The roar of eighty thousand voices was a living, breathing beast, and Leo Vance was dancing on its tongue.
Spotlights cut through the haze of smoke and sweat, catching the sequins on his jacket, the diamond stud in his ear, the sheen on his forehead as he moved across the stage like a man possessed. The beat of his latest single, "Golden Hour", pulsed through the stadium floor, up through the soles of his custom boots, and into his bones. From up here, the crowd was a sea of swaying light-cell phones held aloft like digital candles, flickering in time to the music.
This is it, he thought, not for the first time that night. This is everything you wanted.
He caught his reflection in the polished black surface of a monitor. At twenty-eight, his face was all sharp angles and practiced charm, his smile white and winning under the lights. His hair, dark and sweat-damp, fell across his forehead in artful disarray. The leather jacket he worebspecially designed by a Japanese couturier hugged his shoulders like a second skin.
He looked every inch the Prince of Pop.
And he felt absolutely hollow.
"I see you out there!" Leo called into the microphone, his voice echoing through the massive speakers. The crowd screamed back, a wall of sound so thick he could almost lean against it. He grinned, the expression automatic. "You making noise for me tonight?"
The answering roar was deafening.
From the wings, his manager, Julian, gave him a thumbs-up. Two more songs, Julian mouthed, tapping his wrist where a watch would be. Leo nodded, the motion smooth, effortless. The performance was a well-oiled machine. He was just the most visible cog.
As he launched into the bridge, his eyes scanned the first few rows. The usual sea of ecstatic faces, tears streaking through glitter, mouths stretched wide in screams. But then-a flicker of movement near the side barrier. A flash of pale blonde hair in a severe, perfect bob.
Isabella.
She stood with her arms crossed, a small, knowing smile on her lips. She wasn't cheering. She was just... watching. Like he was a specimen under glass. His ex-fiancée had a knack for appearing where she wasn't wanted, a beautifully dressed ghost from a past he was trying to forget. Her presence was a splinter of ice in the heat of the show.
His voice didn't waver. His smile didn't slip. Years of practice kept the mask firmly in place. But inside, the familiar cage tightened another notch.
The final song was a ballad, Quiet Fight, from his first album. It was the one he always closed with slower, raw, the lyrics stripped of production glamour. As the opening chords rang out, the stadium's frenzy softened into something more intimate. This was the part of the show he both craved and dreaded. The part where the performance ended, and something almost real began.
"You say I'm made of steel and stage light,
A fortress built in the public eye..."
He sang the words he'd written in a shitty LA apartment a decade ago, back when his mother was still alive to hear them. The crowd sang along, thousands of voices weaving with his. For a moment, the loneliness receded. For a moment, it was just the music.
His gaze drifted past Isabella, past the sea of phones, and landed on a figure standing in the shadows of the VIP section. A woman. She wasn't singing. She was just... listening. Tall, poised, in a simple black dress that contrasted starkly with the sequined chaos around her. Her skin was a rich, warm brown that seemed to absorb and reflect the stage lights all at once. Her hair was coiled into an elegant, intricate twist at the nape of her neck. Even from this distance, he could see the focus in her posture, the intelligence in her observant gaze.
She looked utterly out of place. And completely unimpressed.
Who was she?
The thought was a distraction. The final note of the song hung in the air, pure and clear, before shattering into another explosion of applause. Leo bowed, his chest heaving, the sweat now cooling uncomfortably on his skin. He blew kisses, waved, let the adulation wash over him one last time.
"Thank you, London! I love you! Goodnight!"
The lights died. The curtain fell. The roar became muffled, then distant.
Silence.
Or the closest thing to it the frantic backstage bustle of crew, the clatter of equipment, Julian already talking into his headset. Leo stood in the sudden darkness, the phantom vibrations of the music still humming in his veins. The transition was always jarring. From god to man in ten seconds flat.
"Outstanding, Leo. Just outstanding." Julian clapped him on the back, his face flushed with victory. "The stream numbers are through the roof. The label's ecstatic."
Leo shrugged off the jacket, handing it to a waiting assistant. "Great," he said, his voice flat.
"After-party at the Mandarin. The usual crowd. You in?"
"Not tonight, Jules. I'm beat."
Julian's smile tightened, but he nodded. He was used to it. "Alright. Car's out back. I'll smooth things over." He hesitated. "Isabella's here. She asked to see you."
Of course she did. "Tell her I've left."
"She's persistent."
"So am I."
Leo didn't wait for a reply. He moved through the labyrinth of corridors, a path he knew by heart. Nodding at security, ignoring the lingering crew members who stared a little too long. His body ached with a pleasant fatigue, but his mind was already churning, moving past the show, past the noise, to the quiet of his dressing room.
He pushed the door open, expecting solitude.
Instead, he found Chloe.
She was perched on the arm of the leather sofa, still in her dancer's warm-up clothes-loose sweats and a tank top. Her honey-blonde hair was piled in a messy bun, a few strands sticking to her damp neck. She was scrolling through her phone, but her shoulders were tense, her usual radiant energy dimmed.
"Chloe?" Leo closed the door, the noise of backstage fading to a dull hum. "You okay? You missed the final bow."
She looked up, and he was struck, not for the first time, by how young she looked offstage. Twenty-six, but in this light, she could have been a teenager. Her green eyes were shadowed.
"Yeah. Sorry. Just... a headache." She forced a smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. "You were amazing out there. As always."
"Thanks." He grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, cracking it open. "You sure that's all? You've been off all week."
She hugged herself, a defensive gesture he'd never seen from her before. Chloe was fire on stage-confident, magnetic. This nervous creature was someone else.
"It's just life stuff, Leo. You know how it is." She stood up, smoothing her tank top. "I should go. I'm meeting someone."
"At one in the morning?"
Her smile turned brittle. "It's London. City that never sleeps, right?" She moved toward the door, then paused, her hand on the knob. "Hey... if something... if I needed to talk. About something serious. You'd be there, right?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and sudden. Leo put down the water bottle. "Of course. You're family, Chloe. Always."
Her eyes glistened for a second. She nodded, swallowing hard. "Good. That's... good to know." She opened her mouth as if to say more, then shook her head. "Get some rest, superstar. You deserve it."
And then she was gone, the door clicking softly shut behind her.
Leo stood alone in the quiet room, the faint scent of her perfume something light and floral-lingering in the air. A strange unease settled in his gut. Something was wrong. He'd known Chloe for five years. He'd seen her through a bad breakup, through her mother's illness. She'd never been this... fragile.
His phone buzzed on the counter. A text from an unknown number.
"Enjoy the spotlight while it lasts. It's about to get very, very dark".
He stared at the screen, his blood turning cold. He deleted it instantly. He got crazy messages all the time. This was nothing.
But as he changed out of his stage clothes, the image of Chloe's frightened eyes blended with the ominous text, and the hollow feeling in his chest grew a little deeper, a little darker.
The applause was over. The silence that followed had teeth.
And somewhere across the city, in a sleek high-rise apartment, Maya Sterling sat at her desk, the blue light of her laptop illuminating her face. A news alert flashed on her screen: LEO VANCE CONCLUDES SOLD-OUT LONDON STADIUM SHOW TO RECORD-BREAKING CROWD.
She clicked the headline absentmindedly, a brief video of him on stage filling the screen. The power, the presence, the sheer magnetism. She remembered listening to his first album on repeat in her tiny law school dorm, the lyrics about loss and resilience stitching her own grief into something bearable after her father's death.
She closed the tab. That was a lifetime ago. She was a lawyer now, not a fan. Her world was built on facts, not fantasy.
Her own phone buzzed-a calendar reminder for tomorrow.
9:00 AM - Partner Meeting. High-Profile Potential Client: Vance, L.
Maya's perfectly shaped eyebrow arched. A coincidence. It had to be.
She shut down her laptop, the room plunging into darkness save for the city lights glittering beyond her windows. Little did she know, the case and the man that would tear her meticulously ordered world apart was already rushing toward her, a silent storm gathering just beyond the horizon.