Love Beyond the Mask by Adelaide Sinclair

Chapter 238

As Whitney’s head collided with the rock, leaving her immobile, her desperate attempt to flee momentarily gave her assailant pause. His voice carried a chilling threat through the air as he said, “Your child’s barely two pounds. It won’t survive this! You and yours have to die. Just accept your fate, and I might leave you a whole corpse.”

With lips quivering, Whitney mustered a cold, trembling laugh. Summoning her last ounce of strength, she struggled to her feet and glanced behind her, only to see the raging sea, its waves ready to swallow everything whole.

Despair and surrender gripped her faster than she would have believed possible.

A twisted smile broke through her terror as she clutched her newborn, too tiny and still to comprehend the peril. Her eyes shimmered with a mosaic of light, tinged with the crimson of heartbreak. Then, all turned dark.

“I won’t let Elaine harm us, not even the slightest bit. I’m so sorry, my love… so sorry,” she whispered to her child.

“Ludwik, Ludwik, Ludwik! I hate you! In this life and the next, I’ll never forgive you!”

With those final words, she leaped backward, her frail body unfurling like a ribbon in the wind. Clinging to her precious baby, she closed her eyes in utter despair as her tears joined the boundless depths of the ocean below.

Elaine’s voice echoed the sentiment, “He never wanted this child. He could not bring himself to do it, so he let me do the dirty work.”

“He knew sending you to the sanitarium would mean the child would not last long under the strain,” she sneered.

Whitney had not believed her at first, but she could not dismiss the last call for help that went ignored by him.

Elaine had gloated, “He’s fleeing Banyan City tonight just to avoid you, to let me take care of the unwanted ‘trouble‘.”

“Oh, baby, I was so wrong! My greatest mistake was hoping that man would have a shred of decency. His cruelty is beyond words.

I’ll always be with you, never letting you fall into the hands of evil, suffering their torment. I love

you.

But I am filled with such hatred, such loathing. Even in death, I won’t rest until I’ve haunted that treacherous pair!” These words were the last in her mind as the sea devoured her.

The henchmen, stunned, rushed to the edge of the rocky precipice, peering down at the turbulent white–capped waves below.

wind, not even the sound of a body hitting the water

1/3

15:11

Chapter 238

the darkness, her face alight with vicious joy at the thought of

called out, his voice tinged with panic. “She gave birth… But she jumped with the baby to

for

flashlight beam probing the depths. As she saw the height of the cliff, her lips curled

form, one of the men stepped on something soft and out of place

leader barked at the alarmed

Alive or dead, I can’t

beneath the rocks. The infant, still covered

the child!” Elaine’s voice trembled with

with the baby in her arms. We all saw it. But how could there be

it?

Did Ludwik know?

not, this child had to be disposed of. There could be no loose ends to

her future with

it up and throw it over,”

the henchman hesitated, Elaine’s phone rang. It was Jaxon. “Elaine, something’s wrong. Mr. Lippert’s private plane has returned! It

Elaine’s face turned pale, her mind racing. She looked up to see a helicopter’s red light

if Ludwik had binoculars on that planè? They could not risk being seen

her men to lay the baby back down, then took a knife, sliced the infant’s fragile veins, and flung

the fresh blood along the roadside. Quickly! Then erase

her voice hoarse with urgency. “Ashton.

Chapter 238

I was worried about Whitney. I’m by the

surveillance footage of Tiana rescuing

squinted at the sea below, then at