TAKEN: From a Prisoner to a star

21

OKAY GUYS: I'm sorry but you might've notice I published some chapters again. That's just because I made a mistake in the book in the Ages of Bey and Solo. I actually made the two of them one year older than they are supposed to be which I didn't notice until actually paying attention to the math in the next chapter I was writing. So I did go back and change their ages in some places but I  might have not gotten it all so here's clarification. Beyonce is currently 20 years old, September 2002 she turns 21 and September 2003 she turns 22 and so on. Solange is currently 15 in this book (I might've even made her two years older by accident) and June 2002 is her 16th birthday, june 2003 17th birthday and so on. Please do not get confused. Jay is one year older than Beyonce and I am honestly sorry for the mistake I just wasn't paying attention when I wrote the book because in the very first chapter I made her 17 instead of 16 which threw of my ageing for the entire book. Sorry guys. 

"You gotta run more than your mouth to escape the treadmill of mediocrity. A true hustler jogs during the day, and sleepwalks at night."

  Beyoncé POV:

I stared down at the grave in front of me.  The stone was simple but new compared to the other grave stones all around me. Others held a huge crucifix, some with kind words and other were much bigger than this. This morning was cold and the air was thin, the sky was cloudy and the grass was brittle. I held onto the white tulips in my hands and looked down on the words on the grave. 

Curtis Michael Carter 

1961-2001

"I didn't think I would be here without Jay" I spoke, "I didn't think I had a reason to but I realised I needed closure. I need to end this chapter of my life with forgiveness. I forgive you and Jay loves you. You did a lot of very bad things and I am sure a lot of people hate you. But. But I don't, you showed me a lot about the world I live in and how cruel people can be. Above all that you taught me that people have many sides to them and just because I see one that does not define who they are. Curtis Carter you might hate me for saying this but you loved him. You were kind to him and because of that I can't help but forgive you. He forgives you but we're both moving on now and I can only hope you cause no more trouble for us" I chuckled lightly at my finishing statement and leaned down before putting the flowers down and putting my hands in my pocket. "You're still a fucking dick though" I ended before walking over to the car that was waiting. 

Tina POV:

Business meetings were the worse, they went on for hours and were never filled with anything particularly interesting; however, it was compulsory for me to attend according to Mathew.

The office was huge with glass walls which people in their small individual offices could see through, the carpet was a dark green and right in the middle of the room was a round table. Sitting at this table was my husband, my daughter and one of the executives as we discussed the topics at hand for the coming year. The executive wasn't much, just a chubby white man in a tailored black suit and scruffy blonde hair, his teeth were slightly yellow but so far he hadn't proven to be anything less than expected of a rich white guy. Arrogant, suck up and annoying.

"So we've set up the 2002 aims, including: shoot Carmen in 2 weeks. Then you have an audition for Gold-member, you'll be working on the sound track for both of those movies too. That's always great promotion. We have scheduled 2 interviews for you to do with Jay Z and a few others without him. You've got a photo shoot with Vantiy fair, W magazine, and a few others. You'll be Bonnie and Clyde on 106 and Park with Jay z. We were hoping that Work it out could be your first single and that will be for the Gold member video- the producers really liked it- and then we will spend 2002 recording for your first album which we want to release 2003. The first album should be ready by June 2003 with at least two or three videos. After it's release we can do the rest of the videos. Marc Nelson, Rah Digga, Wyclef Jean, Missy Elliot, Big Boi and sleepy Brown are all begging to work with you. We've also been sent a script for a movie called The fighting temptations, we'll go over that for next year. We were thinking about releasing Brown eyes, work it out, and a few other songs this year maybe but we'll get back to that. Amil wants you in the studio with her next week for 'I got that'. The song you recorded with Da Brat is going on her album which releases in a few weeks or so, we have a Pepsi endorsement deal waiting and depending on how well the Album does we have scheduled a short three month tour for your first album. It might even be a little shorter if you do a whole load of performances in the US and your tour is only of Europe or just the UK" The executive looked at her with questioning eyes and she smiled hard and nodded but he seemed a bit thrown off. She looked at him then looked at her dad and smirked a little.  Everything he had just listed, all the things he had planned and booked were not things that HE had planned and booked but instead Beyoncé and Mathew working very hard for the past couple of weeks to perfect everything. The Columbia executives were expecting to be heavily involved at the beginning of her career even though she had a manager but when they realised she didn't need them they stopped setting up meetings with 7 executives, producers and CEOs to only one. It didn't seem like he knew what he walked into, he didn't know that she would want to do that much so quickly, he didn't know that she was so driven and focused. They didn't expect it.