Chapter 83: Commence

The family of three dined in silence, the chinks of their cutleries against the plates occasionally sounding and filling up the quiet ambience.

Yet, that quiet ambience was feeling rather tense to Joaquin who stole glances at his father whom was seated at the apex position of the dining table from time to time.

As for Henry whom was seated on the man’s adjacent right, he didn’t even bother to look up at his father as he focused solely on eating his meal.

Not that Norman wasn’t equally focused on his meal. That said, the man’s gaze did flicker a couple times over to his first son whose demeanor remained unfettered.

Typically, this was Henry’s default expression... that was until someone tried pushing his buttons at least.

It was also why, throughout all their dining sessions thus far, he typically refused to say a thing until he was spoken to, a stark contrast to Joaquin whom would’ve been usually chatty by now.

But even his younger step-brother remained quiet today for obvious reasons. One he didn’t feel inclined to discuss and hoped to high heavens that their father wouldn’t bring up.

That said, just as Henry was rounding up his meal, his father’s voice reached him;

"I heard you gave up 12% of the box office earnings and the IP rights to that lead actor, Niall Parker."

"Yeah. I did." Henry replied without batting an eye, a response that had Joaquin’s eyes flickering wildly for two different reasons.

One. Was Henry insane?! How could he give such a huge chunk of his company’s earnings and a profitable IP to one ’rando’ that just sprung out of nowhere--even if said ’rando’ was its creator.

Two. Why wasn’t there the least bit edge in his tone? The kind he’d always known him for whenever he and Norman spoke.

As the conversation between the father and son continued though, he soon got his answers.

"Shouldn’t that bother you?" Norman asked, the man cutting a piece of premium steak with his cutleries.

"Niall was always going to produce that movie either way. I just happened to be very lucky that he came my way so..."

"... not really, no. Besides, I make movies for fun, remember?" Henry replied much the same, not the slightest hint of edge or annoyance in his tone... one that actually seemed to catch his father off-guard a bit given the history between them over his love of the craft.

"Also," Henry gently grabbed and raised his glass cup to his lips.

"I never invested the company’s money into it. I funded it all from my personal pocket, as did Niall himself. Two million dollars of his money, to be exact." he remarked a few seconds after he took a nice sip of the wine.

Now, that caused Norman’s hand to freeze in place for a while, as did Joaquin’s expression.

Given the movie was currently in its last week of airing in theatres worldwide, it had already made over $670M+ and was slowly huffing and puffing its way to $700M+.

If one did a rough math of things, that essentially meant that Henry was set to get about 65% of those earnings... an exponential gain so absurdly high, not even Norman or Joaquin had never come close to doing anything remotely close in their careers thus far.

It also explained why Henry was so relaxed about the entire thing.

Afterall, when all was said and done, he would’ve only lost a little investment if things had failed but would have gained so much if it had succeeded.

And in utter spades, the movie had been a resounding success and had managed to also snag the title of the highest grossing movie of the year thus far... domestically at least.

More than that, Henry now had all the money in the world to make investments completely independent of Hall Enterprises should he so wish.

That alone, created a playing field where his father’s games might as well have been an utter waste of his time and resources should he decide he wasn’t interested in taking over the family business.

It was also why, a few seconds after, Norman resumed eating as he simply nodded, an imperceptible smile touching his lips.

At the same time, multiple gears were already clicking and turning in his head.

Eventually, he managed to speak;

"Niall Parker. You should keep him around. He seems rather... resourceful."

"I’d also like to meet him sometime." he casually added

To that, Henry inwardly rolled his eyes with an internal scoff. As expected, his father only saw profits and opportunities in people and not much else.

But then again, he honestly wasn’t surprised. That was just the kind of man he was. The man that probably saw his sons much the same--

"Also," Norman’s voice suddenly cut into his son’s train of thought.

"Good job." he acknowledged his son with a curt nod.

This time, Henry’s pupils widened in stunned bewilderment... as did Joaquin’s.

Rarely did their father hardly--if ever--compliment anyone. His sons were no exception to that rule.

Which made it all the more shocking that he casually did just now.

Even the maids clearing the dishes and standing in wait seemed to react much the same, though they did their best to maintain their professionalism.

Yet, before anyone had managed to recover, Norman changed the topic of conversation, his tone turning frigid in an instant;

"Now, what’s this I hear about Diamond Productions’ stocks dropping by 33%?"

Subconsciously, Joaquin gulped.

Whereas Henry’s filmmaking venture, and a lot of his other ventures in general affiliated with Hall Enterprises were largely private, Joaquin’s was mostly public.

That then meant, that although his ventures naturally got more funding and investors in on it due to their ability to trade its stocks, they would equally tank just as badly should they suffer a loss.

And unfortunately for him, he had ended up suffering quite a lot this time.

Afterall, when he’d invested into Tyler’s movie, several of these investors had weighed into the profits they would make in the possible tens of millions by investing into Diamond Productions, only for the movie to not even break even, much less recuperate the capital that went into it.

Worst of all, since these ventures were publicly affiliated with Hall Enterprises, Norman was naturally going to be quite annoyed it was tarnishing the solid, stable reputation his businesses were known for.

That, exactly, was why Joaquin had broken into a cold sweat as he tried to gather the words to say, knowing fully well that one wrong word would be all it would take for their father to strip the business from him and hand it over to someone more worthwhile.

Seeing this, one would’ve expected Henry to relish in the fact that his step-brother was finally facing the music.

Instead, the man simply kept eating, ignoring the conversation between the duo... not that it stopped a thin, vindictive smile from touching his lips.

*

The next few weeks went by rather quickly.

Through it all, Niall had been around for his girlfriend through her session and the aftermath of taking care of her following the surgery.

At the same time, he’d also managed to spend some quality time with his parents, and likewise Rebecca, Camille’s grandmother.

Added to that, he had finally received all of his owed dues from [Silver Comets] to [The Spire of Fate].

Vrael Productions--or more specifically, Henry--had wired his 12% cut of the $700M+ box office earnings from the movie to Victor.

Upon removing his own 10% cut as per his stipulated contract with Niall--one that resulted in his own massive gain of $8.4M plus--he then forwarded the remaining $75.6M+ to his talent.

As for the GrooveBox earnings for the soundtrack, all of which had earned a cumulative stream count of 2.5 billion--with [Heal You] alone accounting for one billion of those streams, Niall had received $12M+ from the streaming platform, one he’d ensured to extend a good chunk of to Sam, Archie and Lucas.

Then came the royalties from Feyre Publications--Ink & Ivory’s merch royalties included. Given they’d earned $18M+ and $12M+ respectively, Niall’s payout came out to just a little over $6M in total.

That said, asides from giving out his parents quite a hefty sum of $1M each, one he similarly extended over to Camille, there wasn’t much Niall needed the money for at the moment.

All of it, was mostly being saved for the eventual production of [A Maddened Wonderland] with Mark whom he still contacted from time to time and vice-versa to follow up on the progress of the script.

To that effect, Niall simply spent the rest of the year with his loved ones and celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve with them.

Celebrating the New Year’s much the same, it didn’t take long before he had to return to LA for [Rink]’s script-reading session.

By then, all the hype surrounding him had died down as several other artists, news and events had taken the spotlight.

Then, when the last week of January finally came around, Murray and his indie-crew, alongside all the actors involved arrived on set to commence the filming of the figure-skating themed movie.

Advance Chapters are available on Patreon!

/Caer07