Laughter filled the offices of Starlight Entertainment, and the dark clouds that had hung over the small production company seemed to lift completely.
"I really should have gone to Abu Dhabi with you guys!"
After listening to Robert Lee's embellished retelling, George slapped his thigh in genuine regret. "That's practically a legendary story. You could make a film out of it."
Robert nodded. "I know. I still can't fully believe it. It feels like a dream."
Mary smiled. "I haven't had a proper night's sleep since the fundraising conference ended."
George took a sip of water. "If I'd just helped secure $11 million in investment, I wouldn't be sleeping well either."
Mary shook her head. "Robert and I just did what we could."
"That's true." Robert said honestly. "Of that $11 million, $8.9 million was Ryan's doing."
George nodded slowly. "We all underestimated him." He let out a long breath. "I'll be honest, I was just trying to buy some time and see what happened. I never expected the plan to not only work, but to work like this. Eleven million dollars. How many years would it have taken Starlight Entertainment to earn that?"
The other two were quiet. They'd all been thinking the same thing.
Mary said softly, "Ryan has changed."
"He has," George agreed.
Robert added, "He was always sharp and talented. But now the recklessness is gone. He's more grounded."
George suddenly laughed. "Maybe the last failure wasn't such a bad thing after all. Starlight Entertainment might actually be stepping into a new era."
All three of them laughed at the same time.
A few minutes later, Ryan walked into the office and found his three remaining employees in the middle of what was clearly a very good mood. He set his briefcase down. "You're all very cheerful. What did I miss?"
"We were talking about Abu Dhabi," Mary said.
Ryan pulled up a chair. "It really is a beautiful city."
"A city that makes you happy," Robert said. "I'll never forget it."
George chimed in. "I'm still kicking myself for staying behind."
Ryan sat down with them. "George, we couldn't have pulled this off without your work here. While we were in Abu Dhabi, the media coverage kept coming, and that didn't happen by itself."
Mary then shifted the conversation. "Ryan, you should buy a car. Taking the bus every day is a real waste of time."
Young Anderson had once driven a Lincoln, but had sold it to cover employee salaries during the worst of it. Since Ryan had taken over, he'd either borrowed Mary's car or taken public transit.
"I'll get one soon." Ryan clapped his hands together. "Alright, let's talk business."
All three straightened up immediately. Without quite realizing it, they had all come to trust Ryan's judgment.
Ryan got straight to it. "The Abu Dhabi trip solved our financing problem. For at least the next three years, we won't have to worry about running out of money. Now it's time to get this company properly back on its feet."
Before assigning anything, he honored his promise first. "None of this would have happened without your support, and I said from the beginning that there would be a reward if we succeeded."
Mary, George, and Robert all smiled. They looked genuinely pleased.
Ryan understood this well enough. In a mature commercial society, even the most loyal and dedicated employees had real material needs. A thousand words of gratitude couldn't do what a clear, concrete reward could. And he had made a promise at the start of the plan.
A promise worth making was worth keeping.
"Each of the four of us gets a bonus of $110,000," Ryan said directly.
George's face lit up. "Lyle won't have a word to say now."
Ryan knew that Lyle was George's wife, and that she'd had strong reservations about him staying at Starlight through all of this. With four children, George's financial responsibilities weren't light. When you reached middle age carrying that kind of weight, most choices stopped feeling entirely free.
Robert said firmly, "Let's build something new together."
Mary said nothing, but her support for Ryan had never been in question.
Without all three of them, the Abu Dhabi financing plan couldn't have come together the way it did. The $11 million that had come in wasn't all going into the film. A portion would certainly be redirected elsewhere. That decision also meant these three people were now tied to the plan in a way that went beyond employment. They'd taken the reward. The risk came with it.
"Now let's talk about moving forward," Ryan said, shifting to the main topic. "We need to get the company running properly again, and we need to start officially planning The Purge production."
Mary was more measured. "We accepted investment from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. We'll need to show accountability."
Ryan nodded. "Robert, you'll post job listings and handle recruiting for the positions we need filled most urgently. George, you'll take the lead on officially recruiting a director and the core production crew for The Purge. Mary, you'll manage the finances and general administration for now, and once we have the right people in place, you can focus purely on the financial side."
All three agreed.
They spent another hour going through specifics before Ryan headed into his office.
Mary followed him in and closed the door behind her.
"How much are you actually planning to put into The Purge?" she asked.
Ryan needed her fully on board, so he was direct. "No more than two million, depending on what caliber of director and actors we can bring in." Then he said plainly, "I'm planning to set aside four million for loan repayments and general operations."
"And the rest?" Mary had apparently overestimated how far Ryan's conscience extended.
"The stock market," Ryan said quietly. "I'm planning to invest in stocks."
Mary stared at him. "Ryan, that's... that's completely reckless." She kept her voice low but the concern in it was unmistakable. "This violates the investment contract. You'd be crossing a legal line."
Ryan shook his head gently. "The Arabs won't know. The publicly stated budget for The Purge is eleven million dollars. The actual spending on any Hollywood film is a mystery to outsiders, and it's doubly opaque to people sitting in the Middle East."
Mary went quiet. Without a third-party auditor or professional oversight mechanism in the contract, there was genuinely no way for investors ten thousand kilometers away to monitor how Starlight Entertainment spent the money. And the gap between a film's announced budget and its actual costs was one of Hollywood's oldest and most practiced traditions. The ways to move money around inside a production were too numerous to count.
"Even if they do find out eventually," Ryan said, "international litigation is enormously complicated. We'd drag it out. Two years of delays and none of this is a serious problem anymore."
"The stock market carries real risk," Mary said, still pushing back.
Ryan thought for a moment. "Was Abu Dhabi low-risk? We pulled that off. And I'm not going in blind here. Would putting this money back into film production really be safer than where the stock market is heading right now? Without building up real capital, Starlight Entertainment stays small forever."
Between the surging market, the high-risk nature of film investment, and the near-miraculous result in Abu Dhabi, Mary finally nodded slowly. "Alright. I'll work with you on this."
She added, "You should set aside a clear sum for day-to-day company expenses."
"Already planned for," Ryan said. He smiled. "We're about to launch The Purge as an active production. All regular company expenses go through the project budget."
"That works," Mary said, without objection.
Small independent production companies in Hollywood did this routinely. Some of the less scrupulous independent producers would put virtually everything, including personal living costs, through a film's budget once a project was active. The big studio system had oversight and proper accounting controls. The independent world operated on entirely different terms.
The phone on Ryan's desk rang. It was Judith from the bank.
"Mr. Anderson, Starlight Entertainment's mortgage loan comes due in one month. If the payment is late..."
Ryan's expression tightened slightly at the sound of her voice. "I'll come to the bank tomorrow and handle the repayment. That's all."
He hung up and turned to Mary. "Get ready. Tomorrow we go to the bank first, and then we head to the Merrill Lynch branch here in Los Angeles."