Love Beyond the Mask by Adelaide Sinclair

Chapter 141

Next to Banyan City International Hotel stood the hospital.

Whitney sat vigil in the hospital room, reaching out to check her uncle’s pulse when suddenly her fingers were gripped tightly, her uncle’s nails scraping blood from her skin.

Startled, Whitney turned to see her uncle’s eyes flutter open.

Keegan looked at her with a mixture of pain and madness, demanding, “Whitney, why did you marry Ludwik?! He’s our nemesis! How could you marry him?” His coughs grew into a fit as he tried to rise, his words laced with desolation.

Whitney stiffened, as if unable to comprehend.

Her mind buzzed as she stared into her uncle’s reddened eyes, his face contorted with pain. She denied his accusations, “Uncle, what are you talking about? He’s not Ludwik.”

She held his hand, trying to calm him, “You must be mistaken. L had a scar on his face–I saw it with my own

eyes.”

Keegan shook off her hand violently, his anger distorting his face. He turned and rummaged through his bag, pulling out a fractured silver mask and thrusting it into Whitney’s hands, “Why do I recognize him? Because of this silver mask! Familiar, isn’t it–the one he was wearing!”

Whitney shuddered at the sight of the jagged half–mask.

Keegan spat hatefully, “Foolish girl, do you know that when your mom and grandpa died in that car, I ran to save them and saw this mask stabbed into your grandpa’s heart? His last word was ‘Ludwik‘!

He was just twenty ten years ago, already hiring hitmen. I didn’t know the car was rigged. When I tried to move my sister and father, the car exploded. My leg, my face, my body…”

Keegan clutched his scarred face, trembling.

The pain from his amputated right leg seemed to surge back, suffocating him.

Seeing him struggle to breathe, Whitney quickly pressed his philtrum to ease hiş distress.

be. L isn’t Ludwik. And wasn’t the Valentine family implicated in my mother and grandfather’s deaths? How could it

business assassination!” Keegan chastised her. “Ten years ago, the Imperial Gem Corporation was a mess. Ludwik’s ambition knew no bounds. How else

bed. With only one leg, he immediately fell to the floor. Pity flashed in Whitney’s eyes, her heart heavy. She couldn’t resist,

the hospital, standing at a distance from a certain window, Whitney’s trust

Ashton stood a tall man in an unchanged black suit. Whitney’s shaky gaze traveled up to his handsome face,

mistake, a face to

scars she saw on L’s face at Alpine Springs Resort were

he deceived her with a fake skin? Had he gone to great lengths

felt like a fool.

12.47 CA

Chapter 141

him to the most esteemed Mr.

feared, he controlled the economic lifeline

truth! “He is Ludwik, Whitney. He’s been wearing a mask all along and deceiving you. But why?!” Keegan pulled

felt she had touched upon the

the mask once

Why?

she wouldn’t be able to leave him,

certain about the cause of my mother and grandfather’s deaths? Maybe it wasn’t Ludwik,

to his looks, Ludwik had a habit of wearing masks–a fact known among Banyan City’s elite. That mask lodged in your grandpa’s heart,

sped through the streets.

“You were young ten years ago, unaware of many things.”

ousted unfairly by rivals. He brought your mom here to Banyan City. She was pregnant with you, hiding from your birth father in Emperor City. That’s why my father used Preston

renowned jewelry company. He had a map of the Surelia District diamond mines–a map that drove Ludwik to

remembered him claiming to

my sister and father passed away, I fled overseas. I watched the Imperial Gem Corporation soar to new heights, powered by the mining operations in Surelia District. It was built on my father’s toil – the foundation laid by the

his fists in anguish. “The Valentine family? They’re just pawns manipulated by