Nathaniel did not put the call on speaker until the third ring.
The sound emerged tinny and scrubbed of bass through the small external speaker of his company smartphone. Outside the frosted windows, the sleet had turned into a dull, hammering sleet-storm that drove straight against the emergency bay's intake vents.
On the sixth ring, the line clicked.
"Nathaniel?" Thomas’s voice came through against a harsh wash of ambient road noise. Wind buffeted a car microphone; wipers swept across glass in a frantic, irregular rhythm. "Where the hell are you? I've been calling your personal line since nine. The venue manager at Le Zénith has security holding the stage door, and the local fire marshal is threatening a fifty-thousand-euro obstruction citation because our trucks are blocking the loading lane."
Nathaniel glanced down at Manu's bedside table, where the Swiss message still glowed beside the silver water jug.
"We are at Saint-Antoine," Nathaniel said evenly. "Manu collapsed. She is under strict medical observation for internal complications."
A sharp intake of breath hissed over the speaker. The sound of a car engine downshifting filled the pause.
"Is she stable?" Thomas asked. The manager’s voice was clipped, breathless, but stripped of the smooth corporate cadence he used in board meetings.
"She is confined to bed for four weeks," Nathaniel said. "The arena tour is finished, Thomas. Lysander instructed me to formally notify you of artist-initiated withdrawal under the medical emergency clause."
"He can’t," Thomas barked. The windshield wipers on his end squeaked violently against dry glass. "I sent the underwriter's notice to Castiel's room an hour before doors. Did you read it? If you pull out tonight without an authorized insurer sign-off, the venue penalty lands directly on the band's personal liability ledger. The parent company won't cushion a single cent."
"We know about the penalty," Lysander said.
He spoke without leaning toward the phone. His voice carried across the narrow cubicle with the chilled weight of iron. His hand stayed clamped over Manu’s, his thumb resting directly over the new, raw ring on her knuckle.
"And we received your terms," Lysander added.
A beat of total silence fell over the cellular line.
"What terms?" Thomas demanded. "What are you talking about, Lysander?"
"The message sent to Emanuelle's handset ten minutes ago," Nathaniel stated, consulting his small notebook. "A photograph taken through the triage curtain of this ward. Nine hundred thousand euros in escrow, or an executed delivery rider extending our master recording options for Album Three to your private holding entity by six a.m."
Castiel lifted his head from his knees. His red-rimmed eyes locked onto the glowing handset on the stainless steel tray, his breath hitching audibly in his throat.
Through the phone, the car engine revved, then abruptly idled. The dull *clack-clack* of hazard lights began to pulse in the background.
"I didn't send you a message," Thomas said. His tone had lost its executive snap; it sounded ragged, pitched up into a frantic gravel. "I haven't touched the band server since seven."
"Do not insult us, Thomas," Nathaniel said coldly. "The message came with a photo taken by someone wearing red VIP pass number eight. You personally authorized that credential for the logistical courier."
"Martin is dead to the world, Nathaniel!" Thomas yelled over the speaker, his voice cracking against the microphone diaphragm. "Martin didn't show up at the loading bay with the second equipment manifest! That's why I'm in my car on the boulevard right now—because twenty minutes ago, my corporate keycard stopped working at the label office on Boulevard Haussmann!"
Nathaniel’s pencil stopped mid-stroke.
The drip chamber above Manu’s gurney clicked. One drop. Two drops.
"Repeat that," Nathaniel said.
"I am locked out," Thomas said, his breath rattling against the receiver. "The board of directors convened an emergency session at ten tonight without me. They revoked my signatory status on the Vanguard France subsidiary. Someone filed an expedited audit citing gross financial mismanagement of the autumn tour assets. Every single artist ledger under my purview was frozen three hours ago."
"Who filed it?" Lysander asked.
"I don't know!" Thomas shouted. "The security guard at the Haussmann gate showed me a legal notice signed by an independent insolvency trustee based in Geneva. A firm called *Vander & Holt*. They claimed the band had incurred non-disclosed legal liabilities that voided our distribution insurance."
Manu felt a cold, metallic weight settle in her chest.
*Geneva.* The twelve-digit phone number on her screen had begun with +41 22.
"Thomas," Nathaniel said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, clinical precision. "Who gave Martin the red pass?"
"He came through the third-party security firm recommended by the venue's staging contractor," Thomas stammered. "He was vetted by the promoter's rep from Bercy. The guy with the gray coat—the one who brought the German addendum to Castiel's dressing room."
Castiel stood up from the floor.
The leather of his jacket groaned as his shoulders squared. He took three long strides across the cubicle, his wet boot prints smearing across the linoleum, and stopped directly over Nathaniel's shoulder. His large, scarred hand reached out and snatched the phone off the tray.
"Castiel, wait—" Nathaniel started.
Castiel shoved the receiver against his ear. "Listen to me, you corporate parasite," he growled into the microphone, his voice trembling with an explosive, suppressed rage. "Who gave that guy the pass to my sister's room?"
"Castiel?" Thomas sounded terrified. "Castiel, listen to me. I didn't send anyone to the clinic. I don't know anything about a photograph! If someone has pictures of Manu in an emergency triage unit, they didn't get them for the label. The label doesn't want the tour cancelled—if the tour goes down, the parent company loses three million in non-refundable merchandising and broadcast royalties!"
"Then who wants the delivery rider?" Castiel barked.
"The insolvency group," Thomas answered, his words spilling out in a desperate flood. "Think about it! If you default on the arena contracts tomorrow morning, the debt defaults to Vanguard. But if the band's catalogue is seized by the Swiss trustee under the debt liquidation clauses, the publishing rights don't go back to you. They go to the highest bidder at the morning bankruptcy auction. And the delivery rider for Album Three includes the worldwide masters for the first two records as collateral."
Thomas paused, drawing in a sharp, ragged breath through the speaker.
"They aren't trying to force you back on stage," the manager whispered. "They want you to refuse. They want the cancellation to trigger the insolvency before the banks open at eight. If you refuse the rider, the video of Manu leaks, the shares tumble, and the catalogue gets sold off for salvage value before lunch."
Manu looked down at her lap.
Her hand, cold and white under the adhesive tape, was pinned to Lysander’s. The platinum band on her finger felt heavier than lead.
*The moron in the hoodie,* she thought. He had never been a tabloid freelancer hunting for gossip. He had been an asset collector, gathering the final piece of evidence needed to prove the band had concealed material information from their underwriters.
"Thomas," Lysander said, his voice cutting through Castiel's furious breathing.
Castiel lowered the phone, holding it between them on speaker once more.
"What is your offer?" Lysander asked.
Thomas hesitated. In the background of his car, a police siren wailed faintly, two streets away in the wet Paris dark.
"I still have the physical master tapes for the unreleased B-sides in my home vault in Saint-Cloud," Thomas said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "The ones we cut in Brussels last winter. The trustee doesn't have the provenance certificates for those tracks yet. If you sign an emergency management transfer to my independent agency—tonight, before five—I can use those assets to file an emergency injunction at the Commercial Court. It stops the catalogue seizure."
"And what does that cost us?" Nathaniel asked immediately.
"Everything," Thomas said bluntly. "You give up the arena tour entirely. You surrender the merchandising revenue for the next three years to pay off the venue cancellation fees. And you sign over the exclusive European representation rights to me. No label. Just me."
"You want us to jump out of the fire into your pocket," Castiel spat.
"I am offering you a life raft, Castiel!" Thomas yelled back. "At six a.m., that video hits the press. At seven, the venue files for our equipment to be impounded. By eight, you won't even own the trademark to your own name. Call me back in twenty minutes. If you don't, I'm driving to my lawyer's house and washing my hands of all four of you."
The line went dead.
A short, rhythmic dial tone replaced Thomas's voice, buzzing flatly into the cold air of the cubicle.
Nathaniel took the phone from Castiel’s unresisting fingers and laid it back down on the tray. He took out his silver ballpoint pen and drew a single, heavy diagonal line across the notes he had just written.
"He's telling the truth about the insolvency filing," Nathaniel said quietly. "I checked the Vanguard shareholder portal on my tablet while he was speaking. The company's European stock was halted on the Frankfurt exchange twenty minutes ago pending a material corporate announcement."
"Martin," Castiel muttered. He was staring at the floor, his jaw working violently. "The courier. He had the keys to the backline truck."
"The backline truck?" Manu asked, her voice cracking with sudden dread.
Castiel looked up, his gray eyes wide with a sick, hollow understanding. "The master flight cases. My custom Les Paul. Your vintage Jazz Bass. Lysander’s acoustic collection. Nathaniel’s live drum triggers. Everything from the stage run was loaded into the third trailer after soundcheck. Martin had the dispatch papers."
"They're impounding the gear," Nathaniel confirmed, his face pale under the white lights. "Not tomorrow. Tonight."
Manu tried to sit up.
A sharp, hot blade of pressure lanced through her lower pelvis, so sudden and severe that the air ripped out of her lungs in a choked gasp. The heart monitor behind the gurney let out an urgent, rapid sequence of warning pings.
"Manu, stop," Lysander commanded.
His arms were around her before she could shift an inch, his long fingers pressing her shoulders gently but immovably back down against the thin foam mattress. His face was inches from hers, pale, strained, his mismatched eyes burning with a terrified, crystalline intensity.
"Lie back," he ordered, his voice trembling at the edges. "Emanuelle. Look at me. Lie down."
Manu gripped the edge of his waistcoat, her knuckles white. "Our instruments, Lysander. The whole rig—"
"The wood does not matter," he said, pressing his forehead against hers until the trembling in her chest synced with his own. "The metal does not matter. Nothing in that truck has a heartbeat."
"He's right, Squirt," Castiel said from the foot of the bed.
His voice was different now. The jagged, protective fury had not vanished, but it had turned completely inward, cold and lethal. He reached into his wet leather coat, pulled out his crushed pack of cigarettes, saw the oxygen outlet on the wall, and jammed the pack back into his lining.
He looked at Lysander.
For the first time since the doctor had walked through the curtain, Castiel looked directly into Lysander's eyes without flinching or sneering. He saw the identical platinum band gleaming on Lysander’s left hand. He saw the silver chain tucked beneath his collar.
"You knew about the baby," Castiel said to Lysander. "When we were arguing in the green room. You knew she wasn't well."
"I knew she was exhausted," Lysander said, his hand never leaving Manu’s shoulder. "I did not know the cause until twenty minutes ago."
Castiel nodded once. It was a jerky, mechanical motion of his chin.
"You should have told me," Castiel muttered, his voice dropping into a low rasp. "About the registry in Glasgow. About all of it."
"You would have punched the wall through the plaster," Nathaniel noted from the corner, his fingers already typing rapidly into his phone. "And you would have confronted Thomas in the label lobby, which would have triggered the contract morality clause eighteen months ahead of schedule."
Castiel didn't argue. He wiped the cold sleet from his forehead with the back of his wrist.
"Martin's van had a commercial tracking unit," Castiel said, his gaze shifting toward the curtain. "The backline logistics firm used a standard fleet transponder. The log-in is pasted on the inside of the stage manager’s clipboard at Le Zénith."
"Castiel," Manu whispered, reaching out toward him. "Don't go back there. If the police or the trustees are impounding the venue—"
"They haven't impounded it yet," Castiel said. His mouth curved into a thin, bitter line that looked like a scar across his pale skin. "The promoter's rep is still there. The one who brought the German paper. The one who gave the courier that red pass."
He turned toward the partition.
"Castiel," Lysander called out, his voice sharp with authority.
Castiel stopped with his hand on the polyester fabric. He didn't turn around, but the lines of his broad back went rigid under the drenched hide of his jacket.
"You go alone, you walk into an ambush," Lysander said. "The Swiss firm wants a confrontation. A physical assault on a promoter's representative guarantees the master contracts are forfeited under the criminal liability clause."
Castiel didn't move for five seconds. Outside, the thunder gave one last, low groan as the storm front rolled east across the river, leaving only the endless, flat hiss of rain.
"I'm not going to hit him, Lys," Castiel said quietly, his hand tightening on the curtain rod until the metal groaned. "I'm going to take my guitars back."
He tore the curtain aside and disappeared into the brightly lit corridor of the ward. His heavy motorcycle boots beat a rapid, vanishing rhythm against the wet tile before the fire door slammed shut behind him.
In the sudden stillness left behind, the IV monitor beeped twice, resetting its baseline.
Lysander did not let go of Manu’s hand. He drew her fingers to his mouth, kissing the cold platinum on her fourth finger, his eyes never leaving the doorway where her brother had just vanished.
On the stainless steel table, the Swiss phone lit up again.
This time, there was no text.
Only an incoming video call, displaying a live preview thumbnail of an empty soundstage lit by a single amber work light.
***