The first time I see Elias Storm in real life, he’s trying to break a piano.
Not the whole thing, just the top three octaves. His palm slams down on the keys; a jagged, wrong chord detonates through the glassed-in studio like a car crash. A few loose coffee stirrers vibrate in their paper cup. Through the control room window, I watch his shoulders rise and fall under a threadbare black T‑shirt, all tension and fury and something I recognize too well: panic disguised as anger.
I should leave.
Instead, I shift my weight, hugging my laptop bag tighter to my side like a shield, and wait for him to look up.
He doesn’t. He swears under his breath, shoves a hand through his hair, and stares at the lyric notebook lying open on the music stand. There are pages and pages of scratched-out lines, entire verses obliterated in frantic black ink.
Miranda’s voice cuts through the control room like perfume with a blade in it. “Don’t worry, Naomi. He’s only broken one instrument this quarter. That was a rental.”
I glance sideways at her. Miranda Cole is all angles and gloss: perfect blazer, perfect eyeliner, perfect indifferent smile. She holds an iPad like it’s a gavel. Behind her, the label logo glows on the wall: a clean, reassuring brand that has nothing to do with the sweat and noise happening in the live room.
“I thought this was supposed to be discreet,” I murmur. The glass between us and Elias is soundproof, but I still lower my voice, habit more than necessity.
“Discreet,” she says, “not imaginary.” She taps the iPad. “He knows someone’s coming in to…consult.”
“Consult,” I echo. The word tastes like a lie. We both know what this is. Ghost in, fix the problem, ghost out. No photos, no credits, no one the wiser.
She turns fully to me, assessing. “You read the contract?”
“All thirty-seven pages.” And then I read the NDA twice, just to be sure it really did say what I thought: no public acknowledgment, no press, no social media. If anyone outside this building found out I was here, I’d be in breach.
“Good.” Miranda’s smile warms a fraction, professionally. “He’s overdue by six months. The board’s breathing down my neck, sponsorship deals are on hold, the tour is a question mark. He’s blocked, anxious, and stubborn. You know the brief.”
“Salvage an album. Save the golden boy. Vanish,” I say.
“You get your usual fee plus a bonus if we hit our Q3 targets,” she adds. “And, Naomi”—her gaze flickers, almost softer, almost human—“this one matters. You pull it off and I can steer a lot of work your way. Bigger fees. Better terms.”
Better terms. As if I haven’t already signed away everything but my bloodstream to NDAs.
In the live room, Elias slumps on the bench, elbows on his knees, fingers knotted in his hair. The tattoos on his forearms flex, lines of black ink against pale skin. I’ve seen them in a hundred glossy photos, high-res and color-corrected. They don’t show the way his hands are actually shaking.
“Does he know who I am?” I ask.
Miranda’s lips curve. “He knows you’re the best.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She shrugs, already bored. “He thinks you’re a vocal producer who consults on lyrics sometimes. Which you are. He doesn’t need your full résumé.”
