From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Michael stayed in his office long after the preservation demand arrived.

Clara had expected him to call legal again. She expected another round of orders, another list of names, another demand that someone find out who had recorded him. Instead, he stood by the window with the first page of the letter in his hand, reading the same lines until the paper bent under his grip.

Marissa Cole.

Elena Voss.

Caleb Rourke.

Three unnamed claimants.

The unnamed ones were the problem. The named ones were bad enough, but unknown people gave the whole thing a shape he could not control. He could attack a face. He could ruin a name. He could dig through an old file and find something to leak.

He could not hit a blank space.

Outside his office, the floor was too quiet. Staff moved carefully and avoided his door. The broken glass had been cleaned, but everyone knew why facilities had been called. Everyone knew his voice was online now.

By eight in the evening, the calls had slowed. Not because the crisis was fading. People had started choosing what they were willing to risk before answering him.

Michael folded the letter once, placed it on the desk, then picked up his phone.

"Bring the car to the private exit," he told security.

Clara looked up from her laptop. "There are still cameras at the front."

"I said private exit."

"There are cameras there too."

That made him turn.

Clara kept her voice low. "A few crews moved around the building after the stock report. Security cleared them once, but they came back. I don’t think we can get you out cleanly tonight."

Michael stared at her as if she had personally invited them.

"Then clear them again."

"They’ll move back again."

"Do I need to explain your job to you?"

Clara stopped typing. For a second, she looked tired enough to answer honestly. Then she lowered her eyes to the screen. "I’ll tell security."

Fifteen minutes later, Michael stepped out of the elevator into the underground exit corridor with four security men around him.

He was used to cameras. Red carpets, industry entrances, private donor events, executive panels. Those cameras were polite. They waited for the right angle and the clean statement. They treated him like a man who could decide whether they ate next month.

These cameras did not wait.

The first shout came before he reached the doors.

"Mr. Erickson, did you retaliate against Marissa Cole?"

Security tightened around him.

Another reporter pushed closer from the left. "Is the leaked office clip real?"

"Did you say you ended careers for a reason?"

"Will MM Label preserve the records named in the legal demand?"

"Were complaint files handled as containment issues?"

The private exit had become a narrow path of lights, microphones, and bodies pressing against the barrier. Someone stumbled. A security man pushed him back. More questions came at once, overlapping until none of them landed cleanly.

Michael kept walking.

On a normal day, none of them would have dared this. Not like this. They would have stood back, asked through approved channels, waited for his publicist, softened language before it reached him. His name carried a warning in the industry. Reporters knew what happened when access dried up. Editors knew what happened when MM Label stopped returning calls.

But the story was already too large.

No outlet wanted to be absent from it.

"Mr. Erickson, did you bury Marissa Cole’s album after she complained?"

"Are Elena Voss and Caleb Rourke lying?"

"Did your office threaten former workers?"

"What do you say to the unnamed claimants?"

The phrase unnamed claimants made his face change for half a second.

A camera caught it.

He felt it and forced his expression back into place.

"My lawyers will respond," he said forcefully as he knew an outburst would do no good he had seen worse.

"Is that a denial?"

"Did you threaten them?"

"Why won’t you answer the timeline?"

Security pushed a path toward the car. One reporter got close enough that the microphone brushed Michael’s coat. Michael looked at him, and the reporter almost stepped back from old instinct. Then another camera moved in, and the moment vanished.

Michael got into the back seat.

The door shut harder than it needed to by the security.

The car moved out through the gate while reporters ran beside it for a few steps, shouting until the engine noise swallowed them.

Inside, Michael sat very still.

His driver did not speak. The security car behind them stayed close. Streetlights moved across the window, showing his face in pieces.

He had been under pressure before. Rumors. Lawsuits that never became public. Artists crying in rooms. Managers threatening to go to press and then changing their minds after one meeting with legal. He had dealt with all of it.

This was different.

The old methods were still there. Editors still owed him. Bloggers still took calls. Lawyers still knew how to frighten people with the right letterhead. But none of it was enough now. One post went down and another ten went up. One headline softened and someone screenshotted the old version. One outlet paused and a bigger one asked why.

His phone kept lighting up.

Clara sent an updated media sheet.

Michael did not open it.

Instead, he thought of who could have done this.

Isobel came first.

That was natural. She had survived when she should not have. She had taken something with her. Michael knew that. He had never liked not knowing exactly how much she had copied before disappearing.

Then he thought of Leonard’s remaining people.

Then Graham’s old loyalists.

Then former MM staff.

Silas came last, but once the thought arrived, it stayed.

Silas had been watching him for months. Quietly at first, then with less patience. Silas had never said he knew what Michael had done to the others, but he did not need to say it. Men like Silas collected suspicion and let it sit until it became useful.

Would Silas risk exposing Michael this way?

The answer should have been no. Michael knew too much.

But if Silas believed Michael had become dangerous, if he believed public scandal could separate them before the older files surfaced, then maybe.

Anger made the thought easier to accept.

Michael called him.

Silas did not answer at first. The line rang long enough for Michael’s mouth to tighten.

Then the call connected.

"Michael," Silas said.

The calm in his voice made everything worse.

"You’ve seen it," Michael said.

"I have seen the news."

"Don’t do that."

A pause came from the other side. Not confusion. Patience. Silas was letting him spend himself.

Michael leaned forward in the seat. "I need the network to move. Editors, legal, investor pressure, political calls where needed. This has crossed into business damage."

"You should speak to your lawyers."

"I have lawyers."

"Then listen to them."

Michael looked at the back of the driver’s head and lowered his voice. "Silas, don’t play ignorance with me. This is not a blog post anymore. They served preservation demands. They are lining up people. Someone is feeding this."

"Yes," Silas said. "That seems clear."

"And you are doing nothing?"

"I am doing what is necessary."

Michael laughed once, but there was no humor in it. "Which is what? Watching?"

"Not stepping into a public sexual misconduct and retaliation scandal with my name attached to the rescue effort."

Michael’s hand tightened around the phone. "Your name is not attached to anything because I kept it that way."

"Then continue keeping it that way."

The words landed badly.

Michael stared out of the window as the car turned onto a quieter road. "We are partners."

Silas was silent for a moment.

When he answered, his voice had less patience in it. "Do not confuse use with partnership."

Michael went still.

Silas continued, not loudly. "You were useful because you understood certain work and did not need your hand held. That did not make you my equal. It made you convenient."

"You arrogant bastard."

"That kind of language is exactly why you are on camera tonight looking like a cornered man."

Michael almost spoke over him, but Silas cut in.

"You will contain your own mess. You will not call people who connect back to me. You will not ask favors from offices that cannot be seen near you. And you will not mistake panic for strategy."

Michael’s voice dropped. "You think this stops with me?"

"I think you should make sure it does."

For a few seconds, neither man spoke.

Michael wanted to threaten him. The words were there. Old documents. Hidden ownership. The names Silas had buried behind investment firms and law offices. The complaints Silas had known about and allowed to disappear because Michael still produced results.

But he swallowed them.

Not yet.

He still needed to know whether Silas would move if pressed harder.

"Help me kill the next wave," Michael said. It cost him more than he wanted to admit. "Quietly. No visible hand. Just slow it down."

Silas did not answer immediately. When he did, he sounded almost bored. "There is no quiet way to touch this now. That is what you still refuse to understand."

The line disconnected.

Michael stared at the phone.

Then he threw it against the opposite seat. It bounced onto the floor, still lit.

The driver did not react.

Michael picked it up again because he needed it.

By the time he reached his residence, he was already making calls.

The first editor said his legal desk had frozen any changes until they reviewed the documents.

The second said they could not remove the article after the leaked clip.

A reputation manager offered to seed questions about timing and motive, but warned him that attacking Marissa directly could backfire.

Michael called him useless and ended the call.

A private investigator answered on the third ring and listened in silence as Michael gave him Marissa’s name, Elena’s, Caleb’s, and the phrase "unnamed claimants."

"I want locations," Michael said.

The investigator took a moment before answering. "For legal service?"

Michael did not reply fast enough.

The investigator’s voice changed. "I can run public records and old filings. I’m not touching protected witnesses in an active matter."

"Since when do you have standards?"

"Since prison became a possibility."

Michael ended that call too.

He contacted two bloggers who had buried stories for him before. One had already deleted his post and refused to repost anything until MM gave him an official line. The other said the traffic was too high and people were watching deletions now.

That answer almost made Michael laugh.

People were watching deletions.

The world had become stupid.

He called Clara again.

She answered from the office. "Yes?"

"I want Marissa found."

Clara did not speak for a moment. He could hear office noise behind her. Printers. Voices. Someone moving too quickly down the hall.

"For legal?" she asked.

Michael sat back in his chair.

The silence lasted one second too long.

Clara understood it.

"Michael," she said carefully, "with the preservation demand served and the article public, anything that looks like witness intimidation will destroy whatever defense you have left."

"I asked for information."

"You asked for her to be found."

"Do not lecture me."

"I am trying to keep you from making this worse."

Michael’s voice became quiet. "Then do your job and find out who else is speaking."

"I can ask legal for claimant identities through proper channels."

"You and proper channels can go to hell."

Clara closed her eyes at her desk. Around her, staff pretended not to listen.

When she spoke again, she kept her voice steady. "I will send you the updated media sheet. Legal wants you to stop calling outside contacts tonight."

Michael ended the call.

Clara lowered the phone and looked at the screen in front of her.

The company’s parent stock had closed down 14.6 percent. Sponsors were requesting clarification. Two managers had asked whether their artists could suspend promotional obligations. Cassian’s legal team had sent a letter asking for campaign records related to recent releases. Eclipse Crown’s partner management wanted written assurance that their artists had no connection to any conduct under review.

The scandal had moved far beyond Marissa.

It had become a business crisis.

On another screen, the leaked clip was still spreading. Michael’s line kept appearing in captions, posts, and article summaries.

I ended those careers for a reason.

Clara hated seeing it written out.

Not because it was false.

Because it sounded too much like him.

A new alert appeared.

Then another.

The first came from Marianne Vale’s platform.

The second came from a legal newsletter.

Clara opened the Marianne alert.

Her hand stopped on the mouse.

Second former MM Label woman alleges coercion by Michael Erickson; counsel says additional claims are under review

The article was shorter than the first two. It did not show a face. It did not name a current location. The woman had agreed to use her former stage name, Nadia Bellamy, and nothing else for now.

Nadia had been a session vocalist and artist-development candidate connected to MM Label four years earlier. Her statement said Michael had pushed her into private meetings, threatened her after she refused him, and made sure her development deal disappeared. Her lawyer confirmed that she had provided messages, hotel records, and a voice note for review.

Marianne was careful again.

No graphic detail.

No claims beyond what counsel said was supported.

No loose names.

But the headline was enough.

Clara sat back.

The office around her kept moving, but for a few seconds she did not.

Michael had asked who else.

Now there was an answer, and it was worse than the unnamed claimants because it had a name and not just a name it was what the name was claiming to have happened.

Her phone rang.

Michael.

She let it ring twice before answering.

"What happened?" he asked.

Clara looked at the headline again.

Another alert appeared below it. A business outlet had already picked it up.

"Clara."

She picked up the phone properly. "Another woman has gone to Marianne."

The line went quiet.

"What name?"

"Nadia Bellamy."

For a moment, all Clara heard was his breathing.

Then Michael said, very softly, "Send it."

Clara sent the article.

She stayed at her desk afterward, waiting for the next order.

It did not come right away.

Across town, Michael stood alone in his residence with the article open on his phone. Nadia’s name stared back at him from the screen.

Marissa had been one problem.

Elena and Caleb had made it a pattern.

Nadia made it something else he himself knew that if this keeps up he would be gone for good.