Things started moving fast.  Faster than fast...more like the speed of light fast. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that things could've progressed the way that they had, but since performing my sets every Saturday night for three weeks and the reporter coming out to listen to every single set, my world had, in a nutshell, blown up. 

Thousands upon thousands of new followers, a verified social media account, requests from a recording studio to use their equipment and post about the experience, it was like I'd become some kind of influencer overnight, and I wasn't sure what the catalyst was, because I knew it didn't come from the measly fifty person crowd that hung around every Saturday night. 

Whatever it was, however, I was grateful for it, because I had gone from inconsequential and invisible, to someone with an actual following, and it wasn't until that happened that the manager and agent applications began rolling in. 

Which brought me to the living room of my shared home with my grandparents, which, thanks to the hush money I had told my grandmother to take shamelessly from my spineless (in more ways than one) father, had been remodeled and decorated into a beautiful modern design, and allowed me my own apartment type attachment off to the side, complete with my own kitchen, small living room and everything I could need while working and going to school. 

"If I were you, I'd sign it."

My grandfather's wistful eyes met mine over the stapled packet of papers and the pride exuding from him was enough to warm my heart. 

This was the third managerial contract I'd received from an independent party who had reached out to me over social media, but this particular manager hadn't stopped there. 

She'd tracked down my email, personal phone number and even found my place of work, coming by in person to hand deliver her contract and to pitch herself to me, which, okay, pretty much blew me out of the water. 

I had done my research, and more than my due diligence on the woman, and her repertoire of artists was impressive to say the least. 

She'd worked with triple threats and icons in the music industry, but her artists were all getting older and moving on to different avenues like Broadway or acting instead of recording which was her niche, so Vanessa Laryan had gone out of her way, found a budding artist, and had stuck her neck in the race to represent me, and it seemed like she had won. 

"I don't know.  She's the third manager to reach out, but she is the only one to work this hard to land me.  What do you think, Yona?"

"I think that it does not matter what I think, only how you feel about her.  Will she get you to where you need to be to get a record label to sign you and start making music and albums like you want?  Is she the one to help you negotiate money, royalties, your creative vision?  Is the the one to believe in you?"

Considering how damn hard she worked to get me on her side and to hire her as my manager, the answer was a loud and resounding 'hell yes' in my mind.  

I put my pen to paper. 

***

"I am so damn happy for you.  Please, please, please don't forget the little ones when you hit number one for twenty weeks in a row."

I laughed at Sierra's dramatics, especially because it wasn't like I was quitting my job.  Quite the opposite, actually.  I wasn't making any money, yet. 

"Impossible.  Hey, I can bring a few people into the studio with me when I start to record, do you want to come?  They're going to show me the ropes on everything and you can get a head start on your own career if you know everything you need to know about a big label's studio."

"Are you serious?  I would kill to be in the studio with you!  I knew befriending you on your first day when you tripped and broke all those glasses was a good idea.  You're too shitty of a waitress to not be an amazing singer."

We dissolved into laughter at her reasoning, but then the door chimed through the small bar. 

"We're closed," we both called out simultaneously, laughing as we realized what we'd done. 

"Miss Bruins?"

My head whipped towards the newcomer, irritated that they don't know the meaning of the word 'closed'. 

"Yes?" My voice was exasperated and irritated, not wanting to be bothered anymore than I already had been. 

"My name is Mark Malone, from Malone and Son Law." 

He was a squat man with grey hair growing everywhere, tufts of it crawling out of his nostrils like they couldn't escape him fast enough, greying skin matching the coarse hair. 

"How can I help you?"

The uncomfortable look on the elderly man's face led me to realize that, considering he was from the same law firm that paid my grandmother her hush money, he was one of my father's lawyers.  

He angled closer to me and Sierra shot me a confused look but backed off towards the bar top and began absentmindedly wiping it down with a wet rag, pretending not to listen but she was always bad at being nosy, not like I minded.  She knew most of what had happened with my father, everyone did. 

"I am so sorry to have to give you this news and it not come from family, but all of your family I have spoken to refuse to contact you, and since you are the sole recipient of the will and trust,  I must be the one to inform you that as of May thirtieth, your father, Michael Brandon Bruins, has passed away due to complications from a lung infection.  I need you to sign a few papers and you will need to contact your lawyers as well in order to facilitate the transfer of funds to your accounts, but I don't see anything being tied up in probate unless you have remaining family that might try to contest the will.  I am truly sorry for your loss."

Sierra stopped wiping down the bar top.  The faulty fluorescent rectangular light above us stopped flickering, if only for a moment.  

Was this what shock felt like?  I should've been familiar with the feeling, considering my twelve year old self had endured wave after wave of it after the wreck, but this was a different type of shock. 

That shock had come from trauma so deep and soul marking that I would never be the same.  This shock?  This shock was born from something mundane and as normal as shutting the bar down like I did almost every night with Sierra, refilling the salt and pepper shakers, cleaning the tables, stacking the chairs, restocking the napkins and ketchup bottles, all disrupted by something completely out of the ordinary, completely unexpected. 

He was dead.  My father, the man who'd murdered my mother, kept me from my grandparents and the rest of my mother's family, had gaslit me for years, manipulated and controlled me like it was second nature to him, was dead, from complications from something that he had caused. 

He wouldn't have had that lung infection or been unable to fight it off if he wasn't forced to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair, all because of the accident that had killed my mother, that he had caused. 

"The funeral is in two days in Miami at the cemetery where your mother is buried.  He will be placed in the plot next to her, unless you want him closer to you here, in New York?  The choice is all yours, considering he doesn't have any other living relatives that want to attend the funeral."

No.  Hell no.  He did not get to rest for eternity beside my mother.  If anything, I would kill myself first and take up that plot before his body got to lay beside her.  There was no way that was happening. 

"Are there any other open plots in the same cemetery, but nowhere near my mother?"

His face grew scrunched, like he didn't know why I didn't want my mother and father buried next to each other. 

"That plot was for my...grandmother.  It was my mother's dying wish to have her mother buried beside her."

Bold faced lie, but he seemed to buy it well enough.  

"I don't know anything about the cemetery.  I'm just your father's lawyer, but I can give you the name and number of the funeral home.  Now, I have these papers here that require your signature stating that I did in fact come to tell you of your father's death and the death benefit, as well as the trust and properties, and lump sum that you will be in full control over upon issuing of his death certificate to the state."

Lump sum?  Properties?  Just how much was my father worth? 

"Wait.  What about Kara, and her daughter?  My aunt and my cousin?  They didn't want to contest the will?  And he didn't leave them anything?"

"The only person listed in the will is you, no one else.  Upon entering your father's residence, there were three people living there, but they had no legal relationship with your father, be it blood relative or related from marriage.  That's all I can say on that matter."

"Huh."

I couldn't imagine Kara giving up that easily, just like that...but then again, I obviously didn't know my aunt very well. 

"You'll need to travel to Miami in order to sign more documents and to get the properties in order, as well as the luxury boat your father recently paid off and his five vehicles all in his name.  You'll need to get those put in your name, as well as start paying the property taxes on the estates in your father's name and get the assets assessed in the Miami tax collector's office, as well as..."

The man kept rambling about taxes and properties and estates and the assets and all other sorts of nonsense that went in one ear and then out the other.  What would he do if I told him I didn't want any of it, not one single thing?  Not the cars, the properties, the money...but I knew that I couldn't just say to hell with it.  As much as I hated it, that money could help me survive in the music industry while trying to get my career off the ground...but there was something I needed to do first. 

I signed the papers in a fog, mind reeling with everything I needed to do, the first being call my grandparents and let them know what had happened.  The next was to take a few personal days from work, which wouldn't be a problem considering the amount of servers who would be dying to take my place on the Saturday night roster and the fact that I hadn't taken a single sick day in the almost nine months that I'd been working at the bar. 

Next was...fly to Miami?  I had to make sure the funeral home didn't bury him next to her.  She couldn't have a shadow over her final resting place, not when the sun shone as brightly on her gravesite as it did on her when she was alive.  He was always her shadow, stealing her brightness and beauty and sucking it out of her and stealing it for himself.  He wouldn't do that in death, too.  I refused to allow him that over her. 

Guess that recording session would have to wait.  Miami, here I come. 

***

A/N:

Hello my lovelies!

I have been so so sick with Covid, I tested positive a few days ago but have been symptomatic for about a week but I finally felt better today!

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I have so much more in store for this story and drama galore and I can't wait for you all to read it!

I hope to return to daily updates!!

What did you think of this chapter? 

What do you want to see for future updates? 

What part do you think Matthew Thornberry will play in the story? 

What do you think will happen next? 

What do you want to happen next? 

Until next time my lovely readers, 

Kristen :)