Chapter 3: I am actually a Multi-Millionaire???
The day after the dinner with Jessica Pearson, I had already put in my two weeks' notice.
There was no hesitation, no second guessing, no dramatic buildup, just a quiet certainty that the next step had already been decided and that delaying it would only dilute the momentum I had spent years building. I informed my Junior Partner, because I was about to move firms, and there was no reason to pretend otherwise.
A week after submitting my resignation, I found myself standing outside the office of the Managing Partner, the last door I would walk through in this firm under this title, knowing full well that this conversation was not a formality but a reckoning.
Robert Zane.
Tall, broad-shouldered, immaculately dressed in a way that spoke less of fashion and more of authority, he carried himself with the weight of someone who had earned every inch of his reputation, his presence filling the room even before he spoke. The second I entered, he did not waste time on pleasantries, did not ask about my reasons in a roundabout way, did not attempt to soften the exchange.
"What did she offer you?"
I answered directly, because I had stood in front of this man before and knew exactly what he respected.
"Partnership within a year."
He studied me for a moment, then stood up from his chair, hands braced briefly against the desk as he leaned forward, his expression firm but not hostile.
"Look, Kent," he said, "I'm not going to lie to you. I wouldn't be able to make you a partner within a year. It would probably take slightly longer. But I guarantee if you stay in this firm, you have a future."
There was conviction in his voice, but something closer to pride, and as he straightened fully, stepping out from behind the desk, he continued, gesturing with a restrained intensity that made his words carry more weight than volume ever could.
"Young man, you have the dedication to last. 90% of the associates here, they don't do anything , but you. I was able to observe you. I've heard good things about you. Stay. We can negotiate your salary. And we can negotiate how fast it would take for you to be a partner. But you do have a future here and I would be damned if you moved thinking that you had no future in this firm."
I paused, out of respect, because this was the most candid endorsement I had received here, and I did not intend to dismiss it lightly.
"I thank you, Mr. Zane, I really do," I said. "But year after year I've watched. As people pass me up on offers which I believe would have been more than fair for me to have. Taking over files that are not as tedious. I'm not saying I don't like work. I enjoy work. That's why I spend so much time doing it. But I'm talking about work that puts me out of the spotlight rather than in the backfield. Stuff that gets my name across to the world. I want recognition now. Not just doing the grunt work. And unfortunately I think Pearson Hardman can offer that for me."
He listened without interrupting, arms crossed now, eyes fixed on me with an intensity that suggested he was weighing not just my words, but my trajectory.
"It seems like you've already made up your mind," he said finally. "But I want you to know, our doors are always open for a talented, gifted young lawyer like you."
He extended his hand, firm and unyielding when I took it, and added, "The next time you see me I won't be so nice to you anymore. You better be ready."
I smiled slightly, not arrogantly, but with confidence earned rather than borrowed.
"I know, sir," I replied. "I know how you treat your enemies. I hope the next time you see me you'll be impressed with what you see."
With that, I turned and walked out, posture straight, head held high, aware that this chapter was closing cleanly, without bitterness, without regret.
It was time for me to transition.
And this time, I was moving forward.
…
I had two days off after finishing my two weeks' notice with my firm, a brief pause that felt almost unnatural after years of moving from one deadline to the next without interruption, knowing that once it ended, I would be stepping into an entirely new phase of my life at Pearson Hardman.
I was inside my apartment on the Upper West Side, the kind of neighborhood people casually referred to as well-off when they wanted to be understated about money, space, and insulation from the chaos further downtown.
The place itself was a double-storied penthouse, something I had been able to purchase during the real estate crash for a price that still felt absurdly low in hindsight, its wide windows pulling in the late afternoon light as if the city itself had been arranged for my convenience.
I was seated at the dining table, papers spread neatly across the surface, tablets propped up beside them, and one might reasonably ask what I was reviewing when, technically speaking, I was jobless at the moment.
The answer was simple.
I was reviewing my investments.
Not just casually checking balances, but going through reports, projections, shareholder summaries, and long-term outlooks for companies I had been investing in for over a decade, tracking performance with the same discipline I applied to legal work.
I had not been sitting idly by when I first arrived in this world, and knowing the future, knowing the timing of crashes and recoveries, had made all the difference.
The dot-com collapse, the real estate crash, each one had been a lesson written in advance for me, and unlike most people, I had the luxury of acting on those lessons before they were taught publicly. In my previous life, I had only begun learning how to invest when I was around 35, already late, already behind, already carrying the regret most people develop when they realize compounding works best when you give it time.
Like everyone else, I had ignored advice when it mattered most.
Not from my parents, but from people who clearly knew better than me, people older, more experienced, people I had dismissed because the message was inconvenient. In this life, I listened. Financial independence did not come from blind ambition or romantic ideas about entrepreneurship, but from seed capital, discipline, and understanding risk. Starting a business was not magic, and success was never guaranteed, but a financial cushion, built carefully and early, was attainable for anyone willing to learn.
Personally, I believe people should start learning seriously around 20.
When I was 14 and came back into this world, I began working part-time immediately, wherever I could, stacking shifts without complaint, picking up doubles, triples, sleeping far less than was reasonable, because I understood what those early dollars could become. I poured tens of thousands into the dot-com crash when others were panicking, letting that capital mature into real estate positions and early tech investments that would later define entire sectors.
That was how the foundation was built.
But it did not stop there.
The entertainment industry, at this point in time, was nowhere near as saturated or optimized as it would become, and from my perspective, it was an untapped market begging to be structured properly. So I did something reckless, at least by conventional standards, and created an entertainment company. It required liquidating a significant portion of my holdings to bring in credible investors, and there were moments when I even questioned the timing, but the difference was that I knew what was coming.
I knew future sounds.
Future trends.
Future talent.
I knew which artists would rise, which ones would fade, and which ones would redefine the industry entirely, and while I could not control everything, I could position myself close enough to benefit. Most of my cash cows had already entered the market, names just beginning to circulate, and I knew with certainty that within a few years, they would be unavoidable.
Back when I graduated high school as valedictorian, I had deliberately chosen a state university, not out of limitation, but strategy. I received a full scholarship, along with a stipend for living expenses once they confirmed I had no financial support from my parents, and I treated those years as preparation rather than destination. After that, I transferred into an Ivy League institution, because I wanted grades without pressure and a name that could carry weight indefinitely, all without taking on a cent of debt.
Eventually, I landed at Princeton.
One of the best economics departments in the world.
I got there using the same two advantages I had relied on since adolescence, the first being my ability to work at a scale that most people could not sustain, the hundred-body solution that let me compress effort into output, and the second being my persuasiveness, the skill I had unlocked and refined that allowed me to dominate interviews and negotiations without ever raising my voice.
Princeton gave me something money could not.
People.
I met individuals who would later become friends, partners, and points of leverage, people capable of running companies, advising on expansion, or opening doors I had no interest in forcing. Harvard did the same in a different way, and between the two, I built a network that extended quietly into industries most people only brushed against.
Fantasy Entertainment, operating under the parent company Fantasy Enterprises, was now run by someone I trusted completely, a friend from Princeton's economics department who went on to complete an MBA, supported by an in-house counsel who specialized in entertainment law, someone I had known since Harvard and who had recently gone in-house to oversee our legal exposure.
The structure was solid.
The people were solid.
And as I leaned back in my chair, documents neatly stacked, the city stretching endlessly beyond the glass, I knew that while Pearson Hardman would soon consume most of my time, it would never be the only thing I was building.
Because I had never relied on just one path forward.
The people inside my agency were not random, and they were not there because I needed volume.
They were there because I knew exactly what they would become.
From the beginning, Fantasy Entertainment was never meant to be a factory line, never meant to churn out dozens of mediocre acts and hope one survived the market long enough to justify the overhead. It was designed to be selective to the point of arrogance, an exclusive label built around the idea that quality compounded faster than quantity if you gave it the right conditions.
Some of the names were already recognizable, even then.
Taylor Swift had already debuted for about a year by the time I signed her, still early enough in her career that people underestimated how large she would become, but established enough that the risk felt justified to outsiders who did not see what I saw. Getting her to join me was a hassle though…
Bruno Mars was still writing for other people when I brought him in, a talent floating just below the surface, contributing to hits without receiving the recognition he deserved, and it did not take much convincing to show him that a more controlled environment would allow him to step forward rather than remain behind the curtain…he was going to begin releasing his songs soon.
Ed Sheeran came over as well, raw, prolific, endlessly adaptable, the kind of artist who could survive almost any shift in public taste as long as he was given space to evolve rather than being forced into a mold too early. Artists like these were not exceptions, they were the foundation, and even then, I knew they were only the beginning.
While I hadn't earned hundreds of Millions from them yet, I had earned a fair amount of money…and this was without the massive expansion I was planning for soon.
There were others I had my eye on, names that had not yet circulated beyond small venues or songwriting rooms, people who would eventually dominate charts, redefine genres, or become cultural fixtures whether the industry liked it or not. I did not micromanage every decision, because part of building something sustainable was knowing when to delegate, and my CEO had the authority to scout additional talent if they believed a band or artist truly met our standards.
But the rule was clear.
We would not chase trends.
We would not flood the market.
We would be exclusive, deliberately so, and we would position ourselves as the place where the best of the best ended up, not because we paid recklessly, but because we offered stability, long-term vision, and control over their own creative trajectory.
Another advantage, one that most people never saw coming, was infrastructure.
I had positioned myself early inside the platforms that would come to define distribution, influence, and monetization for an entire generation, quietly acquiring stakes while valuations were still laughably low. I owned fifteen percent of Spotify, a number that would have seemed absurd to anyone looking at it now, and I was a shareholder in Facebook and Instagram as well, having accumulated a meaningful position during their formative years, upwards of four percent in Facebook and nearly thirty percent in Instagram before it became what the world would eventually recognize.
Those holdings were not vanity investments.
They were leverage.
They allowed me to see data before it became public narrative, to understand engagement before analysts framed it, and to structure contracts in a way that aligned artists with platforms rather than pitting them against each other. When distribution, promotion, and ownership sat within the same ecosystem, margins changed, power shifted, and suddenly the traditional gatekeepers mattered far less than they believed.
Fantasy Entertainment was not just an agency.
It was a node.
A point where talent, capital, and foresight intersected, run by people I trusted completely, people who understood that we were not building something loud, but something inevitable. And as I reviewed the reports one last time, watching the numbers trend exactly as expected, I knew that while most people saw my move to Pearson Hartman as ambition, law as the center of my life, the truth was far simpler.
Law was one pillar.
This was another.
And together, they ensured that no matter how the world shifted, I would never be standing on unstable ground again.
The value of the company I held in my hands was something most people would dismiss outright if I ever said it out loud.
If I told them I was one of the youngest and richest people on the entire planet, that everything I owned had been built by my own decisions rather than inheritance, they would assume exaggeration, delusion, or arrogance, because that was easier than accepting that someone could quietly position themselves ahead of an entire generation. I understood very early on that the future would not be governed by factories or oil fields alone, but by attention, by platforms, by social media ecosystems that shaped opinion before people even realized they were being influenced.
And yet, despite all of that, the way I chose to live my life was not centered on entertainment.
I did not understand that world intuitively, which was precisely why I hired people who did, people capable of running it far better than I ever could. My role was never to interfere creatively, only to structure, to protect, to foresee where the leverage would shift and ensure we were standing on the right side of it when that happened. I knew the future well enough to understand how long this advantage would last, how far it could take me, and where its limits were.
The truth was that I could stop.
I could sit back, do nothing for the rest of my life, live comfortably beyond what most people ever dreamed of, because there was no real reason for me to stay in a penthouse on the Upper East Side other than habit. I could buy a mansion, hire a personal driver, and insulate myself completely from inconvenience, but I did not want that kind of life.
I needed something to tether me to this world.
I had friends, real ones, not transactional relationships built on proximity to power. I hoped that one day I would find someone to build a family with, and I wanted my children, if I ever had them, to look at me and think that their father had lived up to his potential rather than retreating from it. I wanted to work, not because I needed the money, but because effort gave meaning to time.
I wanted to be the best lawyer I could possibly be.
The best investor.
The best friend.
The best significant other.
That was the standard I held myself to, and that was who I was.
That was Michaelson Kent.
I was still looking at the valuation of Fantasy Enterprises, a number that felt almost absurd considering the company had only been operating for a few years, when my phone rang, pulling me out of my thoughts. The caller ID showed John Parker, my CEO at Fantasy Entertainment, and I picked up without hesitation.
"Dude, I've been trying to get a hold of you for the past couple weeks. Why have you not been responding?"
"I know. I'm sorry. I just got busy. I was wrapping up a couple of deals for my firm, but I'm free now. What's up?"
"Are you aware of a lawyer named Harvey Spector?"
"I'd be a fool if I wasn't," I replied calmly. "He's well known basically everywhere in the legal profession."
"Well, just to let you know, Pearson Hardman has approached us and Harvey wants to take Fantasy Entertainment public. He recommended an IPO and he said if we sign with him, he'll see the deal with us through."
I paused for a moment, not because I did not understand the implications, but because I did. From what I remembered, Harvey Specter was deeply involved in IPOs, and the fact that he had identified Fantasy Entertainment as something worth taking public so early was, objectively, a validation.
But I already knew my answer.
"Tell him no."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line before John spoke again.
"Why is that?"
"I just don't want the company to go public," I said evenly. "I want to have the controlling interest and don't want our decisions to be reported to a board of directors.."
"Alright, you're the boss," John replied without pushing. "I understand. We've followed whatever you've said so far and it's worked exactly how you said it would, so I'm not really too worried about it. But what do I tell them?"
"Just tell them that you're not interested in an IPO right now and you don't really want to move firms," I said. "Which firm are you guys at? Are you guys still at—"
"Yeah, yeah, we're still there," he interrupted lightly. "But most of the work is done by Melissa anyway. And like you said, we're going to be expanding to the UK and starting a talent agency over there as well. And at your recommendation, we're going for Darby International as a law firm over there. But when are we going to be signing with you, dude?"
I laughed softly at that.
"It's a conflict of interest for me to be your attorney as the largest shareholder," I said. "So you're not going to be signing with me. Anyways, if there's anything else you require me to know, let me know. Also, I'm going to send you a list of artists which I think you should be scouting in the up and coming years. Sign five. Remember our motto. Quality over quantity. I don't want tens of mediumly well-known artists. I only want the best of the best for the company."
The call ended shortly after, and as I set my phone down and looked back at the numbers on the screen, I felt a quiet sense of alignment settle in.
Everything was moving exactly where it needed to.
And tomorrow, a new chapter will begin.