One morning I got a text and it was from an unknown number.

Unknown: Heard you survived. It's a pity.

I stared at my phone screen in the darkness of Grandma's study, then deleted the message without responding.

They wanted a reaction but I wouldn't give them one.

Instead, I opened my laptop and went back to work.

It's been three months of teaching myself everything Damien had relied on me to know. Contracts. Rights. Distribution. The ugly machinery behind the music industry that most artists never bothered to understand.

I'd always been good at this part. The business side and the strategy but now I was going to be exceptional at it.

My phone rang and it was Grandma's care facility.

"Miss Monroe, your grandmother is asking for you."

I was there in twenty minutes.

Grandma looked smaller than last week, her skin paper-thin, but her eyes were still sharp when I walked into her room.

"You look terrible," she said.

"Good morning to you too."

"When's the last time you slept?"

"I sleep."

"Liar." She patted the bed beside her. "Sit and tell me about the plan."

I sat and told her everything I'd been working on. The research, the preparation and the one missing piece.

"I need to find someone," I said. "Someone talented enough to be a real threat. Someone Damien wronged badly enough to want revenge as much as I do."

"You'll find them," Grandma said with certainty. "And when you do, you'll burn his entire world down."

She smiled when she said it.

That's where I got it from, I realized. This capacity for cold, calculated destruction.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Like I'm dying." She laughed at my expression. "Don't look so tragic. I've made my peace with it. I just want to live long enough to see you destroy those bastards."

"You will."

"Promise me something," Grandma said, gripping my hand with surprising strength. "When you win - and you will win - don't let it consume you completely. There has to be something left of you after the revenge is done."

"I'll try."

"No. Promise me."

"I promise."

She settled back against her pillows, satisfied.

I stayed until she fell asleep, then went back to hunting.

---

The bar was called The Pit, and the name was accurate.

It had sticky floors and broken lighting, it was the kind of place where dreams came to die slow, painful deaths.

I'd been to eleven venues in the past two weeks. Watched forty-three different artists perform. Most were forgettable. Some were decent but none were what I needed.

Then he walked on stage.

He looked like he'd been sleeping rough. Clothes that had seen better days. A guitar held together with electrical tape. Dark hair falling into eyes that had seen too much but when he started playing, the entire room should have stopped.

They didn't, of course. The drunk crowd kept talking, kept ignoring him, kept treating him like background noise.

His voice was raw in a way that couldn't be taught. Pain that couldn't be faked and every note felt like it was being ripped out of somewhere deep and honest.

The song was about betrayal. About being used and discarded. About watching someone steal everything you created and claim it as their own.

I knew that feeling intimately.

When he finished, maybe five people clapped. He packed up his guitar with shoulders hunched in defeat and walked off stage.

I followed him outside.

He was in the alley, sitting on a crate, staring at nothing.

"You're wasting your talent in places like this," I said.

He looked up, instantly wary. "If this is a proposition, I'm not interested."

"It's a business opportunity."

"Same thing, usually."

"I want to make you famous," I said bluntly. "Specifically, I want to make you more successful than Damien Richards."

His entire body went rigid.

"Why?" His voice was flat, dangerous.

"Because I'm going to destroy him, and I need someone with talent and motivation to help me do it." I held his gaze. "You clearly have both. So let's talk."

He studied me for a long moment. "Who are you?"

"Adeline Monroe. And you are?"

"Kai Morrison." He stood up slowly. "And I'm listening."

---

We went to a twenty-four-hour diner that smelled like grease and desperation.

Kai ordered coffee, he didn't touch the menu even though I could tell he was hungry. I don't know whether it was pride or poverty or maybe probably both.

"Tell me about Damien Richards," I said.

"You first," Kai countered. "Why do you want to destroy him?"

"He's my ex-husband. He's also a thief, a liar, and a manipulator who destroyed my life. Your turn."

Kai's jaw clenched. "Three years ago, I wrote a song. It was the best thing I'd ever created. I sent it to a producer who said he could get it heard. That producer worked with Damien."

"Let me guess. Your song ended up on Damien's album."

"Not even my whole song. Just the hook and the melody. The part that made it special." Kai's hands tightened around his coffee cup. "He changed enough that I couldn't prove it was mine. Made millions while I lost everything trying to fight him legally."

"Do you still have the original?"

"Every version. Every demo. Time-stamped and saved."

I pulled out my phone and showed him a photo I'd taken of Damien's hard drive before I'd left. Lists of songs and annotations. Notes about "acquiring" material from various sources.

"I have proof he's stolen from at least seven different artists," I said. "Including you. I was the one who helped him cover it up because I didn't know any better. Now I'm going to be the one who exposes him."

Kai stared at the photo. "You're serious."

"Completely."

"Why me? There are bigger artists. People with actual followings."

"Because you're talented enough to be a real threat, desperate enough to take risks, and angry enough to see this through." I leaned forward. "And because watching you destroy Damien with the exact song he stole from you? That's poetic justice."

Kai was quiet for a long time.

"What's the catch?" he finally asked.

"No catch. It's a fair contract with profit sharing. You do exactly what I say, when I say it, and we both get what we want."

"And what do you want?"

"I want to watch Damien Richards lose everything he stole. His career, his reputation and his perfect life with my sister." I smiled, and I could feel how cold it was. "I want him to know it was me who destroyed him."

Kai looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time.

"You're terrifying," he said.

"Is that a yes?"

He extended his hand across the table. "It's a yes."

I shook it.

"Welcome to the war, Kai Morrison."

Kai showed up at the studio at six in the morning looking like he hadn't slept.

"Coffee," he said, handing me a cup.

"You remembered."

"Black, no sugar. You told me once." He set his guitar down. "What's the plan?"

I pulled up three browser windows on my laptop. Music gossip blogs. The kind that lived for drama and didn't fact-check too carefully.

"We're going to feed them a story anonymously" I said. “Just enough to plant seeds of doubt about Damien's upcoming album."

"What kind of story?"

"That a major artist is about to release stolen material. We won't name names. We'll just suggest and let people's imaginations do the rest."

Kai's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You're devious."

"I prefer strategic." I handed him a burner phone and a script. "You're calling from a blocked number. You're a concerned industry insider. You've heard troubling rumors."

"And if they ask for specifics?"

"You don't have specifics. You hang up before they can press."

Kai read through the script. "This could work."

"It will work. Make the calls."

He did and I listened to him talk to the first blogger, his voice perfectly calibrated between worried and reluctant.

By the time he finished the third call, I was impressed.

The first post went up twenty minutes later.

BLIND ITEM: Which chart-topping artist might have some explaining to do about their upcoming album? Sources say not all the credits are accurate...

Kai refreshed Damien's Instagram. "His comments are already going crazy."

People were speculating, pointing fingers, demanding answers.

"Now what?" Kai asked.

"Now we make you impossible to ignore."

---

I took him shopping with what was left of Grandma's money.

Kai resisted every step and said he didn't need new clothes or didn't deserve my investment.

"Stop," I finally said. "This isn't charity. This is strategy. You need to look like someone worth paying attention to."

"I look fine."

"You look like you're one missed meal away from collapsing." I shoved a jacket at him. "Try this on."

When he came out of the dressing room, I had to admit he cleaned up better than expected.

"See? Now you look like an artist, not a victim."

Something in his expression shifted. "Is that what you think I am? A victim?"

"I think you're someone who got screwed over and is finally doing something about it." I met his eyes. "Just like me."

The tension between us felt electric.

Kai looked away first. "What's next?"

"Recording. We need content, and we need it now."

---

Back at the studio, I watched through the glass as Kai set up.

"What are you recording?" I asked through the intercom.

"Something I wrote after Damien stole my song. It's called 'Rise Again.'"

When he started singing, I understood why this was going to work.

His voice was raw where Damien was polished. Honest where Damien was manufactured.

The lyrics were about falling and getting back up. About being knocked down and choosing to fight.

When he finished, I realized I'd been holding my breath.

"Well?" Kai asked. "Was it okay?"

"It was perfect. We're releasing it tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow? That's not enough time—"

"Yes it is. I'll handle the mixing tonight. You need to rest."

"Adeline, you can't do everything yourself."

"Watch me."

---

My phone buzzed around midnight.

Mom: Your sister's engagement party is next week at the Rosewood Hotel. Don't embarrass the family by showing up.

I stared at the message, then started laughing.

Kai looked up from the couch. "What's funny?"

"My mother thinks I'm going to embarrass them." I showed him the message. "She has no idea what embarrassment actually looks like yet."

"Are you going?"

"Absolutely and so are you."

"Why would we torture ourselves like that?"

"Because showing up successful and unbothered will drive them insane." I turned to face him. "I need you there with me. As my plus-one."

Kai's expression darkened with something protective and angry. "If that's what you want."

"It is."

---

The food arrived around one AM, it was a Chinese takeout that Kai had ordered without asking.

"Eat," he commanded.

"I'm working."

"You haven't eaten all day so please eat."

I picked up the chopsticks, surprised by his authority.

"Bossy," I muttered.

"Someone has to be, since you don't take care of yourself."

We ate in silence.

"Can I ask you something?" Kai said eventually.

"Depends."

"Why are you really doing this? There's something else besides revenge."

I set down my chopsticks. "Maybe I'm trying to prove I'm more than what they made me feel like. More than the sick girl. The burden. The mistake."

Kai nodded slowly. "I get that."

"Do you?"

"My family thinks I'm a failure because I didn't want to take over the business. They think making music is a waste of time." He met my eyes. "So yeah. I understand wanting to prove you're more than what people assume."

For a moment, we just looked at each other then my laptop chimed.

I turned back to the mixing board. "Get some sleep because tomorrow we go to war."

I worked until dawn, then hit publish on his single.

By the time Kai woke up two hours later, we had a thousand streams.

"It's working," I said, showing him the numbers.

Kai stared at the screen. "This is really happening."

"Did you doubt me?"

"I'm just not used to people actually believing in me."

"Get used to it because we're just getting started."

My phone rang and it was an unknown number.

Sophie's voice came through, sickly sweet. "I heard you survived. Shame about the baby though. Did you hear? Damien and Caroline are getting married next month and you're not invited."Then the line went dead.

My hands clenched into fists.

Kai was beside me immediately, his hand on my shoulder, grounding me until I stopped shaking.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"For what?"

"For not asking questions."

"Everyone has things they're not ready to talk about." He squeezed my shoulder, then let go. "What's next?"

I pulled up Damien's Instagram and there was a new post. Him and Caroline looking perfect, it had three million likes.

"Next," I said, "we make them regret everything."