The air in the Atlanta studio was thick and artificial, scented faintly with ozone from the soundboard and the expensive, generic citrus of the air fresheners Aura’s manager insisted upon. Even at 11 PM, the temperature had to be precisely sixty-eight degrees—Aura’s demand. Not because she got hot, but because it kept her mind laser-focused and every high-strung person around her on edge.

Aura Maxwell, twenty years old and already hauling nine Grammys like heavy, unwanted baggage, was leaning back in a worn leather chair, hands steepled over her mouth. She wasn't watching the producer frantically re-edit the drum loop; she was watching her houseplant, a spindly Monstera, tucked into a corner under a dedicated grow lamp. It was a strange kind of comfort, this small, predictable piece of mundane reality in a world of blinding spotlights.

“Run that bridge again, but this time, make the delay sound less… neon-green,” she commanded, her voice low and edged with a familiar dry sarcasm. "It needs to feel more like deep indigo velvet, you know? Smoother, heavier. Right now, it’s aggressive. We're not selling aggression; we're selling yearning."

The producer, mid-thirties and visibly terrified of disappointing the prodigy, swallowed hard. "Indigo velvet... got it, Aura."

She nodded, turning her gaze back to the digital clock. Twenty minutes. That was all the time she had carved out for this perfectionist rabbit hole. Her phone buzzed—a text from her publicist about a gossip emergency that needed her "immediate, polished attention."

She didn't even pick it up. Zero trust was her policy. Gossip was a transaction, and she was done paying. The only thing that mattered was the music. Protecting her artistic integrity was the only thing that made the chaos worthwhile. She had seen what the industry did to her sister, Vivian, and Aura was determined that her own relentless drive would be the shield that kept her from meeting the same fate.

She closed her eyes, the bass vibration a physical thing against her chest. "One more take. Let's make this feel like it's worth more than just another gold statue," she murmured, a challenge directed less at the studio and more at the suffocating weight of her own unparalleled success.