Chapter 26
KNOX
They “value the partnership, but leg two funding is contingent on stabilizing brand risk.” They want us to “calm the Navarro situation.” They don’t define what that means. They don’t have to. They want the noise to stop. They want easy.
I call Quincy. “The hell is going on?”
“They’re spooked. They don’t want the second leg if they think we’re a headline farm.”
“We’re not.”
“You have been. They care about risk, Knox. We need to contain the narrative. A quiet cycle for at least ten days. Minimal Lou in frames. Music-first messaging only. Then they’ll sign the final transfers.”
“Minimal Lou in frames,” I repeat. The words taste like ashes.
“I know. I don’t like it either. But we can’t lose the label.”
I look at the rehearsal schedule and the production invoices. Leg two is booked. Crews lined. Trucks penciled. If we lose the money, we cancel dates or go into debt, we can’t clean up this year. People lose their jobs over this. Fans demand ticket refunds.
It’s a fucking mess if this goes south.
“Meeting at eleven. Suite office. You, me, the guys, Lou.”
“I’ll bring options and donuts.”
I hang up and stare at the email again. It isn’t subtle. It isn’t meant to be. I text everyone for the meeting and prepare for all hell to break loose.
I set the room. Laptop open. Notes ready.
I write a simple agenda on a pad: 1) label money 2) quiet plan 3) release week cadence.
I put four chairs around the small table.
Quincy arrives with a laptop, a folder, and his phone already buzzing.
He looks like he hasn’t slept. Houston and Salem slide in.
Lou last. She looks ready to work, not to fight.
I hope it doesn’t come to that.
I start. “The label is threatening leg two funding unless we quiet things down. They want ten days of calm.”
“Define calm,” Lou says.
“Less fuel for the fire. No reactive posts. No interviews. Behind-the-scenes on pause. No projection of internal process. We lock schedule, we stick to it, we keep the room closed.”
“You mean we go dark? But the behind-the-scenes strategy was working,” she counters.
Salem leans back. “They mean less of you, Lou. Isn’t that right, Quincy?”
Quincy sighs. “They mean less anything that makes a story that isn’t the record.”
“Which is her work,” Houston says, level.
I keep going because I want to get through the plan before the fight starts.
“We’re going to route all press to Quincy.
If we tease, we tease with audio snippets, not visuals.
Lou, pull any scheduled posts that show faces, and hold your mapping clips for a week.
No new titles on the site till after we clear the Friday add dates.
Push the deck updates to me and Quincy only. Nothing public till next week.”
She doesn’t move. “Say that again.”
I do. Firmer.
She looks at me like she’s checking if I heard myself. “You want me to hide.”
“I want to reduce risk. For ten days. Then we go loud again.”
“Whose risk?”
“Tour risk. The people who are depending on us. Crew. Vendors. Contracts. This is bigger than any one of us.”
“Then say it that way. Don’t act like I’m an error to be minimized.”
I feel the clock in my head. The money. The schedule. The label. The calls lined up. I slip into command mode by reflex. I start issuing orders because orders are how I make panic sit down.
“Pull the posts. Lock the deck. Send me a revised timeline by two. Quincy needs a clean grid for the next ten days. Tighten your approvals to me only. No external screenshots. No one else needs your working files until we’re past the add dates.”
She blinks. Slow. “Excuse me?”
I don’t stop. “Also, no more balcony shots with type in the background. No room glimpses. No corridor angles. I don’t want the internet parsing carpets and guessing door numbers.”
“I’m not an intern or your secretary,” she says.
“This situation is on fire. We need to act now. It won’t be pleasant. Ten days. Then we go back to normal.”
“You’re treating me like a problem to move offstage.”
“It’s ten days. Keep at it, just keep it off the radar until then. You’ll deliver behind the scenes later. Right now, we need you to pivot.”
She holds up a hand. “I’m not your servant. I deliver my work. I have never missed a deadline. I built this album with you. For god’s sake, I’m on it!. I got you here. You don’t get to talk to me like I’m a mistake you made on vacation, Knox.”
I sigh loudly. “I didn’t say you’re my servant—”
“You barked orders at me like one.”
My face goes hot. “I’m trying to keep the tour funded. I’m trying to keep people paid.”
“So am I, by doing the job you hired me to do. By keeping the story about the work. By building a system that stops you from improvising yourselves into crises.”
I scratch my head, trying to figure out where this went sideways. I knew it would, but not like this. “This is crunch time, Lou. Things aren’t going to be pretty. We have to—”
“Crunch time is when you should try to be extra nice, not use it as an excuse to be a dickhead.” She stands.
“I deliver my work,” she says, voice steady.
“I have never missed a deadline. I have helped you get this album together. You have no right to treat me less-than, because you are lucky to have me.”
She picks up her laptop, tucks her pencil behind her ear, and walks out. The door shuts hard enough to make the glass hum. The room is quiet.
Salem says, “What the hell was that?”
“A hissy fit. She’ll cool off.”
He blinks at me. “I mean you, Knox.”
“Look, I’m trying to keep people employed—”
“No. You don’t get that excuse right now. You were an asshole to her.”
Houston looks at me like I’m a stranger. “You sounded like the label.”
“She’s in this with us,” Salem says. “You just put her in the hallway because some exec lost his nerve to deal with extra publicity. You put my fighting and Troy’s bullshit on her shoulders.”
“Don’t,” I cut him off. “I didn’t put her anywhere.”
“You did,” Houston says. “After bringing her into the light, you told her to stop being visible. You told her to send her work to you and not to the world. You took her voice away because someone emailed you.”
“I took heat so we don’t lose money we promised a hundred people,” I say. “I took responsibility. That’s my job here. That’s the way it’s always been.”
“You took control from her for no reason.” Salem sneers. “You treated her like a problem to manage.”
“She is getting death threats! Is it so bad to take her off the board for a little while?”
“Yeah, she is, but that’s not why you did it.” Houston folds his arms. “Don’t act like it was some noble thing to pick her apart like that. She doesn’t need you to minimize her to feel safe. She needs you to treat her like a partner.”
“I do.” It sounds weak. Mostly because it’s bullshit.
“Not in here. Not today.”
Quincy clears his throat. “We still need a plan,” he says, half apology, half plea. “The label is not bluffing. They want quiet.”
Houston’s jaw works side to side for a breath. “We can be quiet without erasing her. We can lead with audio and keep credits in the captions. We can stagger posts. Lock interviews behind paywalls. Keep comments off. That’s not the same as telling her to hide.”
Salem nods. “We do it that way. We keep her name in the byline. We don’t shame her out of the room.” He glares at me. “Ever.”
I feel myself double down because backing up right now feels like losing the handle. “We’re not shaming anyone. We’re reducing problems for a while. It’s a tactical call. Nothing personal.”
“It was condescending and a dick move,” Houston says. “We don’t do that. Not in this band. Not in this family.”
I look at Quincy for backup. He won’t give it. He stares at the floor. He knows the label’s ask is dirty. He wants the money anyway. Can’t blame him.
Salem stands. “Fix it, Knox. You pissed her off. She was right. You were wrong. Do something about it.”
“She walked out!”
“Because you were an ass! Go apologize. Or I will. Or Houston will. But somebody is going to tell her she isn’t less than anyone in this room or anywhere else! She is the reason this album is coming together. Whether you like it or not, we need her.”
Houston stands too. “If you won’t fix this, we will.”
They walk out. The door is softer this time, but no less harsh.
Quincy lingers. “You know we need the funding.”
“I know.”
“You also know you can’t run this band like a label desk.
Salem doesn’t respond to force well, and Houston…
” He sighs. “He’s a good guy, too soft sometimes.
He doesn’t take well to it either. Your talent lies in convincing people that things were their own idea.
You lead from behind, Knox. It’s a skill I never mastered and I’ve always respected.
That’s why they didn’t take this well. This… this wasn’t you.”
“I know that too.”
“You’re worried. We all are. But if you don’t fix this, you’ll hate yourself.
Your brothers, they love that girl. It’s dangerous, of course.
Caring the way they do. That’s why they need you to be the rational one.
The even keel. You keep them together. But that’ll change if you start barking orders at everyone, no matter the reason.
” He heads for the door, but pauses to lay his hand on my shoulder.
“Fix this the way you fix things. Not the way the label breaks things.”
He leaves me in the empty room.
I look at the label note and at my agenda, and at the empty chair where she was. I hear the way I spoke to her. The part of me that thinks control is care.
Sometimes it is. Today it wasn’t.
I open a blank doc and start drafting a public statement because that’s the thing I know how to do when someone screws up. Fix the optics, control the narrative, build a wall of words between the truth and the crowd.
We support artist autonomy and respect across our team. Lou Navarro is our art director and partner. We stand with her work and her safety. We lead with music because that is what we make.
I stop. I read it again. It’s clean. It’s true.
It is also a dodge. It’s me trying to fix the public without fixing the private. It’s me hiding from the person I need to face. This fight isn’t with the public. Not really.
I delete the file. I empty the trash. I take a breath, and it catches because the easy move is always the wrong one when I’ve already made a wrong one.
I text Lou: I’m sorry. Can we talk?
The bubbles don’t move. I don’t blame her. Maybe she isn’t looking at her phone. Or maybe she’s ignoring me.
I walk the hall once, twice, three times, and then come back to the office because running after her now feels like making this about my need to feel better, and that’s not why I need to apologize.
Okay, that’s not the only reason I need to apologize.
Pacing is mind-numbing, and that’s probably what I need right now, but I hate waiting. I deserve the wait.
Back in our suite, I open the calendar and screw around, hoping she’ll text me. Or show up. She doesn’t.
I sit in the office and stare at the door, and hate myself for making the thing I hate. The label pushed, and I pushed down. I don’t do that.
But I did it.
The door opens. Houston steps in, closes it behind him, and leans on the frame. “You going to keep hiding in here.”
“Tried the hallway for a while, but she wasn’t responding. So, I’m figuring out a plan.”
“You broke a person today. Not a plan.”
“I know I fucked up, Houston.”
“Say it out loud. How did you fuck up?”
“I talked to her like she worked for me and not with me. I made her the lever for label fear. I acted like command fixes everything. It doesn’t.”
He nods once. “Good. Now what?”
“I drafted a statement for the site. Don’t look at me like that. I deleted it. I realized how stupid that was before anything happened.” I sigh. “I need to fix myself, not the optics.”
“Correct.”
“I’m sorry I screwed this up.”
He looks at me for a long second. “It’s not me you owe an apology to.”