Page 135 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

“Because it is.”

I step closer to the desk. “For the label. Say the rest.”

He holds my stare.

“Redemption needs a premier act,” he says. “An undeniable one. Not eventually. Now. We have talent. We have infrastructure. We have vision. What we don’t have is the kind of gravitational pull that forces the market to take us seriously on first contact.”

I don’t interrupt. Partly because he’s right. Partly because once Gabe starts talking, cutting in is pointless. He’ll just route around you and keep going.

“The Last Rebels already have an audience,” he continues. “They’ve got name recognition, a sound that still matters, and enough instability that another label would either exploit them or bury them. Here, we could give them room to make the record they should be making.”

“Assuming they don’t implode first.”

“That risk exists anywhere.”

“Yeah, but it’s not Xander’s brother anywhere.”

This is the problem with Gabe. He never makes it easy to be purely angry with him because underneath all the clinical language, there’s usually a real argument buried in there. An intelligent one. One that would make sense in almost any other situation.

Almost.

But Xander and Dylan are not almost anything. They’re a live wire and an old wound and a fistfight everyone keeps pretending turned into silence on purpose.

I lean against the edge of the bookshelf and look back at him. “What does Dylan want?”

Gabe’s answer comes quicker this time. “A way back in.”

That surprises me more than it should. “To the label?”

“To Xander,” he says. Then, after a beat, “He may not admit that. But yes.”

I study him, because that changes the shape of it, whether I want it to or not.

Dylan wanting the label, I understand. That’s easy. Career move. Lifeboat. Ambition dressed up as reunion.

Dylan wanting Xander back…

That’s messier.

More dangerous, too, because hope always is.

“And Xander?” I ask.

Gabe’s mouth flattens. “Xander wants not to be touched by any of it.”

“Right.”

There’s a long quiet after that.

The kind that usually means the truth has entered the room and nobody’s thrilled about hosting it.

I push off the shelf and walk to the window, looking down over the drive and the tree line beyond. “I get why you’re thinking about it,” I say finally.

Behind me, I hear the tiny shift of Gabe moving his weight. Waiting.

“That’s not approval,” I add.

“I know.”