A Vengeful Encore

Chapter 1

Delaney

The beeping is the only thing left. A steady, sterile rhythm counting down the seconds of a life I squandered. Each chirp of the heart monitor is an accusation. There goes the moment you trusted the wrong man. There goes the year you let them steal your best work. There goes the decade you signed away for a handful of hollow promises. The air smells of antiseptic and failure. My body, a ruin at thirty-five, is a cage of brittle bones and organs that have finally surrendered.

From the corner of my eye, a television flickers. Serena Croft is on the screen, accepting another award. Her smile is dazzling, a perfect constellation of professionally whitened teeth. She thanks her family, her agent, and her dear, dear friend Delaney Walsh, for always believing in her. A single, perfect tear traces a path through her makeup. The performance is flawless. It always was.

My own breath rattles in my chest, a shallow, useless thing. I remember her, twenty years old and beautiful, her hand on my arm, whispering, “Sign it, Ellie. It’s for both of us. We’ll be stars together.” I remember Jake, his lips on my neck, murmuring, “This is it, babe. Our ticket.”

They got their tickets. I just paid the fare for all three of us.

The beeping falters. It elongates into a single, piercing tone. A long, flat line stretching into nothing.

Darkness.

Then a jolt.

Not the brutal shock of defibrillator paddles, but a deep, cellular shudder. I gasp, and the air that floods my lungs doesn’t burn. It tastes of stale coffee and something cloyingly sweet, like expensive cologne trying too hard. My hands aren’t the skeletal claws I remember. They are smooth, young, wrapped around the cool plastic of a ballpoint pen.

“Delaney? Just need your signature right there on the dotted line.” The voice is velvet and smoke, a sound I haven’t heard in fifteen years but would recognize in hell. Arthur Sterling.

I blink, my eyes adjusting to the light. I’m in an office. A ridiculously opulent one, all mahogany and chrome, with a panoramic view of the sun-drenched Los Angeles sprawl. I’m sitting in a leather chair that squeaks when I shift. Across the desk, Arthur watches me, his smile a predatory curve. To my left, Jake’s hand rests on my knee, his thumb stroking my skin in a way that’s meant to be reassuring but feels like a brand.

“Babe, what are you waiting for?” he murmurs, his voice the easy, confident drawl that I once found so charming. “Don’t overthink it.”

“She’s just nervous. It’s a big day.” Another voice. Serena. She’s on my other side, perched on the arm of my chair like a beautiful, designer-clad parrot. She squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t get cold feet now, Ellie. We’re so close to everything we’ve ever wanted.”

My gaze drops to the desk. To the sheaf of papers spread before me. At the top, in stark, corporate font, are the words: STERLING ENDEAVORS ARTIST MANAGEMENT. TEN-YEAR EXCLUSIVE AGREEMENT.

The paper god. My prison sentence.

It’s all here. The same predatory clauses, the same impossible escape conditions. The exact day. I am twenty years old again.

The memories don’t fade. They sharpen. They crash into the present with the force of a tidal wave. The fifteen years of my future, my first life, play out behind my eyes in a brutal, high-speed montage. The string of terrible roles in movies that went straight to streaming. The public humiliation when Jake left me for a producer’s daughter. The quiet, soul-crushing moment I realized Serena had used my audition notes to steal the part that would make her a star. The lonely nights, the mounting debts, the diagnosis, the hospital.

The pen in my hand feels impossibly heavy. It’s not just a pen. It is the architect of my ruin. And the key to my salvation.

“Are you okay?” Serena leans in closer, her brow furrowed in that perfect performance of concern. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I have. Mine.

I slowly lift my head, and my eyes meet hers. For a second, she almost flinches. I wonder what she sees there. Not the hopeful, naive girl who walked in here an hour ago, but the bitter, thirty-five-year-old woman who just died.

“I’m fine,” I say. My voice sounds different. Deeper. The tremor is gone.

I pick up the contract, the paper cool and heavy against my fingertips. “I was just re-reading a few things.” I fix my gaze on Arthur. “This exclusivity clause in section four. It states that Sterling Endeavors owns my name, image, and likeness in perpetuity for all projects. Is that correct?”

Arthur’s smile tightens almost imperceptibly. “It’s standard language, Delaney. It’s to protect our investment in you.”

“Your investment,” I repeat softly. “And this part here, the termination penalty. It’s defined as one hundred percent of my projected earnings for the remainder of the contract term. So, to be clear, if I wanted to leave after five years, and you project I might make twenty million in the next five, I would owe you twenty million dollars?”

Jake’s hand tightens on my knee. It’s a warning. “Babe, we went over this. The lawyer said it was fine.”

“Your lawyer?” I ask, turning to him. “Or the one Arthur’s firm so generously provided for us?”

Jake’s jaw works, his charm sputtering out. “It’s the best offer you’re going to get, Delaney. This is the big leagues.”

“She’s right,” Serena chimes in, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness. She places her hand over mine. Her skin is warm. I feel nothing. “Don’t mess this up over some scary legal words, sweetie. You’re not a lawyer. We should trust the professionals. This is our dream.”

“Is it?” I look from her perfectly manicured hand on mine to her perfectly composed face. “Is it our dream, Serena? Or is it your dream, and I’m just the convenient stepping stone you need right now?”

The air in the room changes. The manufactured warmth evaporates, leaving a sudden, sharp chill. Serena slowly withdraws her hand. Arthur leans forward, his velvet voice turning to steel. “Miss Walsh, this is a very serious offer. I don’t appreciate games.”

“Neither do I, Mr. Sterling,” I say calmly. “I’ve been playing one for a very long time without even knowing the rules.”

I look down at the contract. The paper god. It demands a sacrifice. But the sacrifice won’t be my life. Not again.

I hold Arthur’s gaze as I begin to tear the first page, right down the middle. The sound is shockingly loud in the silent office. A clean, satisfying rip.

Arthur stands up so fast his chair scrapes against the floor. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“She’s lost her mind,” Jake hisses, his face flushing with anger.

I don’t stop. I tear the first page again, then the second. The thick, expensive paper resists for a moment before giving way. Rip. Rip. Rip. Each sound severs a chain I didn’t know I was wearing.

Serena is speechless, her mouth a perfect ‘O’ of disbelief. Her mask of friendship is gone, revealing the cold, calculating ambition beneath.

I continue, methodical and unhurried, until the entire ten-year contract is nothing but a pile of paper scraps. I let them flutter from my fingers, a snowstorm of broken promises falling onto the gleaming mahogany.

“I’m declining your generous offer,” I announce to the stunned room.

Jake is on his feet now, his face a mask of fury. “Are you insane? You just threw away our future!”

“No, Jake,” I say, standing to face him. I feel calm. Crystalline. The fear is gone, burned away by fifteen years of simmering regret. “I just threw away *your* future. The one where you use my money to launch your career while sleeping with my best friend.”

I let my gaze slide to Serena. I watch the color drain from her face. Oh, that’s a beautiful sight. A memory worth dying for.

“You can have him, Serena,” I continue, my voice even and cold. “In fact, you already do. That little black cocktail dress you claimed you ‘lost’ at my birthday party last month? It’s stuffed in the back of Jake’s closet, under his hideous collection of basketball jerseys. You should probably retrieve it before his next girlfriend finds it.”

Jake goes from red to ghost-white. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Serena just stares, completely exposed.

I bend down and pick up my worn, faded purse from the floor. It holds everything I own in the world. A wallet with three hundred dollars, a tube of cherry chapstick, and a future that is finally, terrifyingly mine.

“And as for you,” I say, my voice dropping low as I look directly at Serena. “You are a magnificent actress. Truly. But I’ve seen the ending of this particular movie, and it’s not for me. Consider our friendship, and any professional association we might have had, permanently terminated.”

I turn and walk toward the door, my cheap boots making no sound on the plush carpet. I can feel their eyes on my back. Three pairs of eyes, all simmering with a toxic cocktail of shock, humiliation, and rage.

I don’t look back. I don’t need to. I know exactly what their faces look like.

I pull open the heavy office door and step out into the hallway, into the bright, uncertain light of my second first day. I am twenty years old. I am broke. I am alone.

And for the first time in a life I thought was over, I am absolutely, completely free.

Chapter 2

Delaney

The elevator doors slide shut, encasing me in a box of brushed steel and silence. The sterile quiet is a stark contrast to the storm I left behind in Arthur Sterling’s office. I lean my head against the cool metal, the faint vibration a grounding force. I expect to feel a tremor in my hands, a wild thumping in my chest. Instead, there is only a strange, cold calm. The calm of a survivor standing in the wreckage, breathing in the dust.

Three hundred and twelve dollars. That’s what my bank account holds. Enough for a week’s worth of groceries and maybe a bus pass. Not enough to build an empire. But it’s a start.

An hour later, I’m standing in a dingy apartment in Koreatown. The air smells like dust and old kimchi. The landlord, a stooped man named Mr. Kim with eyes that have seen too many broken leases, watches me with weary suspicion.

“One year lease only,” he says, his voice raspy. “No pets. No loud parties.”

“I’ll take it,” I say, pulling the wad of cash from my purse. It’s almost everything I have. “First and last month’s rent. Right now.”

He blinks, surprised by the speed of it. He takes the money, counts it twice, and slides a key across the peeling laminate countertop. “Apartment 2B. Don’t lose it. Costs twenty dollars to replace.”

I don’t bother with the tour. I know what it looks like. Four walls, a window that looks out onto a brick wall, and a stain on the carpet that’s probably a permanent resident. It’s a cage, but it’s one I chose. It’s a fortress.

Inside 2B, I drop my purse on the floor. The sound echoes in the empty space. I have no furniture, no food, nothing but the clothes on my back and a future that feels like a blank page. The panic I was expecting finally tries to claw its way up my throat.

I choke it down. Panic is a luxury I can’t afford.

I walk to a payphone on the corner, the receiver sticky against my ear. I have one more call to make for the day. I dial the number for a bottom-feeder talent agency, one I remember from my first life as a place where dreams went to die. I ask for the junior agent division.

“Leo Valdez,” a tired voice answers on the third ring.

My breath catches. Leo. In my past life, he was a legend. A kingmaker who built his own agency from the ground up, famous for his loyalty and his ruthless business acumen. But now, at twenty-two, he’s just a kid in a bad suit, fetching coffee for a hack who will fire him in six months for being too ambitious.

“You don’t know me,” I say, my voice steady, practiced. I’ve had fifteen years to rehearse my lines. “My name is Delaney Walsh, and I’m going to be your most important client.”

There’s a pause. I can hear the clatter of keyboards in the background. “I’m sorry, who did you say this was?”

“Delaney Walsh. And I’m not looking for representation. I’m looking for a partner.”

He scoffs, a dry, humorless sound. “Listen, kid, I get a dozen calls a day from girls who think they’re the next big thing. I’m an assistant to a junior agent. I can’t even sign my own lunch orders. What makes you think you’re so special?”

“Because I’m not the next big thing,” I say, letting the cold certainty of my past life bleed into my tone. “I’m the only thing that’s going to matter on your client list a year from now. Let me ask you something, Leo. Are you happy working for Mark Tobin?”

The line goes completely silent. The background noise seems to fade away. I’ve hit a nerve.

“How do you know that name?” he asks, his voice low and sharp.

“I know he takes credit for the clients you find. I know you brought him that kid from the soap opera, and he passed it off as his own discovery at the weekly meeting. I know you’re wasting your time there.”

“Who is this?” he demands. “Are you from a rival agency? Is this some kind of prank?”

“This isn’t a prank, Leo. This is an opportunity. Your one and only opportunity to get out before Tobin blacklists you for being smarter than him.”

He’s quiet for a long time. I let him think. I picture him in his tiny cubicle, his ambition warring with his disbelief. “Okay, Delaney Walsh. You have my attention. For about thirty more seconds. What do you want?”

“I want you to be my personal manager,” I say. “Not my agent. My manager. We build this together, just us. Fifty-fifty split until we’re big enough to renegotiate.”

This time he laughs, but there’s an edge of hysteria to it. “You’re insane. You have no credits, no headshots on my desk, nothing. You’re a voice on a phone offering me half of a career that doesn’t exist.”

“It exists. You just can’t see it yet. Tomorrow morning, at ten a.m., I’m auditioning for a low-budget independent film. It’s called ‘Echo Creek’.”

“Never heard of it,” he says dismissively.

“No one has. That’s the point. It’s a small film with a brilliant script that everyone is ignoring. The director is an unknown. The budget is nonexistent. But it’s going to get into Sundance. It’s going to be the talk of the festival. The lead actress is going to get an Oscar nomination for her performance.”

“And let me guess,” he says, dripping with sarcasm. “That’s going to be you.”

“Yes,” I say, with no sarcasm at all. “That’s going to be me. And you are going to be the manager who had the foresight to sign me when I was a nobody. The one who saw what no one else could.”

I can almost hear the gears turning in his head. The skepticism fighting the flicker of greed, of ambition. “Even if I believed this fantasy, why me? You could walk into any agency in town with that kind of confidence.”

“Because they wouldn’t believe me. They’d see a naive twenty-year-old girl. They’d try to package me, change me, and stick me in the same box as everyone else. I don’t need an agent, Leo. I need a bulldog. A partner. I need someone as hungry as I am. In my first life… in my research… I learned you were the best.”

I catch my slip of the tongue. He doesn’t seem to notice. The flattery, however, lands perfectly.

“My research,” he repeats slowly, tasting the words. “You’ve done a lot of research.”

“I’m meticulous.”

“Where is this audition?”

“A small casting office on Burbank. The sides are available online. I suggest you read them. Read the whole script if you can get your hands on it. Then you’ll understand.”

“I’m not promising anything,” he says, his voice tight with caution. But he hasn’t hung up. That’s a win.

“I’m not asking for a promise. I’m asking you to do your homework. Read the script for ‘Echo Creek’. Call me back when you’ve finished.”

I give him the number for the payphone on the corner and tell him I’ll be near it for the next hour. Then I hang up before he can argue.

I spend my last few dollars on a copy of the script from a 24-hour print shop. Back in my empty apartment, I sit on the floor under the bare bulb, the pages spread out before me.

The script is just as raw and beautiful as I remember. The character, Anya, is a young woman hollowed out by grief after a tragic accident steals her family. In my first life, I’d read these lines and tried to imagine the pain. I’d tried to act it.

Now, I don’t have to act.

I close my eyes. I remember the hospital room. The beeping monitor. The smell of antiseptic. The crushing weight of a life filled with wrong turns and stolen chances. I let the regret wash over me, the thirty-five years of quiet desperation, of smiling at parties while my soul was screaming.

Anya’s grief isn’t for a family she lost in an accident. It’s for a life she lost. A future that was taken from her. The lines on the page are no longer just words. They are my biography.

I don’t memorize the dialogue. I absorb it. I let the ghost of my other self speak through me. The pain, the bitterness, the tiny, stubborn flicker of hope that refuses to be extinguished. It’s all there, waiting.

An hour passes. Then another. The city outside my window hums with a life I’m not a part of yet. The payphone on the corner remains silent. Doubt, cold and sharp, finally finds a crack in my armor.

Maybe he laughed and hung up. Maybe he told his boss about the crazy girl on the phone and they had a good chuckle at my expense. Maybe this was all a mistake.

Then, a new thought. He’s not calling because he’s reading. He’s a fast reader, I remember that. He’s seeing what I see. He’s feeling the hook.

My phone, a cheap flip phone from years ago, buzzes in my purse. Not the payphone. He must have done a search for my name, found my number on an old casting profile. He’s already digging.

I take a deep breath before answering. “Hello?”

“Delaney Walsh.” It’s Leo. His voice is different. The exhaustion is gone. In its place is a thrum of energy, a coiled intensity I recognize all too well.

“Leo,” I say calmly.

“I read the sides. Then I called in a favor and got the full script from a friend in development. This is… this is not what I expected.”

“I know,” I say.

“The dialogue is incredible. The character arc for Anya is a goddamn masterpiece. It’s a monster of a role.”

“I know.”

There’s another pause. I can hear him breathing. “You walk in there tomorrow and you give them the performance of your life. You give them a performance that makes them forget every other actress who reads for the part.”

“I will,” I say. It’s not a boast. It’s a fact.

“I made some calls. The director, Marcus Rylan, he’s a nobody, but he got his last short film into Cannes. The casting director is solid. She has a reputation for finding new talent. This isn’t the amateur-hour production I thought it was.”

“It’s the real deal,” I confirm.

“Okay,” he says, the single word loaded with a dozen different emotions. Skepticism. Fear. Hope. “Okay. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m not your manager. Not yet. I’m an interested party. I’m going to do my research. And I’m going to be watching. You get a callback, you call me. You get the part… you call me immediately.”

“Fair enough,” I say. He’s intrigued. He’s hooked. The foundation is laid.

“And Delaney?” he adds, just before hanging up.

“Yes?”

“Don’t screw this up.”

He hangs up. I snap my own phone shut and look around the empty room. It doesn’t feel like a cage anymore. It feels like a stage, waiting for the show to begin. Tomorrow, the audition. Today, the first pillar of my new life is set. It’s shaky, uncertain, but it’s there.

I am twenty years old. I am nearly broke. I am utterly alone.

And I have a map.

Chapter 3

Delaney

The casting office is a warehouse of desperation. The air is thick with the scent of cheap hairspray and palpable anxiety. Dozens of young women, all with some variation of the same hungry hope in their eyes, are scattered on mismatched chairs, clutching scripts like holy texts. They look like me. The old me.

I sign in at the front desk, my hand steady. The name I write, Delaney Walsh, feels solid. Real. It’s no longer the name of a victim.

“Ellie? Is that you?”

The voice is a confection of sugar and venom. I turn. Serena Croft stands by the water cooler, a vision in a cream-colored pantsuit that probably cost more than my first and last month’s rent combined. Her hair is perfect. Her smile is a weapon.

“Serena,” I say, my tone perfectly neutral. “I didn’t realize you were auditioning for this.”

She lets out a little laugh, a practiced tinkling sound. “Oh, God, no. Of course not. Arthur sent me the script for a laugh. It’s so… gritty. I’m just here to drop off a tape for a real movie. I saw your name on the sign-in sheet and I just had to make sure you were okay.”

Her eyes do a slow, insulting sweep of my simple black t-shirt and jeans. “I was so worried after you had your little episode at Sterling’s office. Tearing up a contract like that… people are talking. They’re saying you’ve lost it.”

“People should find more interesting things to talk about,” I say, leaning against the wall, projecting a calm I don’t entirely feel. The ghost of my past self is screaming at me to apologize, to beg, to fix this.

I tell her to shut up.

Serena’s smile wavers. She expected tears. Hysteria. “I’m just trying to help. Jake is a wreck, you know. He’s completely heartbroken.”

“Is he? Or is he just upset his meal ticket walked out the door?”

The shot lands. A flicker of genuine anger crosses her face before she plasters the concern back on. “That’s cruel, Ellie. You know he loved you. We both did. I just don’t want to see you throw your life away on some no-budget indie film in a desperate attempt to feel… what? In control?”

“It’s better than being a puppet,” I reply softly. “Isn’t it tiring, Serena? Always having someone else’s hand up your back, making your mouth move?”

Her jaw tightens. The other actresses in the room are starting to notice, pretending to read their scripts while their eyes dart between us. A show is happening right here, and it's far more interesting than the one they came for.

“I have a seven-figure deal on the table for a blockbuster franchise,” she hisses, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “You have an audition in a warehouse in Burbank. You tell me who the puppet is.”

“Delaney Walsh?” a harried-looking assistant calls from a doorway. “We’re ready for you.”

I give Serena a small, tight smile. It’s a smile I learned from a thirty-five-year-old woman who’d seen it all. “Enjoy your franchise, Serena. Try not to trip on the strings.”

I walk away, leaving her standing there, her perfect mask finally cracking at the edges. I don’t look back.

The audition room is spare. A black curtain, a camera on a tripod, a simple table, and two chairs. A woman with tired eyes and a kind face, the casting director, gives me a brief nod. Beside her sits a man I assume is the director, Marcus Rylan. He’s younger than I expected, with an intense, quiet energy. He just watches me, his eyes missing nothing.

“Hi, Delaney. I’m Sarah. This is Marcus,” the casting director says. “Whenever you’re ready. You’ll be reading the scene where Anya confronts her uncle.”

I nod. I know the scene. It’s the heart of the movie. It’s the moment Anya stops being a victim of her grief and starts fighting back.

I take a breath, but it’s not for the character. It’s for me. I’m not reaching for a feeling. I’m opening a door. I let the thirty-five-year-old woman in the hospital bed step forward. I let her sorrow, her rage, her suffocating regret fill me.

I look at the empty chair across from me, but I don’t see an imaginary uncle. I see Arthur Sterling. I see Jake. I see Serena. I see every producer who told me to lose five more pounds, every director who looked through me, every fake friend who smiled to my face and sharpened a knife behind my back.

My voice, when it comes out, is not the voice of a twenty-year-old girl. It’s frayed. It’s weary. It’s dangerous.

“You think you can just erase it?” I say, the words from the script feeling like they were pulled from my own soul. “You think you can just burn down the house and pretend there was never a home there? That we were never a family?”

The pain isn’t acted. It’s unleashed. A single tear tracks down my cheek, hot and real. It’s not a performance choice. It’s a memory of a heart monitor flatlining.

“There is nothing left for you to take,” I whisper, my voice cracking, the final line delivered with the chilling finality of a death sentence. “The fire already took everything.”

Silence. It hangs in the room, heavy and absolute. I can hear the faint hum of the fluorescent lights above. I haven’t just performed a scene. I’ve bled on their floor.

Sarah, the casting director, is staring at me, her pen frozen above her notepad. Her mouth is slightly open.

Marcus Rylan leans forward. He hasn’t moved a muscle the entire time. His eyes are dark, piercing. They don’t see a young actress. They see something else. Something ancient.

“Thank you, Delaney,” he says, his voice quiet but resonant. It cuts through the thick silence. He looks at Sarah, then back at me.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he asks. It’s not a question about acting school.

I meet his intense gaze. I give him a piece of the truth. “I’ve lived a very long life.”

His expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes. Understanding. Intrigue. He nods slowly.

“Thank you for your time,” Sarah says, finally finding her voice. It sounds a little shaky.

I walk out of the room, my legs feeling strangely light. I don’t look at the other hopefuls in the waiting area. I don’t look for Serena. I just walk out into the blinding California sun. I’ve done it. I’ve laid my ghost bare. Now, all I can do is wait.

Hours later, the silence of my empty apartment is deafening. I sit on the floor, replaying the audition in my head. Did I do too much? Was it too real, too raw? The doubt is a bitter taste in my mouth.

My cheap cell phone buzzes against the hardwood floor, the sound like an explosion. I snatch it up. It’s Leo’s number.

I take a breath to steady myself. “Hello?”

“Tell me you have good news for me, Delaney Walsh.” His voice is a live wire. The tired, skeptical kid from the phone call yesterday is gone. This is the man who will one day build an empire.

“I don’t know yet,” I say, keeping my own voice level. “The audition was… intense.”

“Intense is good. Did you do what I told you? Did you make them forget everyone else?”

“I think so.”

“You think so?” he presses, the energy crackling through the phone. “Because I’ve been doing my homework. Marcus Rylan is a genius. A recluse, but a genius. His student film is legendary in certain circles. And the script for ‘Echo Creek’ has been on the Black List for two years. People thought it was unfilmable, too dark. Nobody would touch it.”

“They were wrong,” I say.

“They were damn wrong! This isn’t some student project, Delaney. This is a potential masterpiece. If he casts it right. If he gets his Anya.”

My heart is pounding now, a frantic drum against my ribs. “Leo…”

“How did you know? How did you know this was the project? I’ve been in this business my whole life, I’ve read thousands of scripts. I would have missed this one. Everyone missed this one. But you didn’t.”

“I told you. I’m meticulous.”

There’s a pause. I can hear him take a deep breath, like a man standing at the edge of a cliff, about to jump.

“Okay,” he says, his voice dropping, all business. “The fifty-fifty split is ridiculous. We’ll do seventy-thirty, in your favor. Once we make our first million, we can renegotiate to eighty-twenty. I’ll be your manager, not your agent. I work for you, and only you. I’ll draw up the papers tonight.”

The relief hits me so hard I feel dizzy. I lean my head back against the wall. The first pillar is in place. It’s solid.

“You don’t even know if I got the part yet,” I say, a small smile touching my lips for the first time all day.

I can almost hear him grin on the other end of the line. “The casting director is Sarah Finn. She’s famous for two things: discovering unknowns and calling the agent the second the right actor walks out of the room. She hasn’t called me yet.”

My stomach plummets. “Oh.”

“She called Marcus Rylan’s producing partner ten minutes ago,” Leo continues, and I can hear the triumphant joy in his voice. “She told him they’d found their Anya. She said she’d never seen anything like it. And she asked for my number to make the official offer.”

I close my eyes. It’s real.

“So, I’ll ask you again, Delaney Walsh,” Leo says, his voice brimming with a shared, fierce ambition that feels like coming home. “Are you ready to go conquer the industry?”

I open my eyes and look around the empty room. It’s not empty anymore. It’s the starting line.

“Yes, Leo,” I say, and the name feels like my own again. “I am.”