My blood goes cold.
Every nerve in my body goes on alert. "What situation?"
"Eden's gone."
The world stops.
Everything—the hallway, the fluorescent lights, the muffled voices from the conference room—all of it fades to nothing.
"What do you mean, gone?"
"There was a furniture delivery. I was supervising the placement in the west wing. The front door was propped open for the movers. She—" He pauses. I can hear him breathing. "She slipped past while I was signing the delivery paperwork. Raninto the woods on the northwest side. I've got men searching the immediate perimeter, but?—"
"How long?" My voice doesn't sound like my own.
Too calm. Too cold. Like ice over a volcano.
"Thirty-seven minutes, sir. I called you immediately after securing the property and initiating search protocols."
Thirty-seven minutes.
She's been running for thirty-seven minutes while I sat in a fucking conference room discussing quarterly revenue projections and market expansion strategies.
While I smiled and nodded and pretended to care about numbers on a spreadsheet.
While Eden was running through the woods, alone, terrified, and desperate enough to risk everything just to get away from me.
"Get the dogs," I say. My hand tightens around the phone. "Now. Immediately. And pull every security camera feed within a five-mile radius. Traffic cams, business security systems, residential doorbells, everything. I want to know which direction she went and how far she could have gotten."
"Already on it, sir. I contacted the K-9 unit as soon as I realized she was gone. They'll be on site in fifteen minutes. And I've got my tech team pulling camera feeds now. But sir?—"
"What?"
"It's going to be cold tonight. Really cold. The forecast is calling for temperatures in the low thirties. Maybe a hard frost. She's in jeans and a sweater. No coat. No supplies that we could see."
The words hit me hard.
Freezing. She's going to be out there in freezing temperatures.
And it's my fault.
My pushing. My manipulation.
"I'm on my way," I say. "Twenty minutes."
"Sir, should I contact?—"
"No. No one else. This is between her and me. Keep the search teams active, but I'm handling the retrieval personally."
"Understood."
I hang up.
Stand there in the hallway, phone in my hand, trying to process what just happened.
Trying to breathe through the rage that's threatening to consume me completely.
Eden ran.
