Men Behind The Mask の小説・ストーリー

Looks like Boston is a better place for nerds, considering how they're coming to parties. Curiosity got the best of me as I scrutinised the crowd, searching for the ones my eyes wanted. As my eyes wandered around the crowd, my sight caught a girl, tall for her age in black yoga pants and green sweat shirt. Seriously? who wears that for a party? I gave her a disapproving look. She shook her head, moving her chest nut brown hair and letting it flow through her shoulder, way down her back. As the music changed, she jerked her face around, facing me in the eye.

There was no way. No way that woman was Akayda. “But we still can’t be sure,” I muttered. I picked up another photo. “The lady in the picture is wearing a mask.” Vivian shook her head. A small amused smile touched her lips. “Ooh baby… don’t try to deceive yourself.” She pointed at the image. “It’s just a half mask. You can see her clearly.” Her voice lowered. “The evidence is right in front of you.” I stared down at the photos again.

"Do you take this woman to be your wife, to stand by her through thick and thin?" "I do," the man said, his voice muffled by the mask. The guests whispered in awe. Howard Larson, the Larson family's big shot, was so in love with me that he would not let a bad cold stop our big day. He did not want to disappoint me. "Wait a second." The man's eyes darted around, and his forehead was dotted with sweat. I smiled and asked, "Howard, you're looking a bit pale. Too busy with the wedding to remember your medicine?"

The members here were the city's most powerful—CEOs, politicians, celebrities—all shedding their identities like winter coats. I leaned back against the plush velvet cushions of a semi-private alcove, my fingers loosely tracing the rim of my glass. The soft, black silk mask pressed comfortably against my skin, hiding the frantic, easily flustered CEO who had spent the day shouting about European tech holdings and debating the merits of vegetarian catering. Here, I didn't have to be the brilliant trillionaire heir to the Miller fortune. I didn't have to carry the pressure of thousands of employees on my shoulders. The mask was liberating in a way I'd never anticipated when I first joined.

The girl's eyes water with tears and my heart aches at the site. "Is there a problem my Lady?" A woman in a black dress and black gloves speaks from my side. Her hair is tied in a neat bun at the back of her head, she has a pointed nose and thin lips. Her eyes have tiny wrinkles at the corners and she smiles at me but I don't smile back. The little girls go silent and I hear a them gasp, I look to them and see them all tense as the one who touched me shrinks back into her friends who slightly push her forward.

The video glitched for a heartbeat. “I wasn’t just hiding. I was building a backdoor. Something small enough they wouldn’t notice. A crack in their glass. You just have to break it. Destroy everything here. Every server. Burn it down.” She looked away, then back. “And when it’s gone, don’t let them turn you into another mask. Be real. Be brutal, if you have to. But be alive.” Vivienne lifted something into a red velvet mask, the one she used to wear as Eve. Then a lighter.

He asked, looking very worried as he untied her and removed the duct tape from her mouth. She was basically out of breath and looked like someone who was about to pass out any moment from now. Rosodov hugged her intimately and I looked away. I had always had a feeling that something was going on between them. This wasn’t the time or the place for that, though. These people had to answer for their actions. First of all, I needed to know the real identity. “Take off their masks!” I told my men and they did as I commanded. One by one, the masks came off their faces and I didn’t recognize any of the men. They took the mask off the older woman and I narrowed my eyes at the familiar face. It wasn’

Ruby, upon hearing my voice, looked up from the policewoman's arms, her eyes swimming in tears. Her look was a tangled mess of emotions: fear, shame, but above all, a desperate hope, like she was clinging to a lifeline, and a barely perceptible flicker... A silent question, checking if I was sticking to the plan. Choking back sobs, she reached for me. "Honey... honey..." I moved quickly, brushing past Seth's scorching stare, and wrapped Ruby in my arms, shielding her from the prying lenses with my back, a fortress of protection.

I shake my head, clicking my tongue, “No, I’m alright standing. Thank you.” Taking a deep breath, she starts dropping everything that happened since she disappeared with Frank at the party. She overflows me with an amount of information about the past months that my heart struggles to take. She tells me how she got into a secluded place with the masked stranger but, of course, as she didn’t have the same stupid agreement I had made with Ruggerio, their masks dropped instantaneously. As they were both running fake profiles, they recognized each other immediately and panicked as they realized who they had come to the party with. Being already undressed, Nina was left behind by Frank, who bolte

A silent command. Stand down. The masked woman tilted her head slightly, her posture screaming boredom. "Months of secrecy, elite funding, the best minds money can buy," she drawled, "and this is what you come up with?" A deliberate pause. "And you idiots still can’t get it right?" No one spoke. A ripple of unease swept through the room. Luca's knuckles turned white. And then she did it. She reached up, pressing two fingers to the side of her mask. A faint hiss sounded as the seal unlatched.