Joanna stared at him, seething with anger. She felt furious and utterly helpless. This was the critical moment for her career to take off. With the fame she had gained from winning the fashion design award, the rest should have been easy.

Her public profile was solid. She was just waiting for that one explosive moment to launch her into superstardom.

She had planned to enter the piano competition purely for the exposure, a stepping stone into the entertainment industry.

But Natalie's sudden defiance had derailed her schedule.

Recalling everything that had gone wrong, the fury in her chest burned even brighter.

She snapped her gaze to Maxwell Griffith. "Maxwell, we can just use a stunt double for the action scenes. Shooting starts right after the holidays, and I've already spoken to Zachary Vance, but..."

A heavy shadow of doubt clouded Joanna's eyes. In her dreams of the future, Zachary was eventually exposed. Many of the female stars under his management had met tragic, untimely ends, some disappearing without a trace.

She remembered fragments of those events from her dreams.

She needed to take a gamble. She had to know if the things she saw in her dreams were real. Zachary's downfall would be the perfect test.

"Maxwell, we can snatch Zachary's current talent agency. I've already joined his company, and I'll find a chance to figure out exactly how they operate."

"He's a titan in the management world. He holds countless lucrative contracts. If we take over his company, it will accelerate our plans significantly."

She was determined to become the undisputed queen of Yaro's business world, a woman everyone envied. No one would stand in her way. She had to be thousands of times better than Natalie Sanders.

Maxwell looked mildly surprised. "Joanna, he's your manager now. How exactly do you plan on stealing his company?"

Her ambition always dwarfed his.

"Besides, Zachary holds a deeply entrenched position in the entertainment industry. I've looked into him. He has powerful backers. It won't be easy to pry his company from his hands."

Joanna scoffed. "Maxwell, if we're going to play, we play big. How do you still lack my courage? High stakes yield high rewards."

Maxwell took a deep breath, fixing her with a hard glare. "Joanna, over a decade of planning has already slipped through our fingers. Now, every move we make must be

executed with absolute caution.

"Yaro is full of elites and powerful families. Right now, we've alienated the Spencer family and the Wilson family. The business advantage in this city is no longer ours."

"Every project we take on next must be backed by genuine talent. It's time to bring out those top-tier professionals you've been secretly cultivating to work for you."

It was a shame about Nora. She had possessed brilliant business acumen.

"If only we could bail Nora out," Maxwell added.

Joanna shook her head.

"Impossible! There's no way to get her out. Marshall Spencer is

personally keeping an eye on then et

police station. With him watching anding so airtight evidence baile out of the question_fve

already managed to get a message to her, telling her to go quietly. I promised her brother would take her

place, and she agreed. She won't

give us up."

"Hmph! If she hadn't been so relentlessly greedy, there would have been vastly more wealth waiting for her." Maxwell was livid. Everything had gone off the rails, leaving him

utterly unable to adapt to this new reality.

FindNovel.net

He clenched his jaw, feeling a sharp pain pulse through his head, and forced himself

to relax.

The thought of losing everything Sebastian had built gnawed at him. Wearing Sebastian's face, using his identity, yet still failing to secure what he truly desired-it was maddening.

The mere thought of it twisted a knife of suffocating despair and rage deep in his chest.