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Before he could react, she spun on her heel and darted away.

“Emily!” His voice boomed after her, followed by the scrape of his chair.

Giggling, she ran faster before he could catch her.

***

After the movie ended, Emily lingered on the curb, her breath fogging in the cold as she waited for Harold to finish in the restroom. Jeremy had already gone home. The street was mostly quiet now, the evening crowd long gone, though a few late stragglers lingered beneath the soft glow of the streetlights.

Emily hummed to herself and tilted her face up to the wind, eyes closed for a moment. Suddenly, something covered her nose and mouth. The world tilted. A toxic sweetness filled her head and vertigo swallowed her; she crumpled, consciousness slipping away.

A hand closed under her shoulders and lifted. She felt weight against her back, the press of a strong arm, the scrape of fabric. Someone carried her, fast and careful, toward a waiting car. A man pushed the door open and shoved her inside. The faint sound of an engine starting filled her ears as the world tippedand spun. A pair of blue shoes flashed in her peripheral vision, and instinctively, fear clawed at her chest.

A while later Harold emerged from the bathroom, wiping his damp hands on his jacket as his eyes swept the exit. The street was deserted, the faint hum of the vending machine the only sound. A shiver traced his spine—the crowd that had filled the cinema earlier was also gone.

“Miss Emily?” he called, his voice carrying into the stillness.

He frowned, stepping further out. “Miss Emily?” This time his tone sharpened with unease. No response. The silence pressed against his ears.

His throat tightened. Snatching his phone, he dialed her number. Nothing. Not even a ring. Just dead silence.

Chapter 15 Miss Emily Disappeared

Panic pricked at him as he stumbled further onto the street. The night air bit at his skin, sharp and cold. Streetlights buzzed faintly overhead, casting pools of yellow light onto the empty pavement. His gaze darted everywhere—left, right, down the block. Nothing.

Then, suddenly—crack. His shoe crushed something brittle underfoot. He froze, stomach lurching, before glancing down.

Shards glittered faintly beneath the lamplight. He bent forward, heart pounding, and lifted the object. A phone. Blue cover, silver stars. His breath caught.

It was Emily’s phone. The screen was spiderwebbed, glass splintering into tiny pieces.

Cold dread washed through him, leaving his hands trembling. He fumbled with his own phone, almost dropping it, before finally punching in Sebastian’s number with unsteady fingers.

At home, Sebastian had set the table with dinner, the warm dishes untouched as his eyes kept flicking toward the door, waiting for Emily to appear. But the silence in the housestretched heavy, and there was still no sign of her. With a sigh, he poured himself a glass of water, lifting it halfway to his lips—when a sudden, frantic pounding rattled the front door.

He froze. The glass clinked against the table as he set it down and strode to the door. The moment he yanked it open, Harold stood there, breathless, his face drained of color, panic carved into every line of it.

“Sebastian—” Harold’s voice cracked, frantic. “Where is your phone? I’ve been calling you! Did Miss Emily come home? I couldn’t find her at the theater. Miss Emily’s disappeared!”

For the briefest second, Sebastian’s body went rigid, his eyes hollowing with shock. Then, like a switch, he straightened sharply, every muscle alive with urgency. He spun on his heel, rushing back inside, his footsteps thunderous on the staircase as he took the steps two at a time.

He stormed into his study, snatched his phone from the desk, and punched Leon’s number with shaking but precise fingers.

“Leon,” he barked, voice like steel. “Track the location of Emily’s phone. Right now!”

Harold, who had trailed him upstairs, fumbled into his coat pocket and pulled out Emily’s broken phone. His voice shook as he thrust it forward. “No… no need to track. The phone—it was on the ground. I picked it up.”

Sebastian snatched it from his hand. The fractured screen flickered faintly, jagged lines of light splitting through the glass. For a split second, his heart seemed to stop. His thumb brushed over the cracks as if the cold shards could somehow tell him what had happened. He swallowed hard, jaw tight, before lifting the phone back to his ear.

“Leon,” his voice dropped into a dangerous calm. “She went to the movie theatre today. Pull the surveillance. Every angle, every camera. I want to know what happened and who was there. Get on it—now.”

***

Emily’s eyes fluttered open to the blurred shapes of a ceiling and the sour tang of stale air. Voices—rough, distant—drifted in, indistinct at first until her mind cleared enough to catch the words that made her blood run cold.

“Where did you pick this one up?” a voice sneered. “She’s so thin—think her organs are worth anything?”

“She’s from a fat-money family. Top-notch condition,” the other man answered.