The first sign of trouble came in the form of a text from Leo:
Hey, are you okay?
She didn't understand until she opened her social media feed. Her name was everywhere—but not because of music. A gossip site had published a photo of her leaving a hotel late at night, accompanied by a headline implying an affair with a married actor she'd met only once at an industry party.
The story spread like wildfire. Within hours, hashtags with her name and the word homewrecker were trending. Fan accounts turned against her, comments flooded with insults.
Maya called Evan in a panic.
"This is a lie," she said. "We have to shut it down."
Evan's voice was maddeningly calm. "It'll blow over. Scandals keep you relevant. Trust me—people will stream your song just to see who you are."
"This could ruin me," she snapped.
"Or make you bigger. The only bad publicity is no publicity."
His words felt oily, but what unsettled her most was the suspicion gnawing at her—that Evan had let it happen, maybe even fed the story. He had contacts in the press, and he'd been talking lately about "needing to keep her buzz up."
Tasha called that night. "Don't read the comments. They'll eat you alive."
"I'm not worried about the comments," Maya said quietly. "I'm worried about the people pulling the strings."
The next day, a paparazzi camera caught her looking tense as she left the studio, and that image was plastered across entertainment sites with captions about her "cracking under pressure."
She felt like her life was no longer hers—every move, every look, every silence was owned by strangers.
And for the first time, she thought about walking away from all of it.