Chapter 2: Masked, Broken, Unstoppable

Two and a half months ago, everything changed.

Kids’ songs were everything, but their quality had tanked—hard. All the great classics seemed to have never existed. It was like waking up in a world where The Beatles or Stevie Wonder had never been born, and all that was left was watered-down nursery rhymes.

After that, I entered the competition as a masked singer—and made it to the top eight too. No one knew who I was, and I liked it that way. Just me, my music, and a shot at starting over.

I was about to share the news with Autumn, ready to take the music world by storm together, when I got slapped with divorce papers instead. Life had a funny way of flipping the script when you least expected it.

Fine—I'll take the crown myself. I could almost hear it—the crowd chanting my name, headlines splashed everywhere.

A few days later, semifinals. Game on.