I dash into The Amber Room with the kind of urgency I’ve never felt before in my life. Blood is rushing through my veins as worry and anxiety swirl in my gut.

Fuck. How did I let it get this bad?

I need to get Emily out of here before they get to her. My father isn’t as violent as he used to be, but we haven’t faced a problem of this scale for a while. Who knows what he’s going to do to her?

Inside, Rick is sitting at the bar by himself. Maybe Emily’s in the restroom?

“Rick! Where’s Emily?” I grab him by the shoulder and pull him back until he’s looking right back at me.

“She, uh, she said she wasn’t feeling well so she went home.”

“What? Why didn’t she wait for me?”

“She didn’t say. She looked like she was in a big rush,” he says nervously.

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

Rick is silent. I run my fingers through my hair, hoping it’ll help stimulate my creative juices. It’s not fair to blame Rick for this. But it’s strange that Emily just decided to up and leave.

Where is she even going? Definitely not to my apartment because she doesn’t have a key. She just decided to go home to Alice’s place, when just hours ago she wouldn’t even talk to her sister?

None of this makes any sense.

“What happened, Rick?” I ask in the same menacing tone I often hear my father use when he’s interrogating someone. I guess my upbringing has taught me some important life skills after all.

“I don’t know. One minute we were having a nice chat, and then she suddenly bolted.”

Rick deflates when I continue glowering at him in silence.

He hesitates before saying, “I may have told her about the accident. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was—”

“Fuck!”

I storm out of The Amber Room without waiting for Rick to finish his explanation. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time to act like a blabbering moron.

Emily must’ve gone out the front door because I didn’t see her while I was panicking like an idiot in the parking lot behind the building.

I scan the busy sidewalk outside. Talk about the worst timing ever. This being downtown on a Saturday night, the sidewalk is packed with people.

I check the area near the main entrance to The Amber Room. It takes me a while to realize that Emily is definitely not around here anymore. She must’ve taken a cab to God knows where.

I rush back through The Amber Room and go straight to the parking lot. I vaguely notice Rick standing up and calling my name from the bar, but I ignore him. I don’t have any time for his idiocy right now. I have to find the only person that matters right now.

Emily. Where the fuck are you, baby?

I jump into my car and take the familiar route I’ve used so many times before to reach Alice’s apartment.

As I speed through the streets, I remember how I used to drive by, hoping to catch a glimpse of Emily, even for just a fraction of a second. I’d even park right outside sometimes and wait for her to show up.

She never did show up for the longest time. I guess she was too sad and depressed. But after a month or so, I started seeing her a lot more. Every single time, it was like a hit of cocaine straight in my veins. Seeing her made me feel like I was alive again. She still has that same effect on me now.

Fuck. I’ve gone and ruined everything now.

All of a sudden, I hear the wail of a police siren behind me, along with the blindingly bright flashing blue lights.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I just can’t get a break tonight.

I have a decent car, a BMW X5 M, which I’m sure is capable of going a whole lot faster than I usually do. But I’ve never seen cops lose a car chase in real life before. There’s no other choice. I have to pull over.

I roll down the car window and wait for the cop to approach. I grab my license and registration. I know the drill, and I want to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

“Good evening, Mr. Foster,” the cop says as soon as he stops by my car door.

I groan. Which cop doesn’t need to see my license to know my name? A cop that my father keeps in his pocket, of course.

“Your father has been looking for you,” he says.

“Oh, is that what the police do now? Is that how we’re spending tax dollars? On finding the ‘missing’ adult children of rich men?”

“I’m going to need you to follow my car, Mr. Foster. Or, if you prefer, me and my partner can take you in our patrol car,” the cop says.

“‘My partner and I.’” I correct his grammar.

“Excuse me?” He obviously doesn’t get it. His face is an infuriating mixture of indifference and sanctimony.

“I’m not getting in the back of your car like some fucking low-life criminal. Where are we going?”

“We’re going to your father’s house, Sir.” His calm and polite tone only makes me angrier. Fucking hypocrite.

“I can go there by myself.” I know he’s not going to let me go, but I have to at least try.

“I’m sorry, Sir. But your father requested that we escort you and your lady friend.”

“Escort, huh?” I burst out in laughter. This is just too absurd. “As you can see, Officer, I’m all by myself.”

“That’s unfortunate, Sir. But we still have to insist that you follow us.” His voice may sound cordial, but this is definitely a threat. I know a threat when I hear one.

The cop turns around and gets back into his patrol car. I roll the window back up and follow them. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

This isn’t so bad. At least they definitely don’t have Emily if these corrupt cops think she’s still with me. She’s safe — for now.

As incompetent as these cops are, the car siren does a good job of clearing the roads and letting us speed through traffic lights. A million things rush through my overworked brain just as quickly. The drive to father’s mansion seems to end in just a blink.

I’m flanked by the two cops as I walk into the house.

By the time they leave me in my father’s home office, I still have no idea what to do. Everything tonight has happened so quickly I’ve had absolutely no time to process it.

Alone in the home office, I sit in the guest chair by my father’s desk. I’ve been here so many times before, having grown up in this big, empty house. I remember coming here looking for him as a boy and never being allowed to come inside because I’d bother him.

The office has the same dark wood flooring, the same big Persian rug, the same chunky desk, and the same hefty leather chair. It feels different, though. Just like everything does when you haven’t seen it in a long time.

“I was expecting to meet her, too,” my father says as he enters the room and approaches me from behind, startling me. It’s surprising how little noise he makes when he’s walking. He can sneak up on you like a cat. “Too bad she’s not here.”

“Funny, she said the exact same thing today,” I say without turning around to face him. “We should have dinner together, you, me, and Emily. We’d make a cute little family.”

“I didn’t think you’d be this stupid, boy.” He lets out a big, disappointed sigh, which does absolutely nothing for me. I’ve disappointed him far too many times to care about his approval. He sidles around the desk and sits in his big chair, which I’m sure has been carefully selected for its intimidating size.

“Stupid is relative, Pop. I personally don’t think I’ve done anything stupid at all.”

“That’s because you’re stupid. If I didn’t take care of things after the accident, you would’ve destroyed your reputation and dragged the rest of the family down with you,” he says.

“For the millionth time, Pop, it was an accident. People probably wouldn’t have reacted as strongly as you think they would.”

“They’d see it as an accident if you were someone else, someone like them. But you’re not. You’re my son, and they were going to judge you differently. Even if the cops had released you — which wasn’t guaranteed without my involvement — they still would’ve thought you’d gotten away with murder.”

“So, really, the problem stems from me being your son, right? You can see how that means you’re the root of the problem, right?”

“I’m not going to argue with you anymore. You’ve failed to consider how your actions were going to affect the family, so I obviously can’t trust you anymore. I’m going to put you under surveillance.”

“You’re going to have your thugs babysit me?”

“Think of it as your last chance. If I ever see her around you again, I’m going to seize control over Foster Hotels.”

And there it is. I knew, when my father insisted on using his lawyers to draft the legal documents for the company, that he wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart. For fuck’s sake, even the name of the company is Foster Hotels.

All he wants is to maintain some sort of control over my life. And now he’s using that leverage to blackmail me into doing as he says. Again.