"Did you book my flight?"
"I did. Ten o'clock tomorrow morning, direct to New York."
"Good."
Wendy hesitated for a beat. "You really don't want me going with you?"
Bruce nodded.
"With Paranormal Activity blowing up at the box office, their attitude is going to soften. I need you here keeping pressure on them. This short-term loan matters. We're talking about a hundred and twenty million dollars, and Matrix's next phase depends on locking it down fast."
Wendy understood how important that was, even if she was disappointed.
"Understood."
Bruce thought of something else.
"By the way, Counter-Strike launched already, right?"
"It launched on August 28. It's been out a week."
"How's it doing?"
Wendy's expression brightened immediately.
"Better than ideal. No, honestly, you bought a gem." Her voice carried real excitement now. "Gabe Newell's team sent over the numbers. In one week, Counter-Strike sold more than 180,000 legitimate retail copies, and the curve is still climbing. At this pace, it should pass three million units before the end of the year."
Bruce did the math almost instantly.
"Three million units at sixty dollars a copy puts gross revenue at a hundred and eighty million dollars. After retail channels, manufacturing, and marketing, Valve should keep around forty-five percent, which gives them about eighty-one million. After corporate tax and local add-ons, that still leaves roughly fifty million in profit."
He smiled and nodded.
"That's a massive win on a fifteen-million-dollar acquisition."
Of course, Bruce knew the ceiling was far higher than that. He had no intention of believing Counter-Strike would stop at three million copies. A franchise with that kind of staying power was never going to be a one-year story.
Wendy looked at him with open admiration.
"Your investment instincts are still absurdly good."
Coming from a beautiful woman who rarely handed out empty praise, that landed exactly the way it should.
Bruce let himself enjoy it for half a second, then moved on.
"One more thing. I need you to handle something else for me."
Wendy straightened slightly. "Just tell me."
"After that New York Times piece, I'm exposed in a way I wasn't before. I need a bodyguard. Not eventually. Now. Someone reliable, discreet, and highly capable."
He continued before she could answer.
"He must have special operations or elite military training. He needs to be proficient with weapons, have a stable family life, no disciplinary problems in service, no history of smoking, heavy drinking, or anything reckless. I don't mind paying. What I care about is loyalty, judgment, and competence."
Originally, Bruce could have waited. Hua Lei was still dealing with family matters, and Bruce had meant to bring him in later.
The New York Times feature had ruined that timetable.
America in 2000 was not as chaotic as it would become later, but Bruce had no interest in gambling his life on statistical comfort.
Wendy nodded seriously. "Do you want multiple candidates?"
"Yes. Give me options."
...
New York was the biggest metropolitan area in the United States and one of the financial centers of the world.
This was not Bruce's first time there. Before, though, he had come as a student, as a competitor, or as a tourist. This time he came with a very different goal in mind.
Still, before anything else, he needed to visit his own company.
"Bruce?"
The moment he stepped out of the airport, rolling his suitcase behind him, he spotted Christopher Ritt waiting in the crowd.
Then, before he could get to him, another voice cut through the air.
"Bruce Guo?!"
Bruce barely had time to react before five or six teenage girls rushed him all at once.
"Bruce, I'm a huge Fifty Shades of Grey fan. Can I get an autograph?"
"Me too. I've read it five times."
"You're even hotter in person. Do you have a girlfriend? Because I'm available."
There were certainly worse problems in life than being adored by pretty teenage girls.
But being swarmed by them all at once was less flattering than people imagined.
It felt more like being trapped inside a very loud stampede.
Bruce's head was seconds away from exploding.
And the worst part was that more people were already starting to notice.
So he reacted fast. He grabbed the pen one of the girls shoved into his hand, signed whatever notebooks and scraps of paper were in front of him, muttered a quick, "Thanks for the support. Take care," and got out of there as fast as he could.
Only after he got into Christopher's car, with the doors shut and the airport fading behind them, did he finally exhale.
"That was terrifying."
Christopher glanced at him and laughed.
"Most people would kill for that kind of reception. Why do you act like you just escaped a prison riot?"
Bruce leaned back in his seat.
"They can enjoy it. I don't have to. Fame has never felt like a gift to me."
That much was true.
Maybe it came from writing. Maybe it came from the way he had lived in his previous life. But Bruce preferred quiet. The second too many people were around him, something inside him started to tighten.
Christopher shook his head.
"You're just not used to it yet. Give it time."
Bruce said nothing.
Christopher didn't really understand.
For Bruce, it wasn't about adjusting. It was about temperament. Everything in him, from the way he'd been raised to the way he thought, pulled him away from the spotlight. He didn't want to live under it. He wanted to stand behind the curtain and move the pieces.
But that kind of explanation would only widen the gap between them, so Bruce changed the subject instead.
"How are things going with Milo Publishing?"
Christopher's expression sharpened immediately.
"Merrill did a strong job for us. They called yesterday. The other side agreed to sign."
He was obviously pleased.
"Purchase price is twenty-five million. We get all of Milo's assets, including their one hundred and thirty-seven bookstores across Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea, plus the rights to 27,823 titles."
Bruce nodded. "And current revenue?"
Christopher practically lit up.
"Phenomenal." He didn't even bother hiding it. "So far, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has sold 9.17 million copies. Pirates of the Caribbean is at 7.56 million box sets. National Treasure is at 3.87 million copies. Paranormal Activity is at 1.87 million, and that one's accelerating because of the film."
He kept going, clearly enjoying every number.
"The Hangover is doing well too. Lighter tone, easy read, very commercial. In four weeks it's already at 1.18 million copies."
Then he almost laughed.
"But the real monster is still Fifty Shades of Grey. Fourteen weeks in, and it's sold 10.45 million sets. And it's still moving at a ridiculous pace. Bruce, I was completely wrong about that one. I've never seen anything like it. Not even Harry Potter hit that kind of heat at launch."
Bruce smiled slightly.
That reaction didn't surprise him. In the future, Fifty Shades would move forty million sets in two years. What they were seeing now was only the beginning.
What did surprise him a little was how well Pirates of the Caribbean was selling, though once he thought about how strongly the movie concept resonated with readers, it made sense.
Christopher kept talking.
"Because of your books, and I mean almost entirely because of your books, Thornbird's total revenue in just under four months has already passed 1.2 billion dollars."
Even Christopher seemed to enjoy saying it.
"After your royalty participation, distribution, printing, shipping, and the rest, Thornbird keeps about an eighteen percent gross margin. That's around two hundred and twenty million. After corporate tax and state exposure, we still clear roughly a hundred and thirty million. That's enough to cover the Milo acquisition."
He wasn't done.
"And Rowling finished Harry Potter Five. Layout and packaging are already complete. We can get it out very soon. If everything goes the way I expect, Thornbird's net profit should rise by another two hundred million before year-end. If that happens, we pass HarperCollins and break into the global top ten in 2000."
That prospect had Christopher almost glowing.
When he first agreed to join Bruce, he thought the company would make money.
He had never imagined it would move this fast.
His twenty-five percent stake, if Thornbird could hold this level for a few years and eventually list publicly, would make him a billionaire.
And Christopher understood exactly where that future came from.
Bruce was the engine.
The New York Times had been right about that much. One man had practically held up an entire world-class publishing house by himself.
The scale of it still shocked Christopher.
It also made him even more determined to stay close.
Bruce listened, then said calmly, "Now that the money's flowing, don't just expand sales channels and the rights library. Start building the author pipeline too. Thornbird can't become a real publishing powerhouse if it only runs on Rowling and me."
Christopher grinned.
"Relax. I'm not planning to spend the next few years sleeping on your success."
"Good."
Bruce smiled, then gave him a look from the side.
"What about what I brought up before? Have you decided?"
Christopher's expression changed.
"Bruce, do we really need to commit all of it?" He still sounded uneasy. "The company needs working capital too."
Bruce answered immediately.
"Operating capital, acquisitions, payroll, printing, employee benefits, all of that can be handled through short-term commercial credit. With Thornbird's revenue profile, getting that financing won't be difficult."
Then he leaned forward a little.
"But if we take the company's real cash flow and route it into a well-structured asset management plan, the returns will easily beat what we'd get parking it in a bank or buying short-duration Treasuries."
Christopher didn't look fully convinced.
"I understand the logic of investing excess cash. That part makes sense. But if we leave ourselves too thin and something urgent happens..."
Bruce cut in before he could finish.
"Christopher, I understand the concern. I'm not planning to put all of it into high-risk positions. And it's not as if we're operating on fumes. We're bringing in tens of millions every week. And I'm not done writing."
He said it flatly, like a business fact.
"I'll keep feeding the company new books. The pipeline isn't drying up.""
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