“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 ifthey 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.”
