Echoes of a Silent Song

I was part of a famous duo with Brayden Reynolds in the industry.

He once shielded me from a stalker's acid attack and chose to go public with our relationship at the height of his fame, giving me a sense of security.

Everyone believed our story would end like the songs I wrote for him.

A perfect finale with the couple walking hand in hand toward happiness.

But then that girl sang our love song in a live stream, duetting sweetly with Brayden.

She even sent me the recording.

"Thanks for the hit song, Eve," she said. "And thanks for shaping Brayden into such a great man. From now on, he's all mine."

At the end of the video, Brayden stood half-naked, his back revealing a jagged, ugly scar.

I made a phone call, cranking the speaker to max, savoring the woman's fading screams through the receiver.

"Eve Walton!" Brayden's fiery rage burned in his eyes, but I just smiled and slapped the divorce papers and settlement agreement in front of him.

...

The living room was packed.

I counted twenty-eight people Brayden brought to confront me, two more than the witnesses at his proposal.

"What exactly do you want?" His temples throbbed with anger.

"You publicly sang our love song with her, and she had the nerve to taunt me, the real deal, to my face. And you have the gall to ask me that?" With a loud smack, I slammed my phone on the table.

Brayden's gaze flicked to the scar, his face tightening. "It was just a young girl's prank."

He lowered his voice, his tone ambiguous. "As colleagues in the same company, is it wrong to help her gain some attention? As for taking off my shirt, it was just a spilled drink. A coincidence."

"Listen to the nonsense you're spouting!" I grabbed a coaster from the table and hurled it at him. "Brayden, did you get kicked in the head? Don't you know how the media will spin this? After eight years together, we've finally made it this far, and you want to..."

"Enough!" Brayden slammed the table.

His resolve reminded me of the day he fought the company to sign me alongside him.

But today, I sat on the opposite side.

"You wrote plenty of hit songs for me, but I've also brought you fame and fortune. Eve Walton, we don't owe each other anything!"

His words were all about profit, not a whisper of love.

The only other time he used my full name was during his proposal two years ago.

Pain tore through my chest, but I was no longer the young girl he once protected.

I dug my nails into my palm, using the sting to force myself to stay calm.

"Joyce is still lying in the hospital! The doctors say she might never sing again!" Brayden clenched his jaw, his glare vicious enough to devour me. "You did this, and you don't even feel a shred of guilt?"

"And what if I don't?" I smiled, tucking my hands into my sleeves to discreetly wipe the blood from my palm. "Are you going to call the cops on me or ruin the hands that wrote your songs?"

The engagement ring on my finger gleamed mockingly.

"If you don't mind us both going down in flames, I'm happy to play along." After all, he swore during the proposal to stand by me through life and death.

But Brayden only curled his lips into a cruel smirk.

As he stepped toward me, his assistant instinctively moved to block him.

To outsiders, we must have looked like sworn enemies.

Before I could react, a white porcelain urn shattered at my feet.

Ruby, the golden retriever Brayden and I raised for six years, would never have imagined her beloved dad scattering her ashes after her death.

"If you don't offer a settlement we can both agree on, I don't mind playing dirtier." His gaze landed on my six-month-old kitten.

His sinister smile bore no trace of the tender boy from my memories.

"Don't you dare!" With a thud, I drove a letter opener into his shoulder.

I gave him a bloody smile. "Touch her, and I'll fight you to the death. Brayden, you know what I'm capable of. Divorce is fine, but harming my family is not!"

Even after Brayden left, my hand trembled around the blade.

The evening breeze lifted his sweat-soaked shirt.

The acid scar on his lower back faded more each day.

Just like our love, destined to vanish.

"What's your plan, Eve?" My assistant Kade stared at my bloodied palm, stunned. "Are you really going to divorce Brayden? Or grovel to Joyce?"

"He won't agree to the divorce." I grabbed the gauze from Kade's hand and wrapped it tightly around my palm.

I remembered how Brayden nearly crushed my jaw during our standoff. "Divorce is too much hassle. I've got to take care of Joyce's recovery. No time to play games with you..."

Even though our love had rotted, the eighty-two songs I wrote for him still raked in money.

Brayden wouldn't divorce.

I wouldn't bow to Joyce either.

"Get a lawyer." I shoved a stack of sheet music toward Kade, every song I'd written and freely given to Brayden over eight years.

Including the one he sang with Joyce in that live stream.

Since our love was dead, I wanted them all back.

"Have him draft a lawsuit for infringement against her." The divorce papers stayed clutched in my hand, soaked with sweat.

Some of the sheet music had yellowed, remnants of our cheapest but most cherished days in a rented apartment.

The engagement ring dug deeper into my finger.

Brayden's love grew fainter by the day.

A heavy sense of helplessness spread from my heart.

As I bent to pick up the shards of the porcelain urn, memories of Ruby flooded my mind.

A shrill ringtone snapped me back to reality.

When I reached the hospital, my grandpa was already in the ICU.

"What happened?" My heart pounded against my ribs as I grabbed the doctor's collar. "Didn't you say the bypass surgery went well? I spoke to him last night. How could this happen so suddenly?"

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Walton." The doctor's voice was heavy with regret. "According to the ward nurse, Mr. Walton saw today's trending news and was so shocked he struggled to breathe and passed out."

"What news?"

I took the doctor's phone, and headlines seared my eyes.

"Famous Singer's Late-Night Tryst with Tall Beauty, Hotel Romp Until Dawn?"

"Brayden Reynolds, Devoted Husband, Caught Cheating with Labelmate Joyce Shaw?"

In the photos, Brayden made no effort to hide, fully exposed to the camera.

He turned his head, laughing softly with the girl nestled sweetly against his shoulder.

Their gazes stuck together like glue.

The images were shot from every angle, so clear anyone could tell it was staged.

Brayden didn't even try to hide.

He'd chosen the same hotel where he proposed, just to provoke me further.

Facing the internet's uproar, he posted only two lines.

"Late-night creative spark. Please enjoy the gossip responsibly."

"Support my labelmate Joyce's work. Thank you all."

My social media was tagged into oblivion.

Even knowing it was a stunt, the stinging comments still made my heart skip.

But now wasn't the time for blame or clarifications.

I waited outside the ICU until my body went numb. Finally, the exhausted lead surgeon spoke. "The bleed in his brain is too small. My skills aren't enough to operate. We need the hospital's top neurosurgeon, Dr. Winchester, to save Mr. Walton's life."

"Then get him!"

Five minutes later, drenched in sweat, I learned Dr. Winchester had been called to a VIP ward consultation.

Without thinking, I rushed over.

Among the crowd of doctors, Brayden was gently feeding Joyce soup.

"Brayden!" I kicked the door open, slapped the bowl from his hand, and landed another slap across his cheek. "You know my grandpa's in the hospital, and you still pulled the experts away?"

Brayden froze, stunned by the slap, then his veins bulged with rage.

A famous singer slapped in public-if this got out, he'd be a laughingstock.

"Are you out of your mind? Your grandpa's already out of danger, isn't he? What's wrong with me calling experts for Joyce's consultation?"

"It's because of you!" Thinking of my grandpa fighting death in the ICU, my blood seemed to flow backward. "If he hadn't seen your scandal, would he have had a brain hemorrhage and ended up critical?"

Brayden stiffened.

His expression froze instantly.

But his stinging cheek reminded him of the humiliation. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Brayden! My grandpa's my only family. Without his support back then, neither of us would've survived in Jexperton!"

My hoarse scream carried the image of my grandpa's stern face.

I grew up in a scholarly family, happy as a child but orphaned as a teen.

My grandpa raised me, working as a translator at a publishing house.

He grumbled about the entertainment industry but still slipped money into my luggage when I moved to the city.

When he learned I was with a struggling singer who could barely eat, he called me foolish but sent money anyway.

When we couldn't afford food, my grandpa's beef paste kept us going.

On the day of the proposal, Brayden brought him from the countryside.

He knelt before him, swearing to treat me well forever.

That was the only time I saw my grandpa cry.

"I told you, hurt me all you want, but not my family!" Before my words settled, the glass on the table shattered in half.

Ignoring the pain of shards cutting my palm, I pinned Brayden's throat with his own self-defense move. "You're a big shot, Brayden, with your VIP ward and expert consultations. I can't compete. But you only have one life. If you don't want to lose it, get Dr. Winchester to operate on my grandpa now, or else..."

His neck was already scratched, the pulsing vein taunting my eyes. "Let him go... I'll let him go..."

Dr. Winchester hurried out.

I released Brayden, trembling, and slowly removed my engagement ring under his hateful glare. "Eve Walton, I really regret this."

The toilet flushed smoothly, the water reflecting only my desperate eyes.

How did Brayden and I end up like this?

In our toughest days, we worked three jobs to save for studio time to cut a record.

A single jar of beef paste stretched for nearly half a year.

Even when it molded, we couldn't bear to throw it out.

I knocked on studio doors with my manuscripts while Brayden lugged his guitar, performing at three bars a night.

Later, I wrote a song that shot me to fame.

I turned down a million-dollar offer from a top singer and gave my polished sheet music to Brayden for free.

When I was caught in a plagiarism scandal, facing contract termination and lawsuits, he risked his own future.

He signed a bet with the company. "If you help her win the lawsuit, I guarantee this year's album sells a million copies. Otherwise, treat it as a breach. Worst case, I'll go back to gigging to pay off the debt."

Thankfully, he pulled it off.

His fanbase skyrocketed to tens of millions, landing him among top-tier singers.

That same year, we were photographed leaving our shared apartment.

At one of his new song launches, a deranged fan threw acid at me.

Before I could scream, Brayden's face was in front of mine.

The stench of burning flesh lingered in my memory for a long time.

"Don't look." His body shook with pain, but he covered my eyes. "With me here, no one will hurt you."

But now.

I gave a bitter smile and tucked the sheet music I hadn't sent to the lawyer back into the drawer.

My grandpa had just been moved out of the ICU, and I had no energy left to deal with our ruined relationship.

The past six months of wedding planning had stalled my career, and my grandpa's illness drained most of my savings.

I refused to touch Brayden's money.

I needed to sell some copyrights to cover Grandpa's ongoing treatment.

But when I contacted another agent with a new song I'd written, I was told the copyright belonged to Joyce Shaw.

"What?" The news hit me like a lightning bolt.

How could a song I'd spent over thirty days and nights perfecting belong to someone else?

"Didn't you watch last night's 'Star Songwriter' live stream?"

I shook my head. "I've been at the hospital these past few days."

"Joyce's voice hasn't recovered, so she couldn't compete normally, but she invited Brayden to perform her so-called new song."

In the video, their gazes locked, tender and lingering.

Every note was painfully familiar to me.

I called Brayden to confront him, but Joyce answered. "Let's meet, Ms. Walton."

In a café's private room, she slapped a check in front of me. "I know you need the money. Ten million to buy out the performance rights to your eighty-two songs."

I didn't reach for it. "Is this your idea or Brayden's?"

She smiled lightly. "Do you think a newcomer like me has that kind of money? Brayden said you haven't written a song in half a year. Your inspiration's probably dried up. Those eighty-two songs no longer have exclusive rights. You might as well take the money, retire, and look after your grandpa."

I stayed unmoved.

Then she pulled out a ring, the inner band's E&B worn and faded.

The world went silent.

I felt like I'd plunged into icy depths, every cell aching with cold.

Forcing myself to focus, I pushed the check back with trembling fingers. "If he wants a divorce, let him tell me himself."

But Brayden never came.

Instead, a fire swept through, burning away my memories.