Nolan regularly checked in with Emily through the whale camera he'd sent her the year prior - at the time it'd been one of a kind, but now NolCorp sold had millions of similar webcams all over the world. Emily had just read a UK magazine article detailing how NolCorp stock was on the rise, bringing its founder Nolan Ross into the long-coveted Billioaire's Club. His technology could be found everywhere, from the military to hospitals to boardrooms and every cell phone on the planet. As it was known that Emily held a close reaction to the man, she had gained new levels of popularity.
Not that it mattered.
Money couldn't buy back her father, but it had bought her way into several incidents of mischief and then immediately bought her way out of trouble.
It had started with an argument on the volleyball court that had grown out of control, with more than a few vulgar insults spat at the referee in several languages - Nolan had smoothed things over from his New York office with two phone calls. Emily didn't lose her place on the team, nor did her school suffer any demerits, just a quick warning to watch her temper in the next game.
When he had informed her of this, she had thanked him for his help but showed no remorse over her outburst.
Why should she?
The other team had pulled a foul, and the referee had let it pass, leaving Emily's team enough points behind to lose in the little time they'd had left on the clock. To be denied what was fair, to see the game authority dismiss a foul and allow the offense, it set her off. Before the girl could stop her mouth, she'd called it out, disrupted everything and let her rage run free.
In hindsight, causing such a scene was embarrassing - she'd earned more than a few looks and whispers the next day in all her classes - but it hadn't truly been about losing a volleyball game. In the moment it had felt so freeing, that loss of control, that flash of power she'd felt in exposing a wrong, the thrill of subverting the rules and finally saying what was on her mind.
Emily enjoyed school and her team, but she'd found that she enjoyed disobedience even more.
And so began the rebellion.
A classroom sweep had caught Emily redhanded with a flask of liquor in her backpack. Nolan had cleared her of any wrongdoing with an e-mail assuring the school headmaster that such an incident was surely just teenage mischief, and not something that needed to go on record - not with the school expansion he'd donated just on the horizon of breaking ground.
A shrewd plain-clothes security guard at a boutique had observed Emily slip a few items - bottles of nail polish, a scarf, a few lipsticks - into her purse and stopped her just before she'd made it out of the shop. Nolan begrudgingly handled this situation as well; he was catching on to this pattern of pointless mischief. He understood Emily acting out of anger over her father, but he knew she was too smart and too good to keep this up for much longer. Still, he kept the incident off the record by way of a very generous donation.
This paled in comparison to what came next.
When graffiti appeared in the girls' bathroom accusing a math instructor of an affair with a male student, in was largely ignored. A bigger statement was needed, and so an incriminating photograph was circulated in the school e-mail system. Emily didn't even try to hide it - simply put, she'd found a wrong and when the school authority failed to act, she took control and forced a reaction.
The instructor was dismissed, the student was provided the option of counseling.
Emily's actions, while done with righteous intent, were still found to be in violation of school policy.
At the first hint of reprimand, Nolan turned his attack dog loose on the entire administration. Denise had never been one for holding back, it had taken one snarling phone call to ensure that Emily would face no retaliation whatsoever for what she had done.
And so it went.
Emily would act out in some way, and Nolan would swoop in to wave the trouble away. He would speak with her online, trying to coax the reasoning from her, but Emily refused to address it. She would ask for news of her father, of which there would be none, and she would change the subject.
There was little that Nolan could do with an ocean between them, and enforcing discipline on her wasn't his strong suit - still the man tried. He could see she was acting out, and he couldn't blame her - frankly he was thankful she wasn't doing anything dangerous; what teenager hadn't found their way into some trouble in high school?
He'd done the same thing and been caught several times.
"...but that doesn't make it right." He'd stressed to her through the screen.
Emily outright ignored his warning and asked after her father. "Has Denise told you anything?"
Nolan stifled the impulse to roll his eyes. Everything always came back to David, but he couldn't expect anything else from Emily at this point, and knew that what he told her now would result in another incident of trouble within the week. He'd already forewarned his assistant. "No, I told you. I've hacked everything but there isn't a listing for David in any system. Denise needs time to develop the sources who would have access to his location. Even then, when we find him, we may not be granted visitor access."
"We're not going to let a little thing like the law stop us, are we?" She'd meant it as a joke, but Nolan scowled at her.
"You need to stop that, Ems. I won't be around to get you out of trouble forever."
His words struck deep in her, and for a horrible moment she was gripped with fear and anger.
Fear that he would abandon her, anger that he would threaten her that way.
"What're you saying? You'd leave me?"
Nolan clenched his jaw, wishing he hadn't said that, wishing he could touch her. She would be easier to tame if they were together. "Never that. You know I won't. I just meant...I understand, Ems. Or, I understand as best I can, why you're being...look, just be careful, all right? A little trouble here and there never hurt anyone, but promise me it ends here."
She bristled at that. "Why should I?"
"Because it has to. You're on the administration's radar for the wrong reasons now, for exposing their dirty laundry. There's an investigation and I'm sure you know the scandal has been in the news. Put another toe out of line and you could get yourself exposed."
"So, what, stay quiet and protect them, let them get away with harboring a teacher who preys on the students here? Why should anyone get away with something like that?"
"No, just...there are other ways to go about things - you could have shown that picture to the police or you could have told me, let me expose them and keep you out of things all together."
"You think I don't know that? I wanted them to know it was me!" She declared, defiantly proud.
Such pride would be her downfall, while Nolan's love would be his.
"There are other ways to play hero than by risking what we've built."
His voice carried a deep edge of warning, but Emily couldn't stop her own smart mouth. "Oh, like what, volunteering at an animal shelter?"
"It would look nice on college applications." He bit out. "It ends today, Emily. I'm not asking."
Emily said nothing, but Nolan could read the anger in her glare just before she cut their connection and the screen went blank.