CHAPTER 231: WHERE DID EMMA GO?

Morris Adams sat alone in the half lit study, the air heavy with stale smoke and the sharp bite of whiskey. The fire in the grate had burned low, leaving only a bed of dying embers that pulsed a dull, stubborn red.

His shirt hung loose over his frame, creased and faintly sour from nights slept in the chair. A thin layer of stubble had grown into a rough beard, shadowing the hard lines of a face once known for cold composure.

He stared into the glass in his hand. The liquor barely moved, reflecting the jitter of his tired fingers. Once, a single look from him could send rivals retreating and subordinates scrambling to obey.

Now, even the silence in the room seemed to look back at him with quiet reproach.

The reflection on the darkened window showed a man he hardly recognized. Eyes dulled by sleepless nights. Shoulders sagged under the weight of choices he could no longer pretend were just business.

Emma.

His daughter, once the sharpest blade in the family’s crown, had slipped from his grasp. Worse, she had chosen to stand apart, beyond his protection or his control. The name Adams, built over decades with careful alliances and ruthless calculations, had started to crack under scandal and rumor. She didn’t choose him. But Jean.

His lips tightened around a breath he couldn’t quite release. Regret burned sharper than the whiskey in his throat.

Then the phone rang. Its shrill insistence cut straight through the fog, startling him enough that he almost dropped the glass.

The screen glowed with an unfamiliar number. For a moment, he hesitated, thumb hovering above the answer button, afraid of more bad news.

Finally, he pressed it to his ear. "Adams," he said, his voice low, rough, the syllable more growled than spoken.

"Mr. Adams?" The nurse on the line spoke gently, as though uncertain how to address the man whose name still carried weight outside these walls. "I’m calling from the hospital. Your daughter, Emma... she’s regained consciousness."

His mind stalled. The words reached him, but meaning took its time to settle.

Emma.

Conscious.

Awake.

He swallowed, the movement dry and painful. "Did she speak?" His voice broke, softer than he meant.

"She opened her eyes. Asked for family. Maybe her sister, Jean?"

He pressed his hand over his mouth, fingers trembling against the prickly growth of his beard. The fireplace hissed behind him as a log shifted, releasing a faint ghost of smoke into the room.

"I’m coming," he whispered, surprising himself with the softness in his tone. "Tell her... tell her her father is on his way. And... and don’t call Jean. Don’t inform her."

The call ended. He stayed still, staring at the silent phone. The glass slipped from his hand, falling onto the rug with a muted thump, spilling amber liquid into the threads.

For the first time in days, he forced himself to stand. His knees ached in protest, reminding him of the years spent building an empire... years that now felt strangely hollow.

In the dim reflection of the window, the man who rose to his feet seemed smaller, older, more worn than the name he carried.

Outside, dawn was only just beginning to break. Morris Adams, heavy with guilt and memory, turned away from the dying fire and stepped toward the faint promise of morning light.

The car engine rumbled to life, a low vibration echoing through the empty garage. Morris Adams sat behind the wheel, fingers tightening around worn leather, his knuckles pale in the half‑light.

Rain tapped softly against the windshield, streaking the glass in fine, trembling lines. Outside, the city still slept... tall buildings outlined only by the faint glow of distant streetlights.

For a few seconds, he didn’t shift the gear into drive. Instead, he stared at the dashboard, its pale lights reflecting on his tired eyes. Memories, sharp and uninvited, clawed at the edges of his mind. Emma as a child, tugging at his sleeve with a grin that could melt stone; her quiet determination to win his approval; her silence in that hospital bed, broken only by machines counting every breath she might not take.

He pressed the pedal, rolling slowly out of the garage. The tires hissed on wet asphalt as the car joined the near empty road.

His thoughts circled him like restless ghosts. What had he been doing all this time? Fighting to keep the family name alive, forging alliances that cost more than he ever admitted. All the while, the real family... the beating heart of it all... slipped away.

Jean’s rebellion. Emma’s fall. The emptiness of a house once filled with voices now echoing only with guilt.

Traffic lights turned red. He stopped, the glow washing over his lined face, highlighting every crease etched by years of power and pride.

I failed them, he thought, the words heavier than any deal he’d ever brokered. Not as a businessman but as a father.

The light turned green. He drove on, rain drumming a steady rhythm on the roof. Every passing streetlamp threw fleeting shadows across the car interior, sketching his face in shifting relief... a man both powerful and powerless.

As the hospital’s outline came into view, Morris swallowed against the tightness in his throat. His heart stumbled painfully, fear mixing with a desperate hope. That when he saw Emma again, he might still have a chance to say what had gone unsaid for far too long.

At the entrance, he cut the engine, letting the silence fall heavy once more. For a moment, he didn’t move, just sat there, rain streaking the windows, breath fogging the glass.

Then, drawing in a slow, unsteady breath, Morris Adams stepped out of the car and walked toward the one thing he could no longer afford to lose.

The door swung open under Morris Adams’s trembling hand. A rush of sterile air met him, sharp with antiseptic and the faint hum of machines.

He stepped in...

And stopped dead in the doorway.

The bed where Emma had lain for months was empty. The crisp sheets pulled halfway down. The pillow still bore the shallow imprint of her head... but she was gone.

A beat of silence thundered in his ears before his voice finally broke free.

"Where is she?"

He turned sharply, finding a nurse near the monitors. She startled, her expression flashing panic before she masked it under professional calm.

"Where’s Emma?" he repeated, the words rougher this time, the edge of fear scraping at his tone. "Where have you moved her?"

Before she could speak, a doctor hurried over, coat still wrinkled from a late night. His eyes darted to the empty bed, then back to Morris, uncertainty clouding his features.

"Mr. Adams," the doctor began, choosing his words carefully, "I swear to you, we... We checked on her fifteen minutes ago. She was still asleep."

"Then why isn’t she here?" Morris’s voice cracked, louder now, his heart pounding painfully in his chest. "What the hell happened in fifteen minutes?"

The doctor swallowed, voice dropping.

"After the nurse’s last round, we... We came back and the room was empty. Emma isn’t here, sir. We’re looking everywhere in the building right now."

For a heartbeat, the words didn’t make sense... floating around Morris like distant echoes.

Empty? Gone? How could Emma just... vanish?

He stared again at the bed, the silent monitors, the slow drip still swinging gently from its stand... as though someone had only just stepped away.

The nurse shifted, guilt written all over her face.

"We don’t know where she’s gone, Mr. Adams... but we’re doing everything to find her."

Morris’s mouth felt dry. His hands curled into fists by his sides, the disbelief twisting into something colder.

"Find her," he rasped, voice hoarse. "I don’t care how, or what it costs... just find my daughter!"

His chest rose and fell in ragged breaths as the doctor and nurses scrambled, radioing the security desk, paging every floor.

But as he stood there, staring at the imprint on Emma’s empty pillow, a gnawing thought he dared not speak out loud lodged in his chest:

What could make Emma wake up... and leave before anyone could stop her? Does she remember what happened that night?

Morris’s shoes echoed down the polished corridor, each step faster, heavier. Breath burning in his lungs, heart hammering in uneven beats that made his chest ache.

"Emma!"

His voice, rough from drink and sleepless nights, sounded alien in the bright white halls. Nurses turned to look... some with pity, some with worry but none had answers.

He pushed past a junior doctor, ignoring the startled protest. His coat, still smelling faintly of stale whiskey and fireplace smoke, felt too heavy on his shoulders. Sweat clung to his brow despite the hospital’s chill.

"Emma!" He called again, this time softer, almost breaking.

He turned a corner, eyes darting desperately. An empty visitors’ lounge, a silent nurses’ station, the faint beeping from patient monitors behind half closed curtains. Nothing. Only strangers’ faces... none of them hers.

His mind spun, replaying everything. The doctor’s words, the empty bed, the faint warmth still left in the sheets... Proof she’d only just been there. Proof she’d left on her own.

Why? Was it to run from him? From the name Adams that had done nothing but bring her pain?