“She’s stable,” she said into her comms. “But what she becomes… that’s unknown.”
Julia’s voice crackled back: “So was the real Elena once. And she turned out to be exactly what the world needed.”
Blackwood Foundation Headquarters – 6 Days Later
A new banner hung outside:
TRANSPARENCY. REPAIR. REBIRTH.
Elena stood at the podium beside Adrian.
He’d been cleared of most criminal charges—thanks to the information leak and key witness testimonies. The foundation had been turned over to a civilian board. And the Sovereign project was dismantled, every clone given a legal path to identity and autonomy.
Today wasn’t about power.
It was about peace.
Elena adjusted the mic and said to the crowd:
“Truth doesn’t destroy the future. Hiding it does.”
Applause.
Adrian turned to her as the crowd roared on.
“You really are dangerous,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Only to the parts of you that needed to die.”
That Night – Blackwood’s Private Island
Waves whispered against the shore. Stars broke over the water like diamonds.
Adrian and Elena lay side by side on a hammock, the silence warm and unburdened.
“No more secrets,” he said.
“No more masks,” she replied.
They didn’t speak of what was next.
Because for the first time… they had forever to figure it out.
The silence in the cabin was unnatural. Even the crickets outside seemed to know something was wrong.
Liana stared at the screen. The blue-eyed version of Elena — Subject CR-02 — blinked once from the frozen feed, as if aware she’d been found. Unlike CR-01, there was no trace of vulnerability in her posture. No hesitation. Just clinical calm.
“Where are you?” Liana muttered, fingers darting over the keyboard.
The server was buried deep beneath one of Blackwood’s now-defunct R&D satellite labs in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Active.
Unmonitored.
And… moving.
Her fingers froze.
CR-02: STATUS – OPERATIONAL
LAST SYNC: 2 HOURS AGO
MISSION: NULL
OVERRIDE CODE PENDING…
Suddenly, a message blinked into her inbox.
FROM: UNKNOWN
SUBJECT: SOVEREIGN WAKES
MESSAGE: “The original was the experiment. The second… is the result.”
Her heart dropped.
“Adrian, Elena… you need to see this.”
South Pacific Safehouse – Next Morning
Adrian leaned against the wooden railing, shirt unbuttoned, sunlight brushing across the faded bruises along his jaw. Elena stepped out beside him, hair damp, skin glowing from the salty morning air.
“You’ve been quiet since last night,” she said gently.
“I keep thinking about her… the one we lost.”
Elena exhaled. “She wasn’t you. But she was part of us.”
Adrian nodded slowly. “There’s one last thing I haven’t shown you.”
Her brow lifted.
He stepped inside, motioning to a locked drawer beneath the old study desk. When he opened it, Elena’s breath hitched.
Inside were files stamped with the words:
SOVEREIGN
DO NOT REPLICATE
AUTHORIZED BY: A. BLACKWOOD
Adrian looked at her. “This project started before I ever met you. It was meant to be a way to perfect human instinct—bypass trauma, emotion, guilt. Create an elite force with no moral limits. But I buried it… until someone resurrected it behind my back.”
Elena picked up one of the files. Her own photo was clipped to the front, only her eyes were a pale, icy blue.
“Someone’s trying to replace me.”
“Not replace,” Adrian said. “Erase.”
Just then, his encrypted phone lit up with a message from Liana.
SOVEREIGN is heading to New York.
Your boardroom is compromised.
She’s planning to take Blackwood… from the inside.
Elena looked up, fire rising behind her eyes. “Then we stop her. We end what you started.”
Adrian didn’t blink. “We end everything.”
New York City – Blackwood Tower – Midnight
A black car pulled up to the rear entrance. Out stepped a woman in a tailored navy suit, heels clicking like war drums.
Her eyes? Arctic blue.
Her name tag?
E. CRUZ – SPECIAL BOARD CONSULTANT
And behind her, the building lit up as security doors unlocked one by one.
Sovereign had arrived.
Private Jet – En Route to New York – 2:14 AM
The jet’s cabin was dim, but the air inside it was far from calm.
Elena flipped through the SOVEREIGN files, her jaw tight. Page after page revealed not only her own psychological profile, but detailed predictions of how she would react in love, in betrayal, under pressure—even in heartbreak.
“They mapped me,” she said, not looking up. “They didn’t just copy my face. They anticipated me.”
Adrian sat across from her, staring at a photo of his former board. Men and women who had once pledged allegiance to him—some of whom were now backing Sovereign.
“She doesn’t want to kill me,” he said. “She wants to inherit me. Take the Blackwood name, the company, and rewrite its legacy under her control.”
“And she knows how to manipulate your image. The public trusts her face. My face.”
Adrian’s lips thinned. “That’s why you need to stay behind.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
She stood. “If we don’t go in there together, they’ll never know who’s real.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then gave a slow nod.
“You don’t stay in the shadows anymore,” she said. “Not when they’re using your legacy as a weapon.”
“Then we go in,” he replied. “And burn it all down if we have to.”
Blackwood Tower – Executive Boardroom – 3:08 AM
Sovereign sat at the head of the long obsidian table, her posture regal, unnervingly still. Around her, the remaining board members—those not yet ousted or detained—watched her with reverence. Or fear.
“We need to be the future,” she said, voice calm. “Adrian clung to guilt. I offer clarity. No sentiment. No fragility. Just results.”
A few heads nodded slowly.
Just as she reached for the gavel to formally assume control—
The doors burst open.
Adrian Blackwood walked in like a storm—flanked by Elena and Liana, who held a portable decryption pad.
Gasps. Stunned silence.
Sovereign turned her head.
The two Elenas faced each other.
Same face. Same fire. But one had ice in her veins.
“Impostor,” Sovereign sneered.
“No,” Elena replied, eyes burning. “I’m the woman who earned his trust. Who bled for this company. Who chose humanity over precision.”
“You’re flawed,” Sovereign said.
“I’m real.”
Liana hit a key on the pad.
A hologram lit the room—projecting Sovereign’s classified directives: corporate seizure, elimination of Adrian, and a full neural override of CR-01.
Board members reeled.
One stood. “This is treason.”
Sovereign’s smile vanished.
“I warned you,” Adrian said, stepping forward. “There’s no throne here. Only judgment.”
In a blur, Sovereign leapt forward.
Gun.
Raised.
But Elena was faster.
Two shots rang out.
Sovereign collapsed—glass shattering behind her as her body hit the edge of the boardroom table.
She stared up at the ceiling, her breath ragged, lips curling in something between contempt and recognition.
“I was… perfect,” she whispered.
“No,” Elena said softly, lowering the weapon. “You were planned. I chose.”
Sovereign’s eyes dimmed. Then closed.
Later That Morning – Blackwood Tower Rooftop
Sunrise painted the sky in hues of orange and gold.
Adrian stood at the edge, wind rustling through his coat. Elena stepped beside him.
“It’s done,” he said.
She nodded. “So what happens now?”
Adrian turned to her. “We rebuild. But not just the company. The legacy. With transparency. With truth.”
“And us?” she asked, voice barely audible.
He took her hand.
“We stop hiding. You were never beneath the mask, Elena. You were the reason I took it off.”
She looked at him—truly, fully—and smiled.
Then leaned into his chest as the sun rose higher.
Blackwood Tower Rooftop – 7:21 AM
The first rays of dawn bled over the skyline, casting long shadows behind the two figures at the edge of the rooftop.
Elena’s fingers tightened around Adrian’s.
There was a fragile peace hanging in the air—earned, not given.
But beneath it, something simmered. Something unfinished.
“They’ll come after you,” she murmured, eyes fixed on the horizon. “The press. The investors. The ones who never liked seeing a man like you walk away clean.”
Adrian exhaled slowly. “Then I’ll give them what they want. The full truth. About the Blackwood Program. About Sovereign. About me.”
She turned toward him. “And if that truth destroys you?”
He gave a faint smile. “Then at least I go down on my own terms. Not hidden behind a mask. Not alone.”
Before Elena could respond, Liana stepped onto the rooftop, her tablet in hand.
“They just found the third CR unit,” she said. “The original replication that was never activated.”
Adrian frowned. “Where?”
Liana hesitated. “Here. In the tower. Twenty floors below us. In stasis.”
Elena’s heart stuttered.
“You’re saying…” she began.
“That version of you never woke up,” Liana confirmed. “She was locked away. But if Sovereign uploaded anything into the core AI, it’s there too.”
Adrian looked at Elena, his eyes searching hers. “We finish it. All of it. No more shadows. No more ghosts.”
Sublevel 20 – Blackwood Tower – 7:45 AM
The room was freezing. The CR-01 capsule stood upright—frosted glass, faintly humming.
Inside was her. Same face. Same body. A mirror made of silence.
Elena approached it slowly. She saw the slight rise and fall of breath—she was alive, but unaware. Still dreaming.
Liana whispered, “We could shut it down. Permanently. No pain. No memory.”
Elena shook her head. “No. I want her to wake up. And choose who she wants to be.”
Adrian stared at her. “That’s risky.”
“She deserves the choice I had.”
He nodded once, solemn. “Then we let her wake. And we watch over her.”
Elena pressed a palm to the glass, and for a moment—it felt like closure. A loop slowly folding inward.
Later – Private Broadcast Room – 9:00 AM
Adrian stepped before the camera.
Live feed. Dozens of networks. One truth.
“I’m Adrian Blackwood. And for years, I built an empire on secrets. Today, I unmask them. All of them.”
Elena watched from the wings, her heart in her throat.
Adrian’s voice was steady, but raw. Real. He exposed the experiments. The clones. His complicity. Sovereign’s betrayal. And the future he wanted rebuilt—not with fear, but with accountability.
When it ended, he walked offstage.
The silence between them was weightless this time.
“You just burned it all down,” Elena said softly.
“No,” he replied. “I finally let it breathe.”
She reached for his hand. “So what now?”
Adrian smiled—quietly, vulnerably. “Now… we build something true. Together.”
Blackwood Tower – Adrian’s Penthouse – 12:34 PM
Elena stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the chaos unfold below. News vans were circling the building. Aerial drones buzzed like flies in the morning heat. The world had just heard the truth—and now it wanted blood, answers, and absolution.
Adrian emerged from the next room, changed into a simple black shirt and slacks, no designer labels, no armor of power. Just… him.
“No turning back now,” he said, voice tired but resolute.
Elena turned to him. “You could still run.”
He crossed the room slowly, eyes only on her. “I’m done running. I buried too many parts of myself behind boardrooms, bodyguards, and bulletproof glass. You made me face them. Now I face the world.”
She reached out and touched the edge of his jaw, her fingers tracing the tension still coiled there.
“And if the world doesn’t forgive you?”
“I already forgave myself.”
He kissed her.
Not with desperation. Not with heat.
But with something softer. Something final.
A man letting go of the mask for good.
Meanwhile – Sublevel 20
The CR-01 pod hissed as the systems warmed.
Inside, the alternate Elena’s eyes fluttered open for the first time.
No memories. No identity. Just breath.
Liana stood in the observation chamber, recording biometric data.
“She’s stable,” she said into her comms. “But what she becomes… that’s unknown.”
Julia’s voice crackled back: “So was the real Elena once. And she turned out to be exactly what the world needed.”
Blackwood Foundation Headquarters – 6 Days Later
A new banner hung outside:
TRANSPARENCY. REPAIR. REBIRTH.
Elena stood at the podium beside Adrian.
He’d been cleared of most criminal charges—thanks to the information leak and key witness testimonies. The foundation had been turned over to a civilian board. And the Sovereign project was dismantled, every clone given a legal path to identity and autonomy.
Today wasn’t about power.
It was about peace.
Elena adjusted the mic and said to the crowd:
“Truth doesn’t destroy the future. Hiding it does.”
Applause.
Adrian turned to her as the crowd roared on.
“You really are dangerous,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Only to the parts of you that needed to die.”
That Night – Blackwood’s Private Island
Waves whispered against the shore. Stars broke over the water like diamonds.
Adrian and Elena lay side by side on a hammock, the silence warm and unburdened.
“No more secrets,” he said.
“No more masks,” she replied.
They didn’t speak of what was next.
Because for the first time… they had forever to figure it out.
End of Beneath the Billionaire Mask Chapter 98. Continue reading Chapter 99 or return to Beneath the Billionaire Mask book page.