Best Served Cold Pt. 02 - The End

I dropped the gun and went to her, climbing up on the bed. I held her in my arms. She was crying. I was crying, too.

"I'm sorry, Rose," I said as I kissed her over and over again, "I'm so sorry, it is all my fault." I held her in my arms and could feel the small baby bump developing in her abdomen. "Did he hurt the baby?" I asked, feeling like an idiot.

She shook her head, "No, he didn't. He only fucked me in the ass and was careful not to do anything to hurt it. He convinced himself it is his."

I looked more closely at her face and realized the red was her smeared lipstick, and the shadows were from her mascara. Her face was uninjured. I held her tightly, and we both drifted to sleep.

I woke up several hours later to take a piss. I cleared out the gun and put it away. I thought about going back to bed, but I couldn't sleep. I still wanted to kill the son of a bitch. She may not have told him to stop, but as far as I was concerned, it was still rape. I would make the sonofabitch pay. I went into my office to examine the information Marcus had sent to me earlier.

I smiled and booked a flight to Seattle. I could taste victory.

***

I had a productive meeting with J.J. Greene. They were surprised by my revised business plan. After several hours of discussions, the CEO sat back and smiled at me. "You're a pretty amazing man and not one I'd ever want to piss off. I think I'm going to enjoy this partnership."

"I hope you will," I replied, signing my copies of the agreement and giving his lawyers one copy while handing my copy to Shawn. "If everything goes as planned, your new website will be online tomorrow. It's a few weeks later than we had promised, but we'll still make it in time for Christmas."

"It better," was all he said.

A half-hour later we parked outside of a trendy luxury residential tower. A man opened the back door and slid into the seat. He handed me a folder over the back of the chair. "It's all there," he said.

Shawn handed him an envelope of cash. He pocketed it in the vest pocket of his leather jacket. "Not going to count it?" Shawn asked.

"No need," the man said laughing, with a heavy British accent, "and I ain't giving you no fookin' receipt." He opened the door and got out, disappearing into the foggy mist of Seattle.

I opened the folder and saw large glossy photos of Jerry and his mistress. "I've seen her! She worked at J.J. Greene! She was the Marketing Director. Holy shit."

Shawn laughed, "Well, somehow that doesn't surprise me."

***

A week later, it was time for the "end-of-year party." However, something special was happening. The CEO of J. J. Greene was in town to celebrate the launch of their new website. He wanted to use our party to thank our staff for the work they had done for his website launch. He also wanted to announce a joint venture that I had negotiated between J.J. Greene and Adrenaline that would revolutionize eCommerce. It was a tremendous opportunity that would be worth a few billion dollars.

Everyone in the company had turned out to attend the party and hear the announcement. I had arrived early with my wife, Rose. Jerry and Gloria were there as were several of the other owners and leadership team. I was standing by the punch-bowl with Rose when I saw the CEO of J.J. Greene come in with his date.

"Oh my god," Rose said under her breath, "isn't that her?"

I raised my eyebrow as I saw the blonde attached to the CEO's hip. It was their Director of Marketing and Jerry's mistress. My eyes shot over to where Jerry and Gloria were standing. The look on his face was priceless. It started as shock, turned into confusion, then seemed to settle on anger.

"Do you want some rum to put in that punch?" came a voice from behind me. I turned to see a short man with a large, bushy mustache and long black hair tied in a ponytail. I looked more closely and started to chuckle.

"Is that the best disguise you could come up with, Shawn?" I said leaning closer.

"Eet will do, for now, Senor," he said with the most outrageous fake accent you could imagine. He gestured with the bottle of rum.

"No, I need to keep my wits about me for the announcement. Maybe after."

Rose held her cup of punch toward him, "Oh, hi Shawn, I'll take some. Where's Corrinne?" She acted like seeing Shawn in this getup was entirely reasonable.

"She iz in the keetchen making tacos," he answered, pouring a bit of rum for Rose.

Just then, things started to get underway. I had to go do my introductions and excused myself. I walked up to the podium and nodded to Dave to dim the lights.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Adrenaline staff, owners and our special guests tonight from J.J. Greene, welcome to the Kiss My Ass, It's Christmas, End-of-the-Year Party!"

Many of the people laughed. I noticed Jerry was not looking too thrilled. "Before we begin, we have prepared a special video about our big announcement we would like to share with you all. Shall we begin?"

I nodded again to Dave, and the room went completely dark. Music started playing through the speakers, and a large projection screen lit up with the words "Thank You" in big letters.

My voice began speaking as I narrated the little film.

"Thank you, to all the hard working employees of Adrenalin who busted their asses all year long, working overtime for free to make a shit load of money for Jerry."

The screen transitioned to show a series of pictures of Jerry laughing and partying, smoking cigars and ruling the roost as head of the company.

"Thank you to all the people who sacrificed their holidays and weekends and were underpaid and under-appreciated while the company billed clients like J.J. Greene three times for each hour you worked."

A series of photographs of timesheets, billing invoices and our labor tracking software flashed by on the screen. I looked at Jerry. He had a very uncomfortable look on his face. He was searching around frantically.

"Thank you to everyone for staying with us and not quitting even though we stole your bonuses so that Jerry could keep this woman..."

Cut to a picture of Jerry's mistress in her convertible Mercedes. It fades to a video of her straddling Jerry in her luxury apartment, and a black bar covered the naughty parts.

"... in this multi-million dollar, luxury apartment, driving this one hundred and fifty-thousand dollar car, and taking trip after trip in first class all over the world..."

The film overlayed images of exotic locations with pictures of her and Jerry fucking.

"... all on company expenses..."

Jerry ran to me, screaming, "What the fuck are you doing?" I stepped back, and two large security guards grabbed him by the arms and held him back. The video showed pictures of Jerry's luxurious pool.

"He used the company money to build luxurious additions to his home..."

It switched to pictures of his expensive yacht.

"..fancy toys... and the life of luxury, while you, our employees were forced to work in a sweatshop with no bonuses, year after year."

"You son of a bitch, I'm going to kill you!" he screamed, but the guards pushed him further back, restraining him. I could see Gloria staring in shock. Many people were yelling. The place was starting to come apart. The video continued.

"But, that's not all Jerry did. He embezzled money by having fictitious employees on company payroll... like Gloria his wife, their five kids, his personal trainer and even his mother and father... all drawing six-figure salaries. Yet, none of them ever performed one minute of work for the company."

The video showed pictures of his family members timed with the voice over.

"He cheated our clients out of millions of dollars including J. J. Greene, whose CEO is here with us tonight. Jerry deliberately underbid their project with no intention of ever delivering it on budget."

The video cut to a rough image of Jerry in his office. Yes, I had used a hidden camera and recorded many of our meetings. Call me a snake.

"Fuck J. J. Greene!" said Jerry, puffing on a cigar. "They have enough money to absorb the loss. So what if we go over budget by a couple million. It's chump change to them."

"But Jerry," you could hear my voice now, "that's dishonest. It's fraud. They could sue us and win! You can't cheat them like this?"

Jerry laughed, "Yeah, well let them sue. It isn't my name on the contract; it's yours!"

"I signed it in good faith, but you are going to cheat them out of millions!"

"So fucking what," he said, "It's business. It's time to put on your big boy pants and be a man, Bob. No wonder your wife wants my cock. Do you even have one anymore?"

The video froze showing Jerry's face in a rage. I nodded to the security guards, and they let him go. He charged at me, shoved me back and grabbed the microphone.

"You're fucking dead! You're fired! You're all fired! Get the fuck out of my company."

I raised my hand and moved it across my throat, and Dave turned off Jerry's microphone. I pulled another one out of my pocket.

"Sorry, Jerry, but nobody here is fired, yet. You see, you no longer have the ability to fire anyone." I smiled at him.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing? I own this fucking company!"

"No, Jerry," I said as the CEO of J.J. Greene stepped up next to me. "You don't."

Jerry stared at me like a deer in headlights. The CEO raised a microphone and started speaking.

"Bob is speaking the truth, Jerry. When we presented your business partners with proof of your embezzlement and criminal fraud and their complicit involvement in it, they agreed to our little proposal of a joint venture."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" He looked around frantically and now realized that his primary partners, his uncle and his neighbor were not in attendance.

"As of five o'clock today," the CEO continued, "I purchased their shares of Adrenaline. It turns out that you made a mistake when issuing shares. Your portion only adds up to 49% of the company. My shares when added to the remaining leadership team also only adds up to 49%. That leaves us split and at an impasse."

Jerry looked stunned. "What the fuck are you talking about? I own 51% of the shares!"

Steve Ellis stepped forward and raised a microphone. "Actually, Jerry, they're right. When you divided the shares, you made a mistake early on and gave some shares out from your stake, without recalculating the number of total shares to keep your 51%. You gave out 2%, and that left you with 49% and everybody with a total of 49%. You forgot about Shawn Levi."

"Fuck Shawn! I fired his ass. His stock is no longer valid, you stupid fuck."

Shawn stepped forward and pulled off his Mexican bartender disguise. He held up his stock certificate. "Actually," he said into a microphone so that everyone could hear. "It says right here on my stock certificate. This certifies that Shawn Levi is a partner of the corporation, entitled to all rights of ownership. And it says right here," He pointed to the certificate "2% of all shares of the company. That means I own 2% and if you want to give other people shares, well, it comes out of your shares, not mine."

"We downgraded all your shares!" Jerry yelled.

"No, not really," replied Steve Ellis. "You issued Shawn's long before you did everyone else. When you downgraded theirs, you never downgraded Shawn's shares. Legally, you couldn't have downgraded anyone's shares, so realistically your stake is even lower. We can sort that out later. But, for argument's sake, let's keep things simple. Shawn own's 2% of the company, Jerry, and there's nothing you can do about it."

The CEO stepped closer. "And that means that my 49% and Shawn's 2% gives us 51% ownership of Adrenaline. We voted an hour ago. We decided to downgrade your stock to B-level. You no longer have any ownership rights, Jerry. No right to vote. No right to anything. Oh, and by the way, your shares return to the company if you are no longer employed."

I stepped forward. "Which brings me to my first official act as the new President of Adrenaline. Jerry," I smiled as broadly as humanly possible, "you're fired. Now get the fuck out of our party!"

The guards seized his arms. He fought back, and they dragged him kicking and screaming from the party. I stepped back to the podium and waved my arms to restore quiet in the room. I looked around. Gloria had disappeared. I saw Rose smiling at me. She blew me a kiss. Corrinne was standing next to her, still dressed as a kitchen worker.

"The second official act I'm making as President of Adrenaline is to announce the liquidation of all company assets acquired by Jerry and used for his benefit. That includes his home, his yacht and his Lamborghini. The proceeds from the sale plus a generous loan from J.J. Greene is going to put about four million dollars into the bonus pool. We've already calculated how much that comes out to for every one of you."

Just then Santa Claus entered the hall shouting "Ho! Ho! Ho!" He had a large red bag over his shoulder and inside was a gift for each employee with a check for forty-thousand dollars.

Epilogue

Two years had passed since that Christmas Party. The company had grown at an even faster rate than it had under Jerry's leadership. Our new approach to eCommerce was rapidly becoming the rival of Amazon. We turned a sizable profit each year. We had changed to a business model in which everyone in the company had a vested interest in making a profit. Our books were made public and could be reviewed at any time by any employee.

We re-issued shares to everyone who had been cheated by Jerry. Dan was happy to have his shares but didn't want to come back to work. Steve Ellis became our new CFO and was honest beyond reproach.

On a personal note, Rose and I started going to couple's counseling shortly after the company takeover. That came to an abrupt end after we got DNA results that confirmed the paternity of the baby. It was a boy, and he was all mine. We decided we didn't need counseling. We could deal with anything life threw at us. When he was born, Rose got her tubes tied, and I got a vasectomy.

Amanda was off in college. She was determined to go to law school and come to work for us as our corporate attorney. She has a boyfriend now who treats her like a Princess. She never hooked up with Mike, thank God. About a year after the takeover, we heard he was skydiving in Arizona, and his parachute didn't open.

Shawn and Corrine were as happy as ever. Both worked at Adrenaline. Shawn ran sales and Corrine worked in recruiting with Marcus. Marcus and his wife got divorced. I heard she was working in porn now.

Gloria took Jerry for everything he had left in their divorce. She moved to Colorado where she has a home near Aspen. We hear she has a lovely hot tub, big enough for several horny friends.

Jerry fought the takeover in court and lost. He tried to fight the criminal charges, too. He lost that, also. He was sentenced to five years in prison. About six months into his sentence, a fight broke out between two inmates. Jerry got caught in the middle and was ice-picked in the kidneys. He died on the way to the hospital.

We had overhauled the company from the ground up and changed everything Jerry had put in place. Well, almost everything.

I was standing by the barbecue, turning some burgers over. Rose approached, smiling. I kissed her on the cheek. With her were our newest potential partner Stacey and her husband George. I laughed, welcoming them to the party. Shawn Levi took the spatula from me to tend the burgers while I tended to the newcomers.

I gestured for the couple to follow me over to some cushioned loungers next to a large jacuzzi tub. "I'm so glad you decided to come. You know, at Adrenaline, we believe that the leadership of our company should be bonded in a way that goes beyond the normal corporate life. We believe that our leadership should care for each other, like family. We have a unique and special way to ensure that bond."

"Yes," Stacey said, blushing softly, "Corrinne told us all about the special bonding method."

She grinned at her husband who nodded. He shook hands with me, then added, "We're all in."

I let my eyes drift up and down Stacey's body slowly as Rose started helping her out of her bikini. "Can I offer you both a drink? I make a great Mai Tai?"