The folder felt heavier than it should have. Sleek. Cold. Clean.
Liam stared at it like it was ticking.
"Everline Media wants to talk."
Rhea's voice still echoed in his mind. She'd said it so easily, as if it weren't the kind of sentence that could change everything.
He placed the folder on the edge of the mixing console, careful not to bend it. It looked so out of place next to the scribbled lyric sheets, half-finished demos, and empty coffee cups.
This wasn't his world. Not yet.
But it wanted to be.
A war raged inside him. One voice whispered:
This is what you've worked for.They finally see you.You can reach more people, tell your story louder, farther, bigger.
But another voice—the one that sounded a lot like Ace—muttered:
What's the price?
He glanced over at the wall of lyrics and lines he'd written in solitude. Songs born from heartbreak, grief, dreams too wild to speak aloud. No one had polished those. They were his, not a team's product.
And now they wanted to package his soul?
He swallowed hard. Not because he feared fame. But because he feared losing himself inside it.
"Don't trade your voice for volume."
That line hit harder than any beat he'd ever dropped. Ace wasn't just warning him about the deal—he was warning him about the silence that follows if you let someone else write your song.
Liam looked back at the folder.
Maybe he'd open it. Maybe he wouldn't.
But whatever came next—he promised himself—it would still be his story.
The End of POV