From A Producer To A Chapter 354: Michael sees Number

Chapter 354: Michael sees Number

Michael had been in a good mood for days, not because life was peaceful, but because the noise around Dayo had finally started thinning. The heat was still there, but it wasn’t swallowing the entire internet the way it had during the peak. The numbers were still being compiled. The headlines were still coming. But the hysteria had cooled, and Michael had started to feel that familiar comfort again.

That false comfort that cos when you believe the worst has already passed.

Clara knocked and entered before he even answered properly, tablet in hand, expression careful. She never walked into his office casually when it involved Dayo. She always ca in like she was stepping into a storm.

Michael didn’t look up at first. He stayed focused on the docunt in front of him as if he didn’t already know why she was here.

"What is it."

Clara straightened. "Update on the appointnt, sir."

Michael’s pen paused. Just for a second.

"And."

Clara swallowed, then spoke. "We tried again. Different channel. Different contact. Sa result. He refused to see you. No response. No negotiation. Nothing."

Michael leaned back slowly, his jaw tightening as the words settled. Refusal from most people was not an option. Refusal from Dayo was becoming a pattern, and that was what irritated him the most. It was not the rejection itself. It was what the rejection represented.

Dayo was acting like Michael’s na didn’t an anything.

Michael’s lips twitched into sothing that wasn’t a smile. "So he wants to pretend I don’t exist."

Clara hesitated. "Sir, I don’t think it’s pretending. I think he’s doing it on purpose."

Michael tapped his fingers once on the table, then nodded like he had already accepted it. "Fine. Leave that. What else."

Clara’s eyes flicked down to her tablet, then back up. Her voice dropped slightly, like she didn’t want to be the person carrying this next thing into the room.

"The numbers for Dayo’s work are out."

Michael’s gaze finally lifted to her face.

"That fast?." He asked unaware as most of his news ca from Clara as she validates information before bringing it to him.

"Yes, sir."

Clara stepped forward and placed the tablet on his desk, then swiped once, opening the report. She didn’t speak again imdiately. She let him see it for himself, because she knew Michael hated being led. He wanted to feel like he discovered the truth, even then soone else brought it to him.

Michael’s eyes moved across the screen.

The first line already looked wrong.

He blinked once, then leaned forward, closer, reading again like the numbers might rearrange themselves into sothing more reasonable if he stared hard enough.

His face didn’t change at first.

Then it changed.

He sat up, stood up, and snatched the tablet off the desk like it was disrespectful for it to be sitting there calmly.

He scrolled, stopped, scrolled again, then went back up.

"No," he muttered.

Clara stayed quiet, because she had learned that when Michael started talking to himself, it wasn’t conversation. It was the mont his anger was trying to choose a direction.

Michael’s thumb swiped again, hard, aggressive. He refreshed. He checked the date. He checked the sources. He checked the totals. He checked the sa line twice more as if soone had to have made an error.

Then he looked at Clara as if she personally wrote the report.

"Flip it again."

Clara blinked. "Sir."

"Flip it again," he said, voice sharper. "Open the other breakdown. The other channel. The alternate confirmation."

Clara quickly tapped and brought up another source, another compiled sheet, another verification line. She had already done it before she ca in. She didn’t need to check. But she did it anyway because Michael needed the ritual.

Michael read that too.

His grip tightened on the tablet.

The numbers didn’t change.

The record didn’t soften.

The scale didn’t reduce.

It was still there, sitting on the screen like a slap.

For a mont, the only sound in the room was his breathing.

Then he laughed once, low, dry, not amused, more like offended.

He stepped away from the desk and began pacing, slow at first, then faster. He walked to the window, stared at the city, then turned back like the city itself had betrayed him.

"This isn’t normal," he said.

Clara kept her expression neutral. She had learned how to look calm around danger, but inside she was watching him carefully, because the Michael who paced like this was not the Michael who simply punished people. This was the Michael who started planning sothing worse.

He stopped and pointed the tablet at her without looking at it again.

"You’re telling

this is real."

"It’s confird," Clara said. "Multiple sources. Multiple regions. All verified."

Michael’s eyes narrowed. "How."

Clara hesitated.

Not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she didn’t know which answer would calm him and which answer would ignite him.

Michael filled the silence himself.

"How does he do it," he said again, slower now. "How does he keep doing it. Movie. Album. Tour. Break. Return. And the numbers still look like a lie."

He paced again, fingers pressing into his temple like he could physically squeeze a solution out of his skull.

Clara watched him, then spoke carefully. "Sir, it might be... technology."

Michael snapped his head toward her. "Technology."

Clara nodded. "You already suspected it. A system. Sothing that amplifies reach. Sothing that bends visibility. Because this isn’t just talent, sir. It’s control."

Michael’s mouth tightened. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t, because the numbers had already argued for her.

He walked back to his desk and set the tablet down like it was heavy.

Then he stared at the surface of his desk, quiet for a second, as if he could hear the echo of Dayo’s refusal inside his head.

"You keep bringing

news," Michael said suddenly, voice calr but colder.

Clara stood straighter. "Yes, sir."

"And every ti you bring it," he continued, "it’s worse. Bigger. Louder. More humiliating."

Clara didn’t respond. She couldn’t.

Michael leaned forward slightly, palms on the desk.

"This is why I don’t scroll," he said. "This is why I don’t waste my eyes on tilines like a fan. You bring

the world in a file. You bring

the truth in numbers. That is your job."

"Yes, sir."

Michael exhaled hard, then stood up again, and the calm slipped.

"So tell ," he said, voice rising, "what does it an when my own damn file is telling

this boy is breaking the rules of reality."

Clara’s throat moved as she swallowed. "It ans we need access, sir."

Michael’s eyes locked on her. "And he won’t see ."

"He won’t," Clara said.

Michael’s lips curled slightly. "Then we don’t ask again. We stop asking."

Clara’s eyes flickered. "Sir."

Michael’s voice dropped into sothing that made the air colder. "We take it."

Clara stayed still, but she understood. That sentence was not about a eting anymore. It was about war.

Before she could speak again, Michael’s phone rang.

He froze.

Not because he was surprised. Because he recognized the timing.

Because only one person called him when the world was hot and the numbers were burning.

He stared at the screen.

Isobel Hartmann.

For half a second, he considered letting it ring.

Then his body moved on its own.

He picked it up.

"Hello."

Her voice ca through calm, polished, smooth enough to sound kind if you didn’t know what she was.

"I’m sure you know why I called."

Michael didn’t answer imdiately. His jaw tightened.

Isobel continued without waiting for permission.

"I told you years ago," she said, "when you first brought that boy’s na to , that it wasn’t luck. That it wasn’t coincidence. That it was a pattern. You argued. You dismissed it. You said it was a one ti phenonon."

Michael forced his voice to stay even. "Ma’am."

"Don’t ma’am ," Isobel said, still calm, still controlled, and that calm was the worst part. "I am watching the sa numbers you are watching. A film movent. An album movent. A tour movent. Not one market. Multiple markets. The world doesn’t align like that unless sothing is pulling it."

Michael’s grip tightened on the phone until his knuckles looked pale.

Isobel’s tone stayed asured, but it sharpened.

"And now you’re telling

you still don’t have your hands on it."

Michael swallowed.

Not because he was scared of Dayo.

Because he was scared of the person on the other end of the line.

"We tried to arrange a eting," he said carefully.

Isobel laughed once, very small, not amused.

"And he refused you," she said, like she already knew. "Of course he did. Because he knows what you are, Michael. He knows you are a gate. Not a king. A gate."

Michael’s eyes flickered with anger, but he kept it inside.

Isobel continued.

"You are running out of ti," she said. "Every day you delay, others notice. Disney. Marvel. Tech investors. Labels. Agencies. They are not blind. They are already reaching. They will circle him with offers. They will study him. They will try to partner. And if you are not first, you will be irrelevant."

Michael breathed slowly through his nose.

Isobel’s voice went colder.

"I didn’t build you so you could sit and watch another man rise above your reach."

Michael didn’t speak.

Isobel let the silence stretch just long enough to feel like a threat without saying the word.

Then she spoke again, final.

"Fix it," she said. "Get access. Get answers. Get whatever he is using. I don’t care if you have to crawl for it, but you will not fail . Because if you do, you don’t lose a fight."

She paused.

"You lose everything."

The line went quiet for a fraction of a second, then she added, still calm, still deadly.

"Call

when you have results."

The call ended.

Michael stared at his phone like it had burned his hand.

Clara was still standing there, silent, watching him.

For a mont, Michael didn’t move. He just stood in the middle of his office with the city behind him and Dayo’s numbers in front of him and Isobel’s voice still echoing in his skull.

Then he turned back to Clara slowly, and the look on his face was not anger anymore.

It was decision.

"Make the appointnt happen," he said.

Clara blinked. "Sir, he refused."

Michael stepped closer, voice low.

"Then you don’t ask like a receptionist," he said. "You ask like the world is changing and he is the reason. You find the one person he can’t ignore. You find the door that doesn’t say no."

Clara nodded carefully. "Yes, sir."

Michael picked up the tablet again, staring at the numbers one more ti, and this ti he didn’t look shocked.

He looked insulted.

He looked like a man who had just realized he was not the only predator in the room.

"Dayo," he muttered, almost quietly. "Enjoy the silence while it lasts."

Clara turned and walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

Michael stayed standing.

The city outside kept shining like nothing mattered.

But inside his office, the air felt different now.

Not panic.

Not confusion.

Sothing sharper.

Because the numbers were no longer just numbers.

They were a warning.

And Michael had finally accepted that he was not fighting an artist anymore.

He was fighting whatever was behind the artist.

And he intended to win.