Semua Bab Masked By Millions : Bab 11 - Bab 20

Zara didn’t cry.She didn’t scream or slam doors. Instead, she stared at Alec like she didn’t recognize him. Like the man who had become her sanctuary had never really existed. The USB drive sat on the coffee table between them, as if mocking them both.“I need you to say it,” she said finally. Her voice wasn’t shaky—it was terrifyingly calm. “Tell me that wasn’t you.”Alec looked wrecked. Disheveled. Haunted. He didn’t answer immediately, and that pause was a wrecking ball to what little trust remained.“It was manipulated,” he said. “Taken out of context.”Her eyes didn’t waver. “But those are your words.”Alec stepped forward. “Juliette was unraveling. She wanted to build this fake charity to clean dirty money from a biotech company her father had been tied to. I told her it was dangerous. I tried to stop her—”“But you were involved.”“I was trying to protect her. I buried things I shouldn’t have, and now Juliette’s using that truth to destroy us.”Zara laughed bitterly. “She’s no

Juliette didn’t leave quietly.By the time Zara returned to her penthouse the next morning, the damage had begun.Her email was flooded. Her social accounts locked. Sponsors pulled partnerships. A smear campaign rolled out like clockwork—surgical, brutal, and undeniably Juliette’s handiwork.She hadn’t just fired back. She’d set the battlefield ablaze.Roman barged into Zara’s apartment an hour later, looking like he hadn’t slept in days.“She has dirt, Z. On you. On Alec. Even on me.”Zara arched a brow. “You didn’t think she’d keep receipts?”“I thought we had time.”“We don’t,” she said flatly. “We never did.”She pushed her laptop toward him. “Help me trace the shell corporations. There’s something buried in these that matters more than optics.”Roman pulled up a chair. “If she’s this organized, she’s already planned her next move.”“She wants me humiliated,” Zara murmured. “She’s going after the one thing I care about more than Maddox.”Roman glanced sideways. “Alec?”“No,” she w

The wind off the Seine carried the scent of history—wet stone, ancient betrayal, and old money. Zara Milli Lane stood on the balcony of the Montmartre loft, eyes trained on the spire of the Sacré-Cœur as dawn filtered over the city. Her breath fogged in the morning chill, but she didn’t move. Not until Alec pulled the door open behind her.“Devereaux moved again,” he said quietly. “Private jet. Marrakech to a villa outside Geneva.”“Running,” she muttered. “He’s scared.”“No. He’s resetting the chessboard.”Zara turned to him, her expression carved from stone. “Then let’s flip the board.”The drive to Geneva was six hours. Roman stayed behind to dissect the USB and decrypt the ledger they’d uncovered—every file pointing to a syndicate called La Voûte, an underground financial empire older than any one person. Devereaux was just one of its gatekeepers.“Are you sure you’re ready to see him?” Alec asked as they neared the Swiss border.“I’m not here to see him. I’m here to kill the myth

Zara’s blood turned to ice.There were no guards. No glass separating them. No alarms screaming her presence. Just the eerie stillness of an audience-less theater, and Juliette seated beneath a solitary spotlight with a crooked smile stitched across her pale face.A trap.Zara felt it in her bones. Alec’s hand twitched toward his weapon. Roman’s footsteps stopped behind her.“Something’s wrong,” Alec murmured.“Everything’s wrong,” Zara whispered.Juliette hadn’t moved. Her arms were relaxed over the velvet chair’s armrests, her posture too perfect, too deliberate. Her smile—it wasn’t joy or relief.It was… defiance.“She’s wired,” Roman said, scanning the area through his tactical lens. “Not just audio. Her entire chair is laced with explosives. Pressure-activated.”“She’s bait,” Alec hissed.Zara stepped closer anyway.“Zara,” Roman warned, “this is designed to blow if you touch her.”Zara didn’t stop. Juliette’s eyes followed her, slow and steady, filled with something unreadable.

The silence in the chopper was thick.Zara sat across from the clone—Milli, her mirror. The girl hadn’t spoken since they lifted off. Her eyes scanned everything, absorbing every sound, every breath. Alec sat beside Zara, his fingers brushing hers every few minutes, grounding her. Roman flew the chopper in grim silence, weaving through the icy wind as if chased by ghosts.Zara leaned back, exhausted but wired. The vault was gone, but she felt like she’d stepped into a deeper kind of trap. Clones, codes, sealed vaults—this was no longer about fake identities or broken billionaire disguises.This was war.“We need to land soon,” Roman called. “Fuel’s tight.”Alec glanced at the map. “There’s a safe house five clicks south—old Russian research post. Deactivated since ‘98.”Zara nodded. “Do it.”They touched down an hour later, the chopper groaning as it settled beside a snow-buried compound.Inside, the lab was gutted but dry. Heat flickered back to life after Alec rerouted a generator,