CHAPTER 2 — The Locked Room on the Third Floor
The mansion had 47 rooms.
Only one was locked from the outside.
Nathan found it behind a corridor that wasn’t on any blueprint he owned.
Which meant someone else had decided it existed.
The key was already in the lock.
Waiting.
Inside—
A small room.
Too clean.
Too empty.
Except for one chair.
And a folded blanket.
Emma sat on the floor.
Not restrained.
Not injured.
But still.
Like someone who had learned not to move too much.
Her eyes lifted slowly when she saw him.
No surprise.
Only resignation.
“You weren’t supposed to come here,” she said softly.
Nathan didn’t step closer yet.
“Who put you in this room?”
A long silence.
Then Emma looked down at her hands.
“My mother… said it was safer.”
Nathan’s voice sharpened.
“Safer from what?”
Emma hesitated.
Then, barely audible:
“From the scholarship I wasn’t supposed to get.”
That sentence landed wrong.
Nathan frowned.
“What scholarship?”
Emma finally looked at him fully.
And for the first time, her voice cracked—not from fear, but from exhaustion.
“The one tied to your foundation.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Nathan Whitmore didn’t fund random scholarships.
He funded elite pipelines.
Private lists.
Confidential selections.
Someone had placed Emma inside his system.
And then tried to erase her from it.
Because she had been chosen.
For something expensive enough to kill quietly.
A sound came from the hallway.
Footsteps.
Multiple.
Nathan turned slightly.
May you like
Emma whispered:
“They know you’re here now.”
