Chapter 1

I had a bad feeling crawling under my skin all morning.

It was a familiar hum of anxiety, the kind that always showed up right before something big was about to break. I run one of the most successful record labels in the country, so I' m used to high-stakes situations, but this was different. This felt personal. I pushed it down, blaming it on the lack of sleep and the pressure of the upcoming artists' showcase.

I walked into Studio A, my sanctuary, expecting to find the usual controlled chaos of a final soundcheck. Instead, I found a scene that made my blood run cold.

There, in the main recording booth, was a girl I didn't know. And she was holding Liam' s microphone.

It wasn't just any microphone. It was "The Nightingale," a one-of-a-kind, custom-built vintage replica I had commissioned for Liam for our first anniversary. It was silver, heavy, and had a small, almost invisible "E+L" engraved at the base. It was more than a piece of equipment; it was a symbol of the career I had built for him, of the partnership we shared. It was intimate. And this girl was singing into it, her cheap perfume smell already clinging to the pop filter.

I stood frozen in the doorway of the control room, my knuckles white where I gripped the frame. The sound engineer, Mark, saw me and his face paled. He immediately cut the audio feed. The sudden silence was deafening.

The girl in the booth, small and doe-eyed, looked up. She offered me a tentative, overly sweet smile.

"Hi, Ms. Reed. I'm Ava. Liam said I could warm up with this one. It has such a beautiful, warm tone."

Her voice was sickly sweet, a cloying mix of feigned humility and unconcealed pride. She held the microphone like a trophy, her fingers wrapped around the base, right over our initials. The way she said his name, so familiar and easy, made my stomach clench.

All I could think about was Liam' s promise from years ago. We were in this very studio, late at night, celebrating his first number-one hit. He had held The Nightingale in his hands, looking at me with so much love in his eyes.

"Only my voice will ever touch this mic, Evie," he had said, his voice thick with emotion. "It' s ours. It' s a promise."

A promise. The word echoed in my mind, mocking me. I looked at the girl, Ava, who was still smiling that innocent, calculated smile. Then I looked at the microphone in her hands, our microphone.

Liam was a man of principles, or so he always claimed. He hated industry phonies, hated people who used others to get ahead. He preached loyalty and integrity, both to his fans and to me. Yet here was the proof, a stranger holding a sacred promise in her hands, that his principles were just words. He had let her use it. He had broken his promise for her. The bad feeling from the morning wasn't a premonition anymore. It was a reality, and it was just getting started.