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.

the howling wind, not even the sound of a

1/3

15:11

Chapter 238

the darkness, her face alight with vicious joy at the thought of Whitney’s inescapable

gave birth… But she jumped with the baby to keep

for a moment.

the cliff’s edge, her flashlight beam probing the depths. As she saw the height

could fully form, one of the men stepped

leader barked at the alarmed underling.

or dead, I can’t

in disbelief, rushing to where a small, bloodied bundle lay half–hidden beneath the rocks. The infant, still covered in blood, was so tiny and silent that it

You said she jumped with the child!” Elaine’s

But how could there be another?” A cold realization

it?

Did Ludwik know?

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

her future with Ludwik.

and throw it over,” she commanded with chilling finality.

“Elaine, something’s wrong. Mr. Lippert’s private

She looked up to see a helicopter’s red light blinking in the

What if Ludwik had binoculars

back down, then took a knife, sliced the infant’s fragile veins, and

the roadside. Quickly! Then erase any

her

Chapter 238

me. No need to come to the B&B anymore. I was worried about Whitney. I’m by the seaside,

you can send the surveillance footage of Tiana rescuing Whitney to

below, then at the helicopter drawing