Chapter One
Hatchet Girl
There was a nervous quality to the atmosphere to be felt present within the boardroom. Various members of the board sat in plushly cushioned leather armchairs talking in small groups of two or three, as others held beverages of significant alcoholic force from which they sipped in solitary file throughout the room. They either stared at each other in morose fashion or stared out the sheer glass walls to the high-rise cityscape beyond.
Change was in the air and it wasn’t likely to be good in their case or the company that they had all helped build. The company had just suffered through a hostile takeover and in lieu of a better way of putting it, they were all waiting around to see what the new company order would be and whose heads would roll.
Their new overlord was due to arrive at any moment and if the past was anything to judge by, the futures of the gathered board members was practically a hand-delivered reality to the unemployed soup and bread lines. These were unsteady times and jobs were hard to find almost everywhere one looked. Unless you happened to be in a niche market for a desired trade, one could expect a long wait to find a job that approached anywhere near the significance of the ones they all had at the present.
*****
The Chairman of the board stood with his hands held behind his back, as he morosely stared out the glass pane of the boardroom’s exterior wall. There would be no alcohol for him. He’d face his fate head on.
Grimly he acknowledged that many couldn’t afford to be so cavalier in their approach to being suddenly unemployed. That said, his concern still wasn’t for the other executives within the boardroom.
If they hadn’t had the good sense to lay enough money away to get by the folly, of their soon-to-be terminations, was on them. The people the Chairman worried about were the workers, in short the real people, who had made the company the success that it was.
In any corporate restructuring, layoffs were to be expected, but this was different. Panolic International Investments and Enterprises had been corporate raided for only one purpose, which was to be systematically destroyed by a very powerful and vain woman, Francesca Marelli.
Her former husband, Steve Sampson, had been in large degree the reason behind Panolic’s rousing success in a downturned economy. Panolic was a solid company with sound investment strategies. The only problem was that they hadn’t monitored where all the stocks were going well enough in order to avoid this monopolizing takeover.
This entire corporate takeover was nothing more than a petty revenge spat between former lovers. It had been blown way out of proportion and now it was going to add hardship to the lives of many.
*****
Steve Sampson stepped up next to the Chairman and stared out at the busy actions of a city taking place all around them.
“I’m sorry Jim, that it came to this. I never imagined that she was capable of anything like what’s happening. I knew she hated me, but this!” Steve exclaimed with a bitter shake of his head.
The Chairman, Jim Swanson, glanced from the window to Steve, the intended target of the entire corporate attack and said, “Well you know what the good book says Steve, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’”.
Steve nodded still staring vacantly out the window, “It’s the truth let me tell you!”
Jim shook his head, “Quite frankly I’m surprised at the level of her quest for revenge too. She stands to lose a fortune as a result of this takeover of Panolic and its subsequent liquidation. I know Francesca’s a shrewd businesswoman and I find it hard to see why she would make such a move for the sake of revenge. She could have had you bumped off a lot cheaper than to go to all the capital and strategic planning that brought this day about.”
Steve gave a sad smile, “It’s not enough to kill me Jim. She wants to tear my life apart and the best way to do that is with the business that I built up with the loving attention of a father. I have no doubt that I will be bumped off in some perceived accidental way following the demise of the company. I never realized what a monster I had married until it was too late.” He said, as his voice trailed off in a lamenting tone that expressed deep remorse.
Jim patted Steve’s shoulder, “Happens to the best of us. In your case it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
“If only the divorce hadn’t been so ugly.” Steve said almost to himself.
Jim smacked Steve on the back somewhat roughly, “Now don’t go blaming yourself for that! She’s the one who brought the divorce forward. She intended to take you for everything you were worth completely unjustified! You had no choice but to bring forward the evidence of her affairs and scandalous parties.”
Steve shook his head negatively and said, “If I’d just let her have all the money none of this would be happening. More importantly thousands of people would still have a good job when they woke up tomorrow. No, I should’ve just let it all go and started over instead of defending my pride like I did!”
Jim was about to protest more in defense of his friend when all conversation within the boardroom ceased as the double doors opened to reveal the glowing eyed predatory gaze of Francesca Marelli, Steve’s former wife. She was followed into the boardroom by just one attendant, one of her legal eagle hatchet girls.
*****
I looked coolly through my eyelashes at the residents of the boardroom. They as a whole reminded one of a herd of scared bunnies, as they fidgeted and ducked their heads away from our gazes at our approach into the boardroom. Two exceptions to the flight mentality were Jim Swanson and Steve Sampson. They were the only ones that showed fight instead of flight.
In fact Jim Swanson looked positively belligerent. I admired his strength, but there was nothing he could do to stop the inevitable, as I had dotted all the ‘I’s’ and crossed all the ‘t’s’ too well for there to be any going back. Panolic International had fallen like a mortally wounded beast before my employer, Francesca Marelli, and now it lay helpless to avoid the killing stroke.
I’d done my job successfully and kept my head above water. That was more than could be said for those within the room. Heads were about to roll and my employer was enjoying every moment of my carefully plotted out demise of the once highly successful investment company, whose offshoots employed thousands upon thousands of people.
It gave me no pleasure to know that primarily through my efforts so many were about to lose their livelihoods. It had either been them or me and while I didn’t care overly much about whether my head went rolling anymore, there were personal repercussions that I did care about and that I wished to avoid at all costs.
Repercussions that people close to me would be hurt from, even heartbroken, if certain things were revealed. I couldn’t afford for that to happen so here I was the principal author over the demise of a Fortune Five Hundred company.
“Won’t you all have a seat.” Francesca said gesturing in a gracious manner to the room of thirty odd executives.
Everyone had risen at our entrance and now with some furtive looks going on amongst themselves the majority in the room started to sit, but were interrupted by Francesca’s false gracious tone once more, “I told you to sit, but not where. You see the chairs now belong to me, but the building is leased. So feel free to sit on the floor.”
Those gathered within the room to hear their fate looked among themselves in startlement at the full faced insult that had just been delivered at point-blank range.
Francesca’s smile hadn’t dimmed any in its predatory import, as she watched on expectantly. Slowly half of those within the room dressed out in ten thousand dollars suits awkwardly got down to sit upon the floor, their faces red, as they avoided eye contact with everyone else in the room.
Francesca beamed down at them and leaned forward slightly towards one man to pat him on the head as if he were a dog and said to all those sitting on the floor at large, “Good boys. At least you can be trained. You get to keep your jobs for a little while longer. Now run along home and play dead, until tomorrow when I’ll have you rollover for me so you can show me your tricks.”
Red-faced and ashamed those who’d sat on the floor got up and filed out of the room as quickly as they could. What those individuals had just lost wasn’t worth the few extra paychecks that they would receive.
Francesca turned to me and gave me an affirmative nod in indication for me to proceed.
I stepped forward and sorting through the file dossiers in my arms I distributed the corresponding folders to their prospective owners. There were shocked gasps and horror strickened faces in the wake of my disbursement of the folders that contained embarrassing blackmail material unique to every individual in the room.
I had sympathy for those receiving this further shock to their shaken careers. I’d had no part of the search to come up with the dirt on these people. Francesca had other people for that.
Everyone with their file folders tightly shut now stared in expectant dread at Francesca, who looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary.
“All of you have significant holdings of stock in Panolic International.” Francesca said. She then laid a sheet of paper on the table beside her and dropped a pen to go with it.
She smiled wickedly at those still gathered in the room and said, “Find your names on this sheet next to your stock options and sign them over to me. You leave this company with nothing or…….” She paused for effect as she addressed the room at large, “or I release what each of you holds in your hands and make your past misdeeds a matter of public knowledge. Good luck getting another job in this city or any other.”
It was brutal. There was no other way to go about describing it.
One by one the executives lined up to sign away their stocks in the company to Francesca. Some lost tens of thousands, while others lost millions, but in commonality they all lost something for their show of pride.
Five individuals walked out the door without signing the paper of which both Francesca’s former husband and the chairman of the board were among.
Francesca spitefully glared after the five men who had refused to play her game.
As the doors closed on the last individual she glanced over to me, “See that their files are released immediately to the press!”
I nodded in accordance with her vengeful command.
Francesca turned back to the now empty boardroom and laughed out with a mirth bordering on the insane, “We’ll give it about a month before we leak all their files through a third-party to the press. The pack of fools! Panolic is mine and ready to be crushed!” She laughed again, as I silently stood still not far from her side.
I hated this woman with an intensely controlled passion. I kept hoping that someone would bump her off and do the hard time for it so I didn’t have to.
To say that Francesca Marelli took after a female dog wasn’t a strong enough comparison. Actually, it was an insult to the dog. Francesca Marelli was a devil.
She turned away from the window and I could see that she was on an emotional high with having achieved the success of her highly expensive and spiteful takeover of her former husband’s business. Francesca was a woman of manic moods and when she got high like this or worse yet low, she was best to be avoided.
I would have left if it was possible, but I couldn’t so I stayed where I was maintaining the cool serenity of my features. She smiled at me and beckoned with a finger and I feared the worst was about to happen.
Francesca leaned back against the mahogany table and eyed me over speculatively as I approached. She shook her head knowingly, as a wicked smile played about her garishly painted lips, “You manifest yourself as such an ice queen, but we both know differently don’t we Kim.”
She reached out and stroked my chin with a finger in a familiar gesture that I hated coming from her. She straightened up and stepped closer to me and I had to fight to keep a mask of control in place.
She let her hand slide down from my chin to my chest where she began to fondle one of my breasts through my blouse and bra. It was the most overt come on to me that she had made yet and I feared that it was about to get worse.
Rubbing her manicured fingers enough upon me to elicit an unwanted reaction she smugly said, “You’ve been quite useful to me throughout this whole process Kim and now that all the hard work on your end is complete I think it’s time that we took things to a whole new level so to speak. I didn’t want to distract you too much from your purpose before, but now that everything’s well in hand I find that there’s time to play again and I do very much want to play with you Kim.”
She was taller than me and I had to fight to stay still as she leaned down and kissed me fully on the lips. I stayed still through it and when she finally pulled back she had a satisfied look on her face at having shook me up from my usually cool reserve.
I looked her square in the eye and said, “I’m not going to be your whore! Our business relationship together does not extend that far!”
She stroked my chin again as she chuckled wickedly, “Honey our relationship goes as far as I say it does and you know it. Don’t forget what I have over your gorgeous head of hair darling. All it takes is one phone call and a package will be sent on its way. By all means resist me if you want honey, but you’ll pay one way or the other.”
I said nothing in reply. I had a lot of respect for the five men who had walked out and risked the loss of everything that mattered to them.
They’d done something that I had never managed to do. I just didn’t have the guts to face that kind of loss.
Francesca straightened the lapels of my blouse as she took my silence to be a surrender to the inevitable, “That’s better. Glad to see that you’re coming around to your senses. Now I’m having a party at my place in the country tomorrow. It’s sort of a victory celebration if you will and no one is more worthy of being honored as part of the victory team then you are my dear. It is clear to me, that without your legal and expert advice, today wouldn’t have gone off nearly so smoothly and for that I am very grateful to you. You’ve done your job well, like a good pet.” She said, as she grasped my chin firmly and shook my head slightly back and forth.
She smiled then and there was nothing nice about the smile, “Don’t worry darling I’ll break you in easy. No bruises to start out I promise. I sent you a package. It should arrive this afternoon. Wear what you find in it to the party if you know what’s good for you. See you at seven Kim.”
She let go of my chin and made to pass by me, but stopped alongside of me. The long fingernails of her hand dug into one of the cheeks of my bottom painfully through the dress I wore as she leaned in close to my ear to say, “And if you should perhaps be thinking about switching sides and being a little tattletale I don’t suggest it! Don’t forget that you are involved knee-deep yourself in all the highly illegal activities and procedures that we’ve had to do in order to make this hostile takeover such a thriving success. While a jail cell may look like a more tempting alternative to you than my upcoming party and amorous plans for you I assure you it is not! I have friends in high places and the money to see that I live like a queen for a year or two behind bars as I serve a highly reduced sentence, while you will be a worn-out broken piece of raw flesh within a week. Don’t doubt me Kim, I will see to it if you double-cross me!”
Her taloned grasp of my bottom changed to a rubbing stroke before she let go and said, “It would be a shame to waste such a hot body as yours in such a manner to the likes of prison filth. I think you’ll find my attentions and the attentions of my friends far more of a pleasurable alternative and then of course you’ll still have your career and clueless family. Now I really do have to run and complete my victory lap today, but maybe later I’ll warm myself up with one of your videos. They always turn me on!” She smacked me hard on the rear then and with a laugh walked out of the boardroom with a flourish letting the doors fall closed behind her.