The Swan Song

The dressing room smelled of white lilies and expensive hairspray, a suffocating perfume of artificial perfection.

Mina sat before the vanity mirror, staring at the stranger in the reflection. "Echo," the world called her. The girl in the glass had porcelain skin, eyes widened by meticulously applied liner, and lips stained a soft, innocent cherry pink. She wore a stage costume of white silk and ostrich feathers, designed to make her look like an angel descending from heaven.

Beyond the reinforced steel door, fifty thousand people were screaming her name. The sound was a physical force, vibrating through the floorboards, shaking the brushes on the table.

* Ec-ho! Ec-ho! Ec-ho!*

They wanted the encore. They wanted the ballad. They wanted to cry one last time.

Mina reached for her in-ear monitor. Her hand trembled, just slightly. This was it. The final performance. After tonight, "Echo" would officially go on an indefinite hiatus due to "exhaustion." The press release was already drafted. The tears were already scripted.

The door didn't open; it was shoved inward with a force that rattled the hinges.

Two men in dark suits stepped in, scanning the room with dead eyes. Then, he entered.

Roman Volkov filled the room like a thunderhead. He was taller than the photos in the dossiers, broader in the shoulders. He wore a suit that cost more than the stadium’s lighting rig, charcoal grey and perfectly tailored to hide the holster Mina knew was there. His eyes were the color of slate, cold and utterly unimpressed by the platinum records hanging on the walls.

"Get up," Roman said. His voice was deep, a tectonic rumble that cut through the ambient roar of the crowd.

Mina stood slowly, her heart hammering against her ribs. She had known this day was coming for three years. The contract. The arrangement. The merger.

"I have one more song," she said. Her voice was steady, trained to project confidence even when she was terrified. "The encore."

Roman checked his watch. It was a Patek Philippe, heavy and gold. "Cancel it."

"They're waiting for me," Mina pressed, a desperation leaking into her tone. "Please. It’s my goodbye. It’s the only thing that belongs to me."

Roman took two strides and invaded her personal space. He smelled of cold air, tobacco, and gun oil—a sharp contrast to the lilies. He reached out, his calloused fingers gripping her chin, tilting her face up. He examined her not like a woman, but like a racehorse he had just acquired.

"Nothing belongs to you, *Dushechka*," he said, his accent thick and jagged. "Not the song. Not the fans. Not even the breath in your lungs. Your father signed the papers an hour ago. You aren't a singer anymore. You are a Volkov."

He dropped her chin and turned to the door. "Grab her purse. We leave now."

"But the fans—"

"Let them scream," Roman said, not looking back. "They love a tragedy. A missing star is worth more than a fading one."

One of the guards grabbed her arm. It wasn't gentle. Mina looked at the monitor on the vanity, the little earpiece that connected her to the music, to the only freedom she had ever known.

She let them drag her away. The roar of the crowd faded, replaced by the silence of the service corridor. The Angel of Pop was dead. The prisoner was leaving the building.