Olivia Ray played the G-major chord.
It was sharp. Aggressive.
"I played it," she snapped, glaring at Han Yoo-jin. "Now get out of my session."
Yoo-jin didn't move. He leaned against the soundproof wall, scanning the room. The equipment was trash. The microphone was dented. It was a graveyard for ambition.
"You're hiding," Yoo-jin said.
"I'm working," Olivia corrected, tightening a tuning peg until her knuckles turned white. "I'm making real music. Not that manufactured plastic you sell."
"Real music?" Yoo-jin laughed. "You're recording demos for detergent commercials. I saw the script on the table."
Olivia flinched. The hit landed.
"Listen, Mr. K-Pop," she stood up, guitar swinging like a shield. "I sold ten million albums before you learned to tie your shoes. I know what the industry is. It chewed me up and spat me out because I was 'difficult'. Because I wouldn't smile when they told me to."
"And now you're punishing yourself," Yoo-jin said. "You think poverty makes you authentic."
He stepped closer. The SSS-Rank aura of a Producer flared. It filled the small room, making the air feel heavy.
"I don't care about your smile, Olivia. I care about your rage. That voice I heard through the door? It wasn't sad. It was furious."
He pulled out his phone. He played a clip of Hunter. The remix version with the heavy bass and Sol & Luna's aggressive vocals.
Olivia listened. Her expression shifted from annoyance to confusion.
"That's not... typical," she muttered. "The production is dirty. Who mixed this?"
"I did," Yoo-jin said. "My artists are called Sol & Luna. They were rejected too. The industry called them failures. Now they own the charts in Korea."
He paused, holding her gaze.
"I want to do a remix. An English version. I need a voice that can cut through the noise of American radio. I need a voice that sounds like it survived a war."
Olivia looked at the phone, then back at him. The hunger in her eyes warred with her pride.
"If I do this," she said slowly. "I do it my way. No autotune. No choreography. And I write my own verse."
"Deal," Yoo-jin said. "But you do it in my studio. In Seoul."
"Seoul?" Olivia scoffed. "I can't leave LA. My probation officer won't let me."
Yoo-jin blinked. Probation?
[System Info Updated]
[Target: Olivia Ray]
[Legal Status: Flight Risk (DUI charge 2 years ago)]
[Restriction: Cannot leave California.]
Yoo-jin cursed internally. He had missed that detail.
"Fine," Yoo-jin pivoted instantly. "Then we bring Seoul to you."
He texted Director Park.
Rent a mansion in the Hollywood Hills. S-tier security. Full studio setup. I need it by tonight.
He looked back at Olivia.
"Pack your bags. We're going to the Hills."
The mansion was ridiculous.
It was a glass box perched on a cliff overlooking Los Angeles. It had an infinity pool, a cinema, and a rental price that made Yoo-jin's accountant weep.
But it was necessary.
Hana and Mina arrived straight from the airport, looking jet-lagged but excited. They dragged their suitcases into the marble foyer.
"This isn't a dorm," Hana whispered, staring at the chandelier. "This is a palace."
"It's a prison," Yoo-jin said, walking in behind them. "We have one week. We need to record the remix, shoot a music video, and launch a viral campaign before the 'probation' excuse leaks to the press."
He introduced them to Olivia.
The meeting was awkward.
Mina bowed politely. "Hello, sunbae-nim. I am a big fan."
Olivia just nodded, looking at the two Korean girls with skepticism. "You're the 'wolves'? You look like teenagers."
Hana narrowed her eyes. Her English wasn't perfect, but she understood the tone.
"We look young," Hana said in broken English. "But we bite hard."
Olivia smirked. A flicker of respect appeared in her eyes. "Okay. Let's see if you can keep up."
The recording session began at midnight.
Yoo-jin sat at the console in the mansion's home studio. It wasn't as good as Starforce's, but Ghost had remotely calibrated the software to Yoo-jin's specs.
"Verse 2," Yoo-jin ordered. "Olivia. You're up."
Olivia stepped into the booth. She didn't need a warm-up.
She attacked the mic. Her voice was gritty, soulful, and powerful. It added a texture to Hunter that transformed it from a K-Pop song into a global anthem.
"They told me to sit down, be quiet, look pretty..."
"But a cage is just a place to sharpen your teeth..."
Yoo-jin got chills.
"She's a monster," Mina whispered, watching from the couch. "How does she sing like that?"
"She sings from the gut," Yoo-jin said. "Learn from her."
But there was friction.
When it came to the harmonies, Olivia kept improvising. She changed the melody lines, adding runs and ad-libs that clashed with the structured K-Pop style.
"Cut," Yoo-jin said for the tenth time. "Olivia. Stick to the melody. You're stepping on Mina's line."
"Mina's line is boring," Olivia shot back through the glass. "It's too flat. It needs flavor."
"It needs precision," Yoo-jin argued. "This is a group track, not a solo. You have to blend."
"I don't blend," Olivia said. She threw her headphones down. "I stand out."
She stormed out of the booth.
"This isn't working," she declared, grabbing a water bottle. "You want me to be a backup singer for your dolls. I'm Olivia Ray. I don't do backup."
Hana stood up.
"You are arrogant," Hana said in Korean. Then she switched to English. "You think you are better because you are American? Because you are 'free'?"
Hana walked up to Olivia. She was shorter, but her presence was immense.
"We fought a conglomerate to be here," Hana said. "We destroyed a company that treated us like slaves. You just fought a bottle of vodka and lost."
The room went dead silent.
Yoo-jin held his breath. This could go two ways. A fistfight, or a breakthrough.
Olivia stared at Hana. Her face turned red. "You little..."
"Prove it," Hana interrupted. "Prove you are a queen. Queens don't complain about the melody. Queens make the melody bow to them."
Hana went into the booth. She put the headphones on.
"Play the track," she ordered Yoo-jin.
She rapped Olivia's verse. She mimicked Olivia's flow, but added her own sharp, percussive Korean diction. It was mocking, but it was brilliant.
She finished and looked at Olivia through the glass.
"Your turn."
Olivia stood there, fuming. Then, a slow grin spread across her face.
"Okay," Olivia said. "You want a war? Let's have a war."
She marched back into the booth. She put the headphones on.
"Run it back."
For the next four hours, they didn't just record. They battled. Olivia would sing a run, and Mina would harmonize it perfectly. Hana would rap a bar, and Olivia would ad-lib a scream over it.
It wasn't blending. It was colliding. And the energy was nuclear.
By 5 AM, they had the track.
Hunter (The LA Remix) feat. Olivia Ray.
Yoo-jin played it back. It was chaotic, loud, and absolutely undeniable. It sounded like three women burning a city down.
"It's a hit," Yoo-jin whispered.
The next problem was the Music Video.
They had no budget for a set. They couldn't film in the streets without permits (and Olivia's probation issue).
"We film here," Yoo-jin decided, looking at the mansion. "The glass box. The cage."
He called a local director he found on Instagram. A kid named Jax who shot skate videos.
"I need handheld cameras," Yoo-jin told Jax. "Fish-eye lenses. High contrast. Make it look like surveillance footage."
They shot the video in one night.
The concept was simple: Three girls trapped in a luxury prison, slowly destroying it.
In the climax, Olivia took a baseball bat to the expensive glass coffee table. (Yoo-jin winced at the deposit loss, but the shot was incredible).
Mina sang while floating in the infinity pool, looking like Ophelia.
Hana rapped from the roof, the LA skyline glittering behind her like a distant, unreachable promise.
It was raw. It was punk.
"Wrap!" Yoo-jin yelled at dawn.
The girls collapsed on the living room floor, covered in sweat and pool water.
"That was fun," Olivia admitted, lighting a cigarette. (Yoo-jin let it slide). "You guys are crazy. I like crazy."
"You are okay too," Hana said, stealing a drag of the cigarette before Yoo-jin snatched it away.
"We launch in 48 hours," Yoo-jin said. "We leak the song first. Then the video."
"Leak it?" Olivia asked. "Why not a proper release?"
"Because you're blacklisted," Yoo-jin reminded her. "Radio won't touch you. But the internet misses you. If we leak it, it looks like a scandal. 'Olivia Ray caught recording with K-Pop stars'."
"Scandal is my middle name," Olivia grinned.
Two Days Later.
Yoo-jin sat by the pool, refreshing Twitter.
[LEAKED: Olivia Ray's Comeback Track?]
[Who are Sol & Luna? And why does this song slap so hard?]
[#HunterRemix trending #4 in US.]
It was working. The curiosity factor was driving traffic. Americans were discovering Sol & Luna through Olivia, and Koreans were discovering Olivia through Sol & Luna.
Then, his phone rang.
It wasn't good news.
"Mr. Han?" It was the mansion's owner. "I just got a call from the police. Neighbors complained about noise. And... did someone smash my table?"
"I'll pay for it," Yoo-jin said quickly.
"It's not about the money. The police ran the guest list. They know Olivia Ray is there. She's in violation of her probation by associating with 'known troublemakers'."
"Troublemakers?"
"You," the owner said. "Your visa status is being questioned. Someone tipped off ICE that you're working without a proper permit."
Yoo-jin froze.
He had a business visa. But producing a record technically counted as 'work' that required a specific artist visa he hadn't had time to get.
"Who tipped them off?" Yoo-jin asked, though he already knew.
Dragon Entertainment. The Cartel. They couldn't stop him in Korea, so they called immigration in the US.
"You need to leave," the owner said. "Now. Before they raid the place."
Yoo-jin hung up.
"Pack up!" he shouted, running into the house. "We have to go. Now!"
"What about the launch?" Mina asked, looking scared.
"The launch is happening online," Yoo-jin said, grabbing his laptop. "But we need to be at the airport before the feds show up."
They scrambled. Suitcases were thrown into the rental SUV. Olivia stood by the door, looking confused.
"You're leaving?" she asked.
"If they catch me, I get deported and banned from the US for ten years," Yoo-jin said. "If they catch you, you go to jail for probation violation."
He handed her a flash drive.
"This is the master file. The video. Everything. If I get stopped, you upload it."
Olivia took the drive. She looked at him, then at the girls.
"You're running away," she said. "Just like everyone else."
"I'm not running away," Yoo-jin said. "I'm drawing fire. Get in your car. Go home. Lay low until the video drops."
He jumped into the SUV. "Hana, Mina, buckle up."
He slammed on the gas. The SUV tore down the winding Hollywood Hills road.
In the rearview mirror, he saw flashing lights. Police cars.
"Hold on," Yoo-jin said, his knuckles white on the wheel. "This is going to be a bumpy ride."
He looked at the System map.
[Route to LAX: 25 Minutes.]
[Pursuit Probability: High.]
[Objective: Survive the Exit.]
The Imperial Phase was over. Now it was the Escape Phase.