America Tycoon: The Wolf of Showbiz

Because he had been awoken by Elizabeth Olsen's kiss of love just as dawn broke, Martin arrived at the office earlier than usual after his morning workout.

The receptionist Alice had already opened the company doors.

Martin nodded at her and went upstairs with Bruce.

The elevator quickly reached the fourth floor. As Martin entered the elevator hallway, he caught a faint odor, "What's that strange smell? Old Cloth, do you smell it?"

Bruce sniffed hard, "Did someone with smelly feet take their shoes off in the elevator last night?"

Martin turned out of the elevator hallway, came to the office door, and was about to open it when his eyes caught the brass handle, and he immediately withdrew his hand.

He noticed some oily residue at the position of the handle's keyhole.

Upon closer inspection, he also found faint scratches near the keyhole.

Martin instinctively stepped back and said to Bruce, who had followed, "Something's not right."

Without a word, Bruce pulled out two handguns, handed one to Martin, and then, sticking close to the marble wall panel, approached the door.

He only took one look before saying, "The lock is new; it shouldn't have these marks. Someone must have opened it with the wrong key."

Martin, with both hands gripping the gun tightly, watched Bruce's back, "Let's back away. Jessica might have opened the door."

Jessica also had a key to his office, and she took care of the daily cleaning.

Bruce reminded him, "Let's go back the way we came."

If someone had indeed illegally entered, it was best to avoid disturbing any traces.

One of them watched the front while the other watched the back as they retreated to the elevator hallway.

Martin carefully observed the floor, and apart from his and Bruce's footprints, there were no other marks.

The two took the elevator down.

Exiting the elevator, Jessica and Emily just happened to be about to go upstairs, and seeing Martin and Bruce with guns, were momentarily stunned.

What kind of game was the boss playing? Drawing guns inside the company?

Jessica asked, "Boss, what are you doing?"

Martin, coming out of the elevator, asked, "Did anyone enter my office yesterday when I wasn't here?"

Jessica shook her head, "No."

Emily was certain, "No one besides the cleaning crew went up to the fourth floor yesterday."

Jessica asked, "Boss, what happened?"

Bruce put away his gun, "The company might have been burglarized."

Martin, seeing Alice approaching curiously, used his body to shield the gun and said, "Alice, go to the door, prevent the other employees from coming in for the time being."

He then said to Bruce, "Call the police."

Bruce took out his phone and dialed to report the incident. Several people had come in on the first floor by now, and even the diligent Alice had done some simple cleaning.

Martin looked around, came close to the entrance, first checked the door lock, then lowered the security shutter to take a look, asked Alice a few questions, but did not find anything.

Bruce and Jessica went to check the surveillance and found it wasn't working properly; the hard drive had been violently removed, and the backup power supply was also damaged.
Stay connected with My Virtual Library Empire

Outside, two patrol officers quickly arrived on the scene.

They were there simply to maintain order and to remind everyone to preserve the crime scene.

After another ten minutes or so, a detective from the police bureau arrived with his team and forensic technicians.

The officers began to inquire about the incident, speaking and acting very politely and carefully.

Detective Geralt was well aware of Martin's relationship with the chief and came over to shake hands with Martin, asking him personally about what he had discovered.

Martin explained in detail and had Bruce accompany him to the monitoring room.

Geralt immediately made a call summoning more personnel, and instructed others to make inquiries and investigate the surroundings.

After a long time, Martin simply gave most of the company employees the day off, leaving only Jessica, Emily, and other management staff.

At this point, Geralt came to invite Martin to go upstairs.

"We have found some left-behind traces, although very few; the intruder was very careful." Exiting the elevator, he continued, "They must have worn shoe covers and gloves, as there are no fingerprints, nor any clear footprints."

As they reached the entrance to Martin's office, he pointed at the lock, "At least one of them is a lock-picking expert, having opened not just this door but also your safe."

Martin remembered clearly, "There don't seem to be any valuables in the office safe."

Geralt said, "Check if anything is missing."

After a thorough check, Martin found that nothing in his office was missing. He then approached the safe where a few technicians were gathered.

The inside of the safe was completely empty except for two scripts lying there.

Geralt asked, "Is anything missing?"

Martin shook his head and crouched down to examine the scripts, noticing signs that they appeared to have been tampered with and slightly furrowing his brow.

He responded to Geralt's question, "Nothing's missing. Other than two documents, I haven't put anything else in this safe."

Geralt asked, "They didn't steal anything?"

Martin said to Bruce, "Check the other places."

Soon, Bruce came over and said, "Nothing was lost, except for your office, no other rooms were touched."

Martin roughly understood that the thief hadn't come to steal valuables, their target was likely the safe.

He found Geralt and briefed him.

Geralt told Martin not to make a fuss for now and to leave the investigation to the professionals.

Quickly, more details were gathered.

The electrical box connected to the building had been opened, and the hard drives for the surveillance cameras, along with the secret backup disks, were all gone, clearly taken by someone.

However, there was also some good news. On the back of the office building, some traces were found—someone had climbed up to the fourth floor via the drainage pipe, anti-theft net, and exterior air conditioner unit, forcefully breaking through the security passage window's anti-theft net.

Furthermore, surveillance footage from a nearby building captured several figures, all dressed in black clothes, pants, and hoods.

But on this side, there was a lack of surveillance, with pitifully few public cameras off the main road, leaving no choice but to wait for the detective bureau to search for further clues.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Martin, Geralt quickly led his team to withdraw.

In the office, only Martin and Bruce were left.

The latter asked directly, "Did they come for the screenplays?"

Martin pulled out two screenplays and placed them on the table in front of him, looking at the covers he said, "'The Seventh Son' and 'Transcendental Hacker'. I thought these two might be useful, so I casually threw them into the safe. I never expected that they would actually attract thieves…"

Bruce asked, "Who knows about this?"

Martin replied, "Within the company, it's not a secret what screenplays I've vetoed and then not acquired copyright for, and many people know that I kept two screenplays."

All formal employees can search the studio's office collaboration software database.

This feature was originally made public to encourage employees to recommend screenplays.

Bruce asked again, "You were optimistic about these two screenplays?"

"No," Martin said briefly. "Fantasy epics, you know."

Bruce had heard Martin speak more than once about rejecting all projects and roles related to the fantasy epic genre.

Martin said, "If they came for the screenplays, what would they think seeing that I had specially locked the screenplays in the safe?"

Bruce knew that Martin's reputation for having a good eye for material was especially loud these days and said, "Immediately contact the copyright owners and secure the screenplay rights, and they might even invest a large sum of money in production."

"Although I don't know who is behind it, since they've stolen from me, I'll have to give them a hand," Martin said as he stood up and walked a few steps, picking up the phone and dialing a number, "Jessie, come over with Emily."

Jessica and Emily quickly entered the office.

Martin handed them the screenplays and said, "Go and negotiate the purchase of the screenplays with the authors or copyright holders."

Jessica glanced down at the screenplays; if she remembered correctly, Martin had rejected these two last time.

Martin further instructed, "Make it seem like we're determined to get them, make a bit of noise, drag out the negotiation, but don't actually buy the screenplay rights, understand?"

Emily took over the conversation, "So we're creating an impression that we absolutely want these two screenplays?"

Martin nodded, "Exactly, now get to it."

Jessica and Emily immediately went to contact the screenwriters; the contact information was right on the scripts.

When the office door closed behind them, Bruce asked, "Are you trying to find the perpetrator this way?"

"If someone spends a fortune to buy these two screenplays, would they just sit on them in the script vault? They'd certainly invest in making them into movies," Martin replied.

He walked to the window and looked across at the Disney Studio, "Whichever thieves did this, that's not really important. What's crucial is who or what forces are hiding behind them."

Bruce sighed, "It's not that we want to stir up trouble, it's just that there are too many rotten people in this circle, so many that if we don't play others, someone will play us."

Martin laughed, "In the eyes of many bigger forces in Hollywood, I might not even compare to Tom Cruise."

Bruce understood what he meant; Tom Cruise, with the Church of Scientology and thirty years of buildup behind him, had almost been blackballed beyond recovery, but fortunately, he had accumulated enough resilience...

"We have to be more discreet about acquiring projects in the future," Martin thought for a moment and said, "I'll give Harris a heads-up later, to set up a shell company in Harris's name. Whatever project we're interested in, we'll have Harris talk to people first."

He then said to Bruce, "Although the company hasn't lost anything valuable, we still need to upgrade security."

Bruce responded, "I'll get right on it."

The morning passed in dealing with these messes.

In the afternoon, Martin went to Century City and met with Cross, the marketing director of Nokia, at WMA.

Nokia's two-year spokesperson contract with Martin would expire this month.

In those two years, since smartphones and Android weren't yet in full force, and together with Martin's appeal and the decline of his old rival Motorola, Nokia had still held a considerable market share in North America.

Martin had declined Nokia's initiative to renew the contract, even though they offered a 15 million dollar endorsement contract per year.

Cross couldn't understand Martin's decision, "Our cooperation over the past two years has been very successful, why not continue?"

"This involves my personal privacy," Martin responded vaguely, "I can only say I'm sorry."