Chapter 9: The Last Mask
---
Three days after the broadcast, the world was still on fire.
The news cycle hadn't stopped spinning since Grant Corp dropped the Persephone files. Overnight, my name transformed from whispered controversy to public reckoning. Debates raged across every platform:
***
"How much did Lily know?"
"Should Ava Grant take control of the Grant board permanently?"
"Who was really behind Project Persephone?"
But in the silence between headlines, one question lingered like smoke in the lungs:
What happens now?
---
Naomi stood by my desk, tablet in hand, voice tight with urgency. "The Dawsons are spiraling. They've lost 30% market share. Lily hasn't made a single public appearance since the broadcast."
"She's hiding," I said flatly.
Lucian stood near the windows, arms crossed, gaze locked on the city skyline. "Or she's being hidden. There's a difference."
I turned back to Naomi. "What else?"
She swiped to a new report. "One of our old tech partners, Cygna Labs, just cut ties with the Dawson Group. But here's the twist—they didn't come to us. They went to a third party."
I frowned. "Who?"
She hesitated. "That's just it. The partner's name is redacted. But the trail leads back to a shell company… tied to the original board Sophia was trying to expose."
I felt it in my bones before she even said it.
"They're regrouping," I whispered. "Someone's pulling the strings behind Lily. She was never the queen. Just the pawn."
Lucian nodded. "Which means there's still a king out there."
---
Later that afternoon, I attended my first solo boardroom summit as acting chair.
Gone were the doubters, the backhanded smiles, the quiet murmurs. In their place: silence, eyes locked on me, as if daring me to prove again I deserved the seat my mother once filled.
I gave them no room to doubt.
I laid out a recovery plan, restructured three departments, and reinstated a dormant whistleblower program that Sophia had once created — then buried.
It was halfway through the meeting that my phone buzzed, just once.
A message.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
> The garden wasn't the only place she hid things. Come home. Alone.
Attached: a photo of my mother.
Holding a child.
But it wasn't me.
---
That night, I sat in the quiet of my suite, the city twinkling below like a lie told too many times.
Lucian leaned against the balcony door.
"She's still alive," I said, voice hoarse. "Persephone-3."
He didn't ask how I knew. He didn't question the photo. He just said, "Then we find her."
I looked down at the image again.
The child in Sophia's arms had a scar across her right temple. Just like mine. But the eyes… they were darker. Sharper.
Lucian stepped closer.
"She may not even know who she is," I said.
He met my gaze. "Or she might know exactly what she is — and what she was made for."
---
The next morning, Naomi met me in the executive lounge, already three coffees deep.
"We tracked the metadata," she said. "The photo was sent from a private tower registered to a forgotten Dawson subsidiary. No official name. No leases. Just one word in the building permit."
She handed me the tablet.
"Mask."
Lucian appeared beside me. "So we're walking into a place built to erase people."
Naomi added, "And possibly still operating under the same directive."
---
We arrived just after nightfall.
A glass tower on the industrial coast, its windows tinted like obsidian. No sign. No reception desk. Just a single elevator and a security panel.
Naomi stayed in the car, running backup systems. Lucian and I rode the elevator up in silence.
The panel had only one option: Floor 9.
As the doors opened, we stepped into a wide, sterile hallway lined with white light and mirrored walls.
It was eerily quiet.
Like it had been waiting for us.
---
At the end of the hall, a door opened automatically.
Inside: a room of glass. Monitors everywhere. Screens showing images I didn't want to see — my mother's research, trial footage, surveillance from my childhood.
And in the center of the room, a woman.
Young. Early twenties. Her hair was jet-black, pulled into a high braid. Her eyes were mine, but colder.
She turned slowly.
And smiled.
"You made it."
---
Lucian stepped in front of me instantly, body tense.
The woman raised both hands. "No tricks. No violence. I didn't bring you here to fight."
I stared at her.
"You're Persephone-3."
She shrugged. "Name's Mira. But yeah, I guess I'm the last mask."
I stepped around Lucian.
"You were the backup."
"No. I was the prototype they perfected. You were the one that escaped. Lily was the decoy. But me?" She tapped her chest. "I was the one they intended to keep."
---
I swallowed hard. "So why call me here?"
"Because I don't want to be a weapon anymore," Mira said simply. "And I think you're the only one who knows how to destroy what they made me into."
Lucian didn't move. "You could've reached out through any channel."
"And they would've killed me," Mira replied, eyes sharp. "You think they don't monitor my blood? My keystrokes? My sleep?"
I walked closer.
"They're still active," I said.
She nodded.
"And they're planning to use you."
"Unless you burn the whole system down," Mira whispered.
---
She stepped toward a wall panel and pressed her palm against it.
A hidden drawer opened, revealing a hard drive.
"This contains everything. Names. Experiments. Proof. They used your mother's research after her death. They twisted it."
I took the drive, hands trembling.
Mira looked at me, something flickering in her eyes.
"You look like her," she said. "But you don't sound like her."
"She was gentler," I said. "I don't have that luxury anymore."
---
We left the building without a word.
Back in the car, Naomi was already scanning the drive.
Lucian sat beside me, hand wrapped around mine.
"There's one more mask," I said quietly.
He turned to me.
"What do you mean?"
I met his gaze.
"The person behind all of it. The one neither Lily nor Mira ever met. The one who funded it, pushed it, buried it."
Lucian's eyes darkened. "The architect."
I nodded. "We find them… or it all happens again."
---
That night, in my suite, I stood before my mother's portrait.
I reached into the drawer beside my bed and pulled out the last rose.
Still crimson. Still perfect.
I pressed it to my lips.
"This time, I won't run."