Until the Last Note: Chapter Two - The Silent String

Brooks Garrett has spent five years playing the part of the corporate heir, but the one thing he couldn't finalize was his own divorce. Now that Rey is back in the Crescent City, he's done hiding in the shadows of her success—it’s time for a reckoning.

Chapter Two

The Silent String

Brooks

Five years is a long time to hold your breath. They tell you time heals all wounds, but they don’t tell you time is also an architect. It builds walls. It thickens the skin. It turns a living, breathing heart into something made of scar tissue and granite. For five years, I was the “Good Son.” I moved back to Charlotte, stepped into the corner office my father vacated after his second stroke, and learned how to speak the language of logistics, supply chains, and quarterly earnings. I traded the humidity of New Orleans for the sterile, air-conditioned towers of North Carolina. I traded my soul for a legacy I never asked for. But I never signed those goddamn papers. I remember the day they arrived. They sat on the mahogany desk in my study, white and clinical, smelling of ink and finality. I spent an hour staring at them, the pen heavy in my hand. Rey’s signature was already there—staccato, elegant, hurried. It looked like her. It looked like a woman who couldn’t wait to be gone. I picked up the pen. I even touched the tip to the line. And then I saw her face in my mind—not the world-famous violinist, but the girl who used to fall asleep against my shoulder while I read her poetry. I remembered the way her pulse jumped under my thumb when I kissed her neck. I couldn’t do it. I told myself I wasn’t keeping them out of spite. I kept them because as long as those papers sat in the bottom drawer of my safe, she wasn’t gone. Not entirely. She was in London, then Paris, then Tokyo, her name in lights. But in the eyes of the law, she still belonged to the life we built. I became a ghost haunting my own marriage, and I convinced myself I could live with that. Until I heard she was coming back to the Crescent City. The Roosevelt Hotel suite feels too small the moment she steps inside. I’ve been preparing for this for two days. I rehearsed what I would say, how I would look, the exact level of indifference I’d project. But the second I see her—really see her—all that preparation turns to ash. Rey hasn’t just survived the last five years. She's thrived. She looks sharper. Harder. Like a diamond cut down to nothing but edges. Her eyes burn with cold, brilliant fury that makes my blood sing. “You’re a son of a bitch,” she says. I almost smile. God, I missed her fire. I spent five years surrounded by people who said yes to me. People who looked at my last name and my bank account and saw a king. Rey looks at me and sees a villain. It’s the most honest I’ve felt in half a decade. She paces the room, her violin case clutched to her chest like a shield. She doesn’t realize I know that move. When she is scared or overwhelmed, she treats that instrument like a life raft. I want to take it from her. I want to throw it across the room and remind her she used to reach for me when the world got too loud. Not a box of wood. “You’re still mine, Rey,” I say. The words are out before I can stop them. Too raw. Too honest. Hatred flashes in her eyes—but beneath it, something else flickers. Recognition. Fear maybe? When I catch her wrist—when I feel that frantic pulse against my thumb—it’s like being plugged back into the world. Her skin is hot, vibrating with the same intensity she pours into her music. For five years, I’ve been a dead man walking. In that single second of contact, I’m alive again. I let her go because if I don’t, I’ll kiss her. And if I kiss her, I lose the only leverage I have left. After she leaves, the suite feels cavernous. Her scent lingers—rosin and jasmine, the perfume she’s worn since she was twenty. It hangs in the air like a taunt. I pour another scotch. Ice clinks against glass in a sharp rhythm. I walk to the window and look down at Canal Street. New Orleans is waking up as the sun sinks, neon beginning to glow in the French Quarter. I shouldn’t be here. My board expects me back in Charlotte for a merger meeting on Monday. My mother expects me at Sunday dinner. My life has been a series of expectations I’ve met with surgical precision for five years. But I’m not going back. Not yet. I open my briefcase. A manila envelope sits tucked into the side pocket. I pull out the papers—the same ones from five years ago. The edges are yellowed now. The ink slightly faded. I look at her signature. Audrey St. James Garrett. She dropped “Garrett” the second she landed in London. She scrubbed me from her bios, her programs, her social media. She tried to erase the three years we spent together like a bad rehearsal. But I remember. I remember the night we met at a dive bar in the Marigny. She was playing for tips, eyes closed, bow moving with a violence that made the air electric. I walked in for a drink and walked out possessed. I spent six months chasing her. Every small-town gig. Every rehearsal. Until she finally let me in. Our marriage wasn’t a mistake. It was a masterpiece interrupted. The trouble was always the music. She didn’t just play the violin—she was consumed by it. When invitations for international tours started coming, I saw the light in her eyes and knew I was losing her. I tried to be supportive. I flew to Berlin for a weekend. I stayed up until dawn on FaceTime while she was in Sydney. But a man can only live on digital echoes for so long. I wanted her in my bed. At my table. I wanted a life that didn’t revolve around a touring schedule. When I finally told her that—when I asked her to stay, to choose us over the London residency—she looked at me like I had suggested she stop breathing. “You’re asking me to die, Brooks,” she said, her voice flat and cold. “I’m asking you to be a wife,” I shot back. That was the end. She didn’t yell. She didn’t throw things. She went into the bedroom, packed her case, and left the papers on the counter. She walked out and never looked back. I stayed in that house for a year, waiting for her to realize applause from strangers couldn’t keep her warm at night. The calls never came. Only the success. I watched her become a star from the sidelines, my heart hardening with every glowing review. I pick up the pen from the hotel desk. I could sign them now. I could call Marcus, her lawyer, and tell him the oversight has been corrected. I could be the bigger man. I could let her buy her house and move on. Instead, I grip the pen until the plastic groans. I am not the Good Son anymore. I'm the man she left behind. And I’m done waiting. If she wants her freedom, she’s going to have to work for it. She’s going to have to look at me—really look at me—and tell me five years was enough to kill what we were. I walk to the safe in the corner of the room, punch in the code, and tuck the envelope back inside. I have a ticket to the Philharmonic on Friday. Front row. Center. I want to hear her play. I want to see if she still closes her eyes during the second movement of Tchaikovsky the way she used to when she was thinking of me. I want to see if she’s as “over” us as she claims. Humidity seeps into the room, thick and familiar. This city is built on secrets. On things that refuse to stay buried. “Until the last note, Rey,” I whisper. I sit back in the chair, the scotch burning down my throat. I have a week. Seven days to remind her that some strings, once plucked, never stop vibrating. She thinks she’s here for a residency. She doesn’t realize she’s here for a reckoning. And this time, I’m not letting her have the final bow.

Come back tomorrow for another chapter

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

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First Edition: February 2026

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