The Vance family kitchen table had never looked so orderly. Normally a collage of bills, takeout menus, and half-finished science projects, tonight it was bare—cleared like a stage before a performance. Overhead, the light cast a harsh glow, flattening everything into focus. No distractions. No escape.
Alex sat on one side, posture straight, face composed. Before him: three neatly bound copies of a document thick enough to demand attention. His parents sat opposite. Sarah's expression held curiosity, tinged with maternal amusement. Michael's was more guarded—a man bracing for some adolescent flight of fancy involving distortion pedals or a plea for keys to the family car.
Instead, Alex pushed two copies across the table. They landed with a muted, decisive thud.
"Thanks for coming," he said, calm and deliberate. "I have a business proposal I'd like you to consider."
Sarah blinked. "A business proposal?"
Her voice tried for lightness, but her fingers were already flipping through the pages. "Sweetheart, this looks… professional."
Michael didn't speak. He flipped directly to the table of contents, engineer's instinct taking over. He scanned, brows already drawing tight.
Alex didn't mention music. Didn't say a word about being famous, about going viral, about the DMs piling up with influencer collabs and minor label interest.
He talked about infrastructure.
"I want to form an LLC," he said. "Echo Chamber Records. Structurally, it provides liability protection and flexible tax treatment. Strategically, it gives us ownership from the start. No external control."
Michael Vance looked up slowly, as if recalibrating his expectations in real time. The boy in front of him was no longer operating on child logic. This wasn't a pitch for a lemonade stand.
Alex pressed forward, flipping to key sections with the fluid confidence of someone who knew. He spoke of IP rights, of monetizing long-tail catalog performance. He outlined the roadmap from "Lost Boy" to sustainable brand equity. He used words like artist equity structure, decoupled distribution, decentralized fan funnel.
Sarah sat quietly, her smile now replaced by a wary sort of awe. She didn't understand the vocabulary, but she understood something bigger was happening.
Michael understood more than he wanted to. His son was presenting a real strategy. And he was doing it with the dispassionate clarity of a startup founder walking into a pitch meeting.
Michael leaned forward. The shift was subtle—but the game had changed.
"This is… impressive," he said. "But where's your capital? You can't just open a company. You need a revenue stream."
Alex nodded. He was ready. "It comes from the first asset. 'Lost Boy' is already monetizing. Based on current views, and standard streaming payout rates, we're projecting early income sufficient to cover initial filing, basic gear, and a small rollout budget."
He flipped to the page—charts, payout tiers, conservative assumptions. "It's not about going viral again. It's about proving a model."
Michael scanned the numbers, then set the binder down. "And liability? You're still a minor. You can't sign anything. You can't own a company."
Alex didn't flinch. "That's where I need your help. I need you to act as legal signatory—until I'm eighteen. You'd hold the official officer title. I'd run operations behind the scenes. It's legal. It's clean. It's temporary."
The questions kept coming. All sharp. All fair. All the kinds of questions a skeptical parent—or a risk-averse investor—would ask. How will you scale? What about contracts? How will you distribute? Who owns the recordings?
And Alex answered. Every time, with precision.
He wasn't winging it. He wasn't bluffing. These weren't theories. They were scars, repackaged as foresight.
Eventually, Michael sat back. Arms folded. Eyes fixed. He'd exhausted the technical challenges. Now came the question underneath them all.
"Why?" he asked. "You have a golden ticket, Alex. There are labels that would throw money at you tomorrow. You're fifteen. You're sitting on a hit. Why not take the easy road?"
Alex didn't answer right away.
He let the silence sit.
Then the ghost stood up inside him.
"Because they'll own me," he said, quietly. No anger, no theatrics. Just the truth. "And they'll own Billie. They'll shape her voice into what sells. They'll wring Finneas out until there's nothing left, then drop him when the numbers slip."
He looked directly at his father.
"I've seen it happen."
The words hit like a stone dropped in still water. Seen, not heard about. Not read. Not worried. Seen.
Michael's eyes narrowed. He didn't understand what his son had experienced—how could he? But something in Alex's voice, in the haunted certainty behind it, made him stop searching for the catch.
"This is the only way," Alex said. "To protect what we're building. To make sure the people who make the music keep control of it."
A silence fell. Not uncomfortable. Heavy.
And then, finally, Michael reached out. He closed the binder. Sat with it for a moment. Then slid it slowly back toward his son.
"Alright," he said. The tone was different now—reverent, almost. "Let's build your label."
It wasn't just approval.
It was belief.
The ghost, forged in regret and reborn in resolve, had just anchored itself to the real world.
Alex wasn't just building a business.
He was rewriting fate.
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