My Boyfriend Muted My Mic For His Ex, So I Joined His Fiercest Rival To Destroy Him

The next afternoon, the rehearsal room at The Foundry smelled like ozone, ancient carpeting, and burnt coffee.

I held the microphone Jude had given me, trying to lock into the rhythm, but the downbeat was a mess.

Before we even made it past the second verse, a harsh, buzzing scrape tore through the room.

Sam, the band's bassist, clamped his palm flat over the four thick strings of his Fender, killing the sound instantly. He was a wiry guy with bleached hair cut down to the scalp, grease under his fingernails, and arms covered in faded stick-and-poke tattoos.

He didn't look at Jude. He looked straight at me, his lip curled.

"I can't play to this," Sam said flatly.

The drummer, a quiet guy named Felix, let his sticks drop onto the snare with a muffled tap.

"What's the problem, Sam?" Jude asked from behind his black Les Paul. He hadn't lowered his hands from the fretboard. His voice was dangerously calm.

"The problem is standing in the middle of our rug," Sam replied, pointing the headstock of his bass right at my chest. "She’s singing like she’s trying to sell soda to twelve-year-olds in a shopping mall. It’s too neat. It’s sterile. You can smell the cheap Glass Echo bubblegum all over her."

A hot prickle ran up the back of my neck, but I kept my grip firm on the silver mic. "I sang the chart exactly as it was written on your board."

"That’s the damn point," Sam snapped, shaking his head. "You sing like someone who's spent three years begging a commercial producer for approval. We don't do polished pop fluff here. You’re holding back, Willa, or maybe you just don’t have anything real to give."

"Sam," Jude warned, his tone dropping an octave.

"No, I’m being honest, Jude," Sam pushed back, stepping toward the center of the room. "We’ve got forty-eight hours until the elimination showcase. If we go out there with a singer who sounds like an audition for a daytime teen drama, we're done. Dead Reckoning is about grit, not glossy studio garbage."

I opened my mouth to answer, but a burst of obnoxious laughter cut through the heavy rubber seals of the rehearsal room door.

The walls of The Foundry were soundproofed with industrial foam, but the hallway was concrete and tile. Sound bounced down the corridor like bullets.

"I told the network executives we wouldn't settle for the basement spaces," a familiar, smug voice echoed outside. "Lacey needs natural light in her warm-up room. The voice is an investment."

Tyler.

Beside him, Lacey’s high, melodic giggle floated through the crack beneath the door.

"You're spoiled, Tyler," she cooed. "Though I have to admit, having the showcase headliner suite feels incredible. Did you see the flowers Capitol Records sent over?"

"That’s just the beginning, babe," Tyler replied, his voice projecting deliberately, loud enough to pierce right through our door. "When you write hits, people roll out the red carpet. They don't shove you into a rented closet."

He paused right outside our studio number. His shadow blocked the thin strip of yellow light under the frame.

"Speaking of rented closets," Tyler said, raising his voice even higher for the benefit of whoever was listening in the hall, "can you believe Mercer actually booked room four? Man must be losing his mind."

Lacey made a soft, amused sound. "Is he really trying to salvage her?"

"Desperation makes people do pathetic things," Tyler mocked, his laughter sharp and venomous. "Jude Mercer spent two years acting like he was too good for mainstream radio, and now he’s sifting through my discarded trash right off the curb. He actually thinks he can polish my leftovers into a frontwoman."

Inside the room, the silence was suffocating.

Sam looked over at me, crossing his arms with a bitter smirk that clearly said: *See? He made you, and he threw you away.*

Felix stared down at his drum pedal, uncomfortable.

Jude didn't move. His dark eyes were fixed entirely on my face, waiting to see if I was going to crack, cry, or run.

I didn't do any of those things.

A cold, electric calm settled into my ribs, pushing out every drop of hesitation.

I set the wireless microphone gently on the top of the monitor wedge.

Without saying a single word to Sam or Jude, I walked across the room to the spare guitar stand sitting by the back wall. Resting in the cradle was a battered, matte-black Gibson SG with heavy gauge strings and dual humbuckers.

I grabbed a thick braided instrument cable from the floor.

*Click.*

The jack went into the guitar with a solid metal punch.

I followed the lead to an old Marshall JCM800 half-stack resting against the brick. I reached for the power toggle and flipped the standby switch on.

The tubes glowed an angry, luminous orange behind the metal grille.

I didn't touch the clean channel. I dialed the master gain straight to ten, cranked the presence, and swept the treble until the amplifier let out a low, predatory hiss of static that filled every corner of the room.

Sam frowned, uncrossing his arms. "What is she doing?"

Jude slowly lowered his Les Paul, his eyes narrowing in fierce curiosity. "Shut up, Sam."

I stepped up to the vocal boom stand in the center of the room, dragging the mic down until it aligned with my mouth.

I slung the heavy strap of the SG over my shoulder. The weight dug into my collarbone, familiar and grounding.

I didn't play an intro.

I struck a savage, open D-minor power chord with everything in my right arm.

The Marshall roared like an uncaged engine.

Before the initial wall of distortion could even decay, my fingers shifted. I didn't play Tyler’s delicate, acoustic strumming pattern. I drove my pick into the strings with a brutal, relentless punk downstroke, accelerating the tempo until the rhythm sounded like a runaway freight train crashing into a concrete wall.

It was "Hollow Crown."

The exact song Tyler had claimed as his own. The exact melody he had dedicated to Lacey under the national television lights while calling me broken.

Felix caught the beat instantly. Without waiting for a cue, his boot slammed into the double kick pedal, and his snare cracked like gunfire, locking directly into my furious tempo.

I dragged the microphone close against my lips until the cold steel grille grazed my skin.

Then I let go.

The voice that came out of my throat wasn't sweet. It wasn't polite. It didn't have the breathy, timid phrasing Tyler had spent two years forcing me into so I wouldn't overpower his weak harmonies.

It was raw iron and fire.

*"You wore the jewel like you forged the ring,"* I sang, my chest vibrating with sheer, explosive force. *"A hollow crown for an empty king!"*

The volume was deafening. The sheer velocity of the chords shook the plaster above the ceiling tiles, sending a shower of fine dust drifting through the studio lights.

Out in the hallway, the loud, arrogant chatter vanished as if severed by a blade.

I didn't stop to give them air.

I leaned over the neck of the SG, tearing through a jagged, feedback-drenched progression, and pulled the entire room up into the bridge.

The original arrangement called for a soft falsetto lift, a pretty, fragile transition meant to make Lacey sound delicate.

I didn't sing falsetto.

I dropped my weight into my boots, drew air from the very bottom of my lungs, and pushed the melody up an entire octave into a blistering, razor-sharp belt.

*"Take your bow in the ashes!"*

The high F soared through the monitors, pure and terrifyingly powerful. It wasn't just loud; it possessed a suffocating, arena-filling resonance that rattled the double-paned glass of the sound booth.

The note didn't waver. It cut through the heavy distortion of the Marshall, piercing, ferocious, and utterly pitch-perfect.

I sustained the high belt for four full measures, pouring every ounce of Tyler’s condescension, every lie about my panic attacks, and every stolen lyric into the steel grille.

The sound was undeniable. It was violence set to music.

On the final measure, I choked the strings with the heel of my palm and killed the sustain with a violent, concussive snap.

The feedback whined once and died.

The studio went dead silent, broken only by the rapid, shallow hiss of my breath and the cooling hum of the amplifier tubes.

Felix was staring at me from behind his kit, both sticks raised in midair, his mouth hanging completely open.

Across the rug, Sam stood frozen. His fingers were still hooked over his bass strings, his face totally pale, the cynical sneer wiped clean off his features. He swallowed hard, unable to look me in the eye.

The hallway outside had gone completely, utterly lifeless. Not a footstep. Not a laugh. Not a whisper.

Then, Jude moved.

He didn't say a word to me. He unslung his guitar, set it into its stand, and crossed the room in three long, heavy strides.

He reached the thick studio door and didn't bother using the handle.

Jude brought the heavy sole of his leather boot up and kicked the door wide open.

*BANG!*

The heavy wood slammed hard against the interior drywall, rebounding with a shudder.

Tyler was standing three feet out in the hallway, entirely frozen.

His face was completely drained of color, his jaw slack, his hands hanging limp at his sides. Next to him, Lacey looked like she had just been slapped across the face, her glossy lips parted in mute shock, clutching her designer handbag against her stomach like a shield.

Jude stepped over the threshold, his broad frame completely blocking the doorway.

He looked down at Tyler, towering over him, his dark eyes brimming with cold, mocking fury.

"Next time you try to claim her lyrics," Jude said, his voice cutting through the dead hallway like a switchblade, "make sure you can actually hit her high notes."