Rejected Heiress, Reigning Queen novel Chapter 287

With Emma securing a solid job for Phoebe, Miriam instantly dropped her hostile act.

She even spent the entire evening happily fussing over her daughter in the hospital room. Noticing Phoebe's sullen expression, Miriam rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"What are you moping around for? If I hadn't made a scene, do you honestly think you would have scored such a fantastic job?"

Miriam forcefully tucked the edges of the blanket in, annoyed by her daughter's constant lack of ambition.

But Phoebe couldn't bring herself to smile. The debt she owed Emma was stacking up higher by the second.

Seeing her daughter looking so depressed completely ruined Miriam's mood. Just as she opened her mouth to start lecturing again, her phone chimed with a notification.

She glanced at the screen, and a massive grin instantly split across her face.

"Get up. Mom's taking you downstairs for some fresh air."

Phoebe winced, clutching her bandaged wound, completely unwilling to move. "It's late. Why are we going outside now?"

"If you stay in this bed all day, your muscles are going to atrophy. Now get up!"

Left with no choice, Phoebe slowly and painfully pushed herself into a sitting position.

Emma had originally planned to head straight back to the capital, but executives from the medicinal oil factory requested an urgent meeting to discuss international export strategies, forcing her to extend her stay in Garrison City by a few days.

Carter was sitting in the factory's executive office, typing away on his laptop as he handled the Harrington Corporation's endless stream of affairs.

A sudden chime from Emma's phone on the desk broke his concentration.

[If you want your friend to live, come to this location.]

Carter stared at the screen for a long, heavy moment before unlocking her device. Attached to the menacing text was a photograph.

Phoebe was strapped to a heavy chair. Behind her stood a man wearing a grotesque mask and shockingly little clothing.

Carter's eyes turned lethal. He swiftly forwarded the message and the photo to his own phone before permanently deleting the trace from Emma's device.

"Jeff."

He snapped his laptop shut and strode out of the office. Jeff was at his side instantly. "Boss, should I finalize the dinner reservations?"

"Yeah. Book the restaurant for Emma. Tell her to go ahead and eat without me. I have something to take care of."

Gone was the gentle, patient facade he carefully maintained around Emma. As he marched down the corridor, his expression was completely void of emotion, his eyes as cold and merciless as a glacier.

After wrapping up her meetings, Emma's assistant informed her that Carter had already left to run an errand.

"Mr. Harrington has already secured a private dining room. You can head straight there, Ms. Lockwood."

She raised her glass and downed the liquor in one smooth motion. Several rounds later, just as a light buzz began to settle behind her eyes, her phone buzzed with an international message.

[Em, I got bored and ran a trace on the coordinates from that message you just deleted. It's the site of the biggest underground club in the country, shut down six years ago. Who the hell is in that photo? Do NOT go out there. This whole thing screams trap.]

Emma stared at the screen, her heart skipping a beat. What deleted message?

She stood up abruptly, needing to step outside to call her friend and figure out what was going on, but the executive next to her aggressively blocked her path.

"Don't leave yet, Ms. Lockwood! We haven't even touched on the distribution logistics!"

Emma gathered her lightweight coat and cast a single, freezing glare across the table. The sharp edge in her eyes instantly sobered up the room.

"Discuss the logistics with my cousin. I have an emergency. Excuse me."

She walked out without looking back. The men who had just been aggressively pressuring her to drink didn't dare utter a single word of protest.

Corporate hazing was one thing—a subtle test of boundaries—but none of them were stupid enough to actually cross Emma Lockwood.

"Ms. Lockwood certainly is a busy woman, haha," one of the men chuckled awkwardly. Sebastian smoothly picked up his glass, effortlessly steering the room's attention back to the business at hand.

Emma slid into the back of her car and immediately dialed her contact abroad.

"What exactly did you mean by the coordinates and the photo?"