Chapter Twenty-Two
Skye
Theo scurries out of the hotel room like the cockroach he is. The door clicks shut on his pathetic exit, and my focus doesn’t follow him for a second. It remains locked on Violet, who lets out a heavy sigh and rolls her eyes toward the ceiling, a gesture of pure exhausted irritation.
“He’s always been such a coward,” she mumbles.
I let my silence build as I continue to stare at her. My anger is hot, and I take two steps forward and stop just inside her space. I’m not touching her, but I’m present.
She looks at me then, the fear from his intrusion is gone, replaced by the guilty tension that I’m fully pressing onto her. Her lips part to talk.
“Don’t.” I tilt my head, studying the lines of stress around her mouth.
“This isn’t some stupid romance movie. I don’t have the patience for a shit ton of miscommunication excuses and dramatic stories.
” I cross my arms, causing the leather of my jacket to creak.
“So, start from the beginning, and this time… tell me everything. Then, we’ll deal with what everything means. ”
It isn’t a request. It’s the only path forward I am willing to allow.
“First,” I interrupt as her mouth opens to speak. “I want to hear you say it,” I mutter, my voice rougher than I intended. “You and Solace. You’re the same person.”
It all makes sense now. Why she seemed so familiar to me the night I saw her at the bar.
I’ve always had a thing for Solace’s mouth.
I mean, I get she’s a pop sensation, and everyone fawns over her, but there’s just something about the bright red pout of those lips that always had a way of hypnotizing me.
I see the fight drain from her as her gaze drops to her hands. And then, she talks.
“You weren’t supposed to find out like this,” she admits, but she seems sincere. Like she had all intentions of telling me at some point. “Yes, I am Solace. Violet Lockwood and Solace are the same person.”
The words fall from her lips, and I swear I see her outer shell cracking as she speaks. Like she’s breaking away from a prison she never thought she’d escape.
“I never meant to lie to you, Skye.” Her eyes lock onto mine. “But the truth of this is complicated.”
My jaw tightens, and she rubs the back of her neck.
“Before anyone knew me as Solace, I wasn’t supposed to exist as an artist at all.”
I frown slightly. “What?”
“I was a ghost.”
The words hang in the air.
“A ghost vocalist. The industry hires them all the time. Singers who record the real vocals for tracks that will later be released under someone else’s name.” She glances at the door like someone can hear her speaking.
I feel myself inflate with the need to protect her if she’s in danger, but I’ll ask questions after she finishes explaining.
“I worked for one of the biggest entertainment conglomerates in the business. Aethelgard Holdings.”
I’ve heard of them, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want to interrupt her.
“They build pop stars the way architects design skyscrapers. Carefully, with everything planned.” Her gaze drifts to the floor. “My voice built careers, Skye. Chart toppers. But my name was buried in contracts and NDAs so strict they basically erased me.”
Something dark twists in my chest.
It figures, the industry always felt rotten under the surface.
“But eventually, I asked for more. I told them I didn’t want to be invisible anymore. I wanted to release music under my own name.”
“Let me guess,” I say with a quiet scoff. “They didn’t like that.”
The tension in my chest is loosening the more she explains, and the more I realize she wasn’t at fault for keeping this from me.
I have a feeling she had no choice in the matter.
As much as I hate to admit it, I am just a stranger to her.
Someone she met in Milan on a getaway for her job.
She didn’t know she could trust me, and I’m not quite sure I blame her after everything she’s been through.
“They didn’t like that,” Violet replies. “But they made me a deal.”
Her lips press into a thin line.
“They said I could debut as a solo artist if they built it from scratch.”
My brows pull together, not liking the sound of this.
“They would give me a new name, a new accent, a new backstory. Everything about me would be designed by their marketing teams. They weren’t introducing a real person.” Her voice hardens. “They were manufacturing a product.”
I could picture it way too easily. A room full of executives deciding what parts of a human would sell best. It’s disgusting.
“At first I agreed.”
I want to wretch at the thought of anyone else having that much control over her.
“I thought it was the best way out.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
“But then I realized something.”
“What?” I’m almost scared of hearing my own voice during such an intense moment with Violet.
“They weren’t just building a persona. They were deleting one. Old demo recordings started disappearing. Contracts I’d signed years earlier were quietly rewritten. Even things online, earlier collaborations and studio credits I’d done had vanished.”
My stomach sinks, and the words land heavily between us.
“Like you never existed,” I whisper.
She nods. “Exactly.”
A long silence settles between us, and then she gives me the faintest of smiles. Then, she finally speaks. “So, I decided if they wanted a manufactured identity, I’d give them one.”
My eyes narrow. “The mask.”
“The mask,” she confirms.
Her voice is steadied now, like she’s rehearsed this explanation a thousand times but never actually said it out loud.
“The moment they agreed to the Solace project, they thought they owned the image. The face. The brand. But if no one ever saw my real face, they couldn’t own it.”
My mind is racing. “So, you hid it.”
“I protected it,” she corrects.
Then, she starts ticking off the reasons slowly.
“If my public identity was separate from my real self, then legally, they only controlled Solace, not me.” She meets my eyes again. “They could sell the brand, but not the woman behind it.”
Damn. This is actually brilliant.
“The mask also made Solace bigger than a biography,” she goes on. “A symbol. Something people projected their own meaning into.”
I remembered all the theories and speculation online about the mystery behind Solace. I never thought it would boil down to this.
“People thought it was performance art,” I mutter.
“Exactly. Which helps because while everyone is busy guessing who Solace really is, I am working behind the scenes.”
“Doing what?”
“Taking back control. I recovered old recordings they tried to bury. Reconnected with producers from the ghost sessions. Archived proof of everything I’d done before they tried to erase me.”
I lean back against the closest wall, running a hand through my hair.
This is a lot.
“And you couldn’t tell anyone,” I conclude.
She shakes her head. “If the label ever connected my private life to Solace, it would destroy everything.” She swallows. “If I publicly acknowledge those ghost sessions, it opens a legal nightmare. And my agent, Ollie, has worked too hard to help cover these things to avoid royalty disputes.”
“Because the big stars didn’t actually sing their biggest songs,” I conclude.
“Bingo.” Her voice drops.
She doesn’t have to say the rest. If she tried to come forward about any of it, they’d erase her. Potentially, physically to avoid that big of a lawsuit. Companies get sketchy when a lot of money is involved.
“And if they wipe your history,” I begin, all the pieces coming together.
“They can claim ownership,” she says, realizing I’m getting it all now.
Anger rises in my chest. All the years of work she’s put in. It makes me sick.
“So, Solace was never the real you?” I hope that I’m right.
She smirks and shakes her head. “Solace is a weapon.”
A beat passes, and we both stare quietly. Part of me wants to be angry at her, but how could I be? She’s been trying to protect herself, not knowing what lengths they’d go to get what they want.
All this time, she’s been dealing with all this alone.
“Next time,” I mutter, “maybe lead with the whole secret pop star double-life thing.”
It’s the first time since she started explaining everything that I hear her laugh.
“I hate that you dealt with this all on your own.”
She clears her throat. “Not completely.”
My ears perk up, dying to hear who was so worthy of hearing her secret.
“My childhood best friend knows. Cassie.”
“The one you FaceTime with?” I say, connecting the dots.
She nods. “And of course my agent and my security detail know.” She shrugs like that’s a no-brainer.
An agent can’t work with someone without knowing what they’re marketing and why.
And the security detail would need to know who they’re protecting.
“Ollie and Michel have both protected me through most of this.”
Warmth pools in my chest knowing that Violet has people looking out for her.
“And Theo—”
“The fuck does he need to know for?” I growl. “That little—”
I stop, take a deep breath, and exhale slowly.
Violet just stands there and stares at me.
“I’m not going to ask. I don’t want to know. I’m sure you had a good reason.” Then, I take a few steps closer to her.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. Then, her eyes narrow at me. “How did you know it was me?”
Closing the distance between us, I run my hand up her thigh. “Something private gave you away.” My finger presses into the bruise on her leg, and she hisses, before chuckling.
“You would notice that little bruise.”
My hand slides up the front of her, rubbing over her chest and pausing at her throat, where I tighten my grip over the collar.
“You know what else I noticed?”
Her eyes go wide, and she swallows like she knows what she’s done.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t. The costumes, the disguise… it would have shown—”
“I said…” I begin, my voice low as I dip my mouth closer to her ear. “I said it stays on unless you’re in the shower. Those were the terms. My terms.”