"Finally came, huh. Heh, guess these guys aren't that patient after all." In the study, Josh fiddled with the invitation in his hand, a cold sneer appearing on his face.
The invitation listed the venue as a nightclub in Chicago, but the sender was none other than the Competitive Social Club.
And the signature at the bottom was Wilfred Malick.
The current patriarch of the Malick family, one of Hydra's heads, and future leader of Hydra in the Avengers era—the father of Gideon Malick.
However, at this point in time, Wilfred wasn't that old—just a little over forty. As for Gideon, he hadn't even been born yet. Many American tycoons married and had children late in life. With the means to do so, most of them naturally chose to enjoy themselves as long as they could.
Take Howard Stark for example—born in 1917, he played around until the late '60s when he met Tony Stark's mother, Maria, and only then truly settled down.
That's also why Tony was born so late.
Moreover, these tycoons generally didn't worry about succession. After all, as early as the start of the 20th century, the American Management Association had been established, and the professional manager system was very well-developed.
Many world-famous family dynasties, like the Rockefellers or Morgans, occasionally produced outstanding heirs. But for the most part, their family businesses were all managed by dedicated management companies.
The benefit of this setup is that even if an heir is still young, it's hard for outsiders to wrest control of the family industry through underhanded means... take Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne from DC, and Green Arrow as examples.
All three lost their parents early and their companies were temporarily taken over, but what those others could seize was only corporate control. Their actual wealth couldn't be touched—law wouldn't allow it, and other tycoon factions wouldn't tolerate such violations of their bottom lines.
That's why these three were ultimately able to reclaim control of their enterprises.
If it were a family-run business, a direct heir going missing for a few years could easily result in the inheritance being divided up completely by collateral relatives, and it would be nearly impossible to reclaim it through normal means.
Of course, the professional manager system also had downsides—if later generations were unambitious, their control and influence within the family industry would continuously weaken.
Disney is a typical example...
In contrast, someone like Josh, not even fully an adult yet—born in August 1927, and now it's November 1944, just turned 17—already has a pair of adorable fraternal twins. Quite rare.
As for Wilfred Malick, he too, like Stark and others, had a rather inspirational background.
The Malick family nearly went bankrupt during the Great Depression over a decade ago—though this world's Great Depression was caused by Hydra bigwigs on Wall Street, that didn't mean their own industries were immune to the effects.
Besides, as with the Red Skull's betrayal before, Hydra had never been united internally.
Before the economic crisis, Wilfred's father was actually the leader of the previous generation of the Nine-Headed Council. But when other Hydra factions triggered the crisis, they deliberately didn't inform the Malick family, causing them to almost go bankrupt. Wilfred's father committed suicide, and the family business was taken over by the banks.
Wilfred then had to scrape by at the bottom of society for a long time, and it was only by taking a risk to help Schmidt transport a batch of super-soldier materials that he gained the support of Schmidt—who hadn't yet betrayed Hydra—and managed to reclaim his family's industry and rejoin the council.
But rejoining the council was all—regaining the Malick family's original voice and power within it would take a long time.
All this information about Wilfred came from Whitney Frost, who had now become Yuri's assistant.
To be honest, Josh hadn't expected Hydra to send Wilfred—after all, the first Hydra member he'd come into contact with was Whitney Frost.
And that woman was the "rumored girlfriend" of Isodyne Corporation CEO Calvin Chadwick.
So, in Josh's opinion, it should've been Calvin Chadwick representing Hydra but this wasn't bad news for Josh.
Because according to the intel from Whitney, compared to Calvin Chadwick—who was born with a silver spoon and full of arrogance—Wilfred, who had experienced great ups and downs, was clearly easier to communicate with and more suitable for Josh to win over.
Josh's goal in joining Hydra was to take control of it.
But frankly, with his current wealth and influence, he was still far behind most members of the Nine-Headed Council.
And that kind of gap couldn't be closed in a short time, even with the technology provided by Yuri.
After all, converting technology into wealth and power takes time.
And during that time, Josh couldn't ignore interference from these people.
Of course, Josh had another option—take over a country and wage world war against the United States, flip the table entirely.
But the last guy who did that, the little mustache, was already dead and gone. And Schmidt? Who knows what corner of the universe he'd been teleported to?
Josh might have a cheat code, but he didn't consider himself a genius, nor did he think he could do better than those two in a short time.
So without the strength to flip the table completely, Josh could only follow America's existing social rules to wrestle with the Nine-Headed Council.
Thankfully, taking control of the Austrian Hydra branch had saved him a lot of trouble.
But it still wasn't enough—if he wanted to gain influence within Hydra quickly, he needed allies.
And Wilfred, who had been deeply betrayed by his colleagues over a decade ago, was someone Josh believed surely still harbored a desire for revenge and to regain power but before attending the meeting, Josh had to be fully prepared.
The invitation was written very politely, but who knew what he would really face once he showed up?
Luckily, many of the things he'd prepared for the European trip hadn't been put to use—this might be the perfect opportunity.
And he couldn't neglect the defenses at home, either.
Though Josh and the Nine-Headed Council currently had no direct conflicts of interest and the chances of them using extreme measures were low, precautions were still necessary.
What if one of them just went insane?
Then Josh might not even have a place to cry.
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