Only the Strongest Survive (2 page)

She felt a
prick in her right arm
and realized she
must have been given a sedative.

“
Why? No,
please
… stop!” she shouted as loud as
she could.

As if
unable to hear her, the man took off her shoes
and put a soft pillow under her head. She could feel a cold hand
slip under her top and grab her breast. This was so unexpected that
she stopped breathing for a moment.
Oh no, I’ll be raped!
Her heart
was beating like crazy. She was completely numb.

Then she
felt
his hand between her legs. “Please,
let me go!” Tears were streaming from her eyes.

The man wiped
her tears with
a finger, laughed in a
vulgar tone, and closed the door behind him.

*

“
Good
morning,
Ms. Donnovan.”

She
jerked as if she had received a jolt of
electricity. She had slept like a log.

“
What do you
want from me?” she asked
fearlessly. Her
head was throbbing and she was parched. As she could not see
anything, she opened and closed her eyes a few times and then
remembered she was blindfolded.

“
Let me
introduce myself. My name is Ronald
Langdon and this is my brother, John.”

She
frowned, trying to remember where she knew their
names from.

The
man
deliberately waited a while and then
said, “I see our names don’t mean anything to you. What about the
company, Spark Sports?”

She
remembered instantly. She took such a deep breath that a sharp
whistle
emerged from her
lungs.

“
It’s been
nearly nine yea
rs since you took over our
company,” Ronald said.

She
remembered it well. It had been a wonderful
financial opportunity that was impossible to resist.

“
Over thirty
years ago our father opened a large store
specializing in sports equipment. The store was so
successful that soon he opened another one on the West Coast.
Within a few years he became the owner of a chain of stores around
the country,” Ronald said. He paused, letting her think for a few
moments. “Due to the company’s fast growth and an urgent need for
new capital, its structure had to change. My father turned it into
a joint stock company and as the CEO he kept a 40 percent share,
putting the other 60 percent on the market. That is how he acquired
capital.”

Emely was
listening
carefully. She knew exactly
where this was leading and it made her feel sick.

“
A sudden
accident in which our father died put me and my brother at the head
of the
company.” He looked at his brother
with a proud smile. “We led it successfully for five
years.”

John, who was
standing
near him, added sharply, “Until
we invested in a megalomaniac franchise, which turned out to bring
nothing but loss. Our company got into serious trouble.”

Ronald
said, “We needed an enormous financial loan. We
asked a number of banks, but none of them would lend us anything.
There was nothing else to do but put a number of series B shares on
the market.”

Emely’s
throat
tightened. She wanted to say
something in her defense but was unable.

Ronald
stepped toward her and told her with reproach in his
voice
, “And then you turned up. At an
incredible speed you began to buy all the shares that were on the
market, regardless of the price.”

She could
feel
and smell his bad breath and had to
hold her own breath.

“
Within three
weeks you bought most of the shares and became the majority
holder
!” He was shouting now, spraying
saliva over her face.

“
That’s how
the market works
,” she said, hissing.
“Everyone has the right to buy shares—”

“
You weren’t
satisfied with your own company,” Ronald said. “You wanted more and
more. Later we found out it was your slander that had stopped banks
from giving us a loan.”

“
But you
retained your share,” she said in her
defense. “You did sell it later, but—”

“Yes, we had the right to vote, but you took
on the leadership. Of our company.”

“
Which is
still doing good business,” she had to add.

“
You
took
something our family had struggled
for. What right did you have?”

Emely was
losing her temper. “But that’s how the
stock market works. The strongest wins. Everyone has to
fight.”

“
What you’re
trying to say
is that it’s like nature.
Only the strongest survive.”

Emely
did not know how to respond.

Ronald’s
face
and neck glowed a deep pink. He
said, “I’m afraid you won’t survive, Ms. Donnovan.”

She
shuddere
d. Emely wanted to say something,
but because of the huge lump in her throat all that came out was a
mumble.

Ronald moved
away slightly. “We didn’t want to work for you so we sold the
shares. We bought a small
computer
hardware company. Because of the strong competition and speculation
over software licenses we had to shut it down after three
years.”

John
said
, “And so we were left with nothing.
Because of you.”

“
But you
didn’
t have to sell the shares of Spark
Sports,” she said, defending herself like a child.

“
Shut up. How
dare you talk to me like
that? The fact
is that if you hadn’t turned up with your greed, Spark Sports would
still belong to us.”

“
But
—”

“No buts. There’s no excuse for what you
did.”

“
What do you
want from me?” Emely
asked, sobbing. Only
now did it occur to her that she was in serious trouble.

“
What we’re
still able to take from you,” John
said
coldly. “Your life.”

“
Use your
head. We can come to
a deal. I’ll pay you
as much as you want.”

Both men
laugh
ed loudly and their laughter
reverberated around Emely’s head for a long time after they had
left. When she was sure that they were gone, she started crying and
trembling with fear.

*

T
he same afternoon, John entered
her room.

“I’ve come to accompany you to the bathroom.
You’ve got exactly ten minutes to do whatever you need to. Have I
made myself clear?”

She nodded humbly.

John undid
the restraints
, took her by the hand, and
led her down a long corridor to a small windowless room.

When he
closed the door, she
removed the
blindfold and had a long drink of water. Her neck was hurting and
she quickly massaged it. Then she used the toilet and splashed her
face with cold water in order to help her think more
clearly.
I must find a
solution
, she thought.
There’s always a
solution
. She sat on the toilet cover and
put her head in her hands.
Ronald Langdon is a very principled but revengeful guy. His
brother John seems different. He’s the one who felt me up
yesterday. I may be able to persuade him
.
She lifted her head slightly and looked around. The purple-rimmed
tiles were dirty and the shower cubicle also in bad
shape.

Th
rough the small keyhole she
could see a pulsating light. Intrigued, she leaned forward and
looked into the keyhole.
Oh
no, it can’t be. He’s watching me use the toilet.

She heard
knocking on the door, a sign that her ten
minutes were over. She covered her eyes again.

*

When she was
fastened to the bed
again, she said,
“John, I’d like to talk to you.”

“
Yes,” he
said dri
ly.

“
You seem
like a
very smart guy, unlike your
brother.” She stopped for a moment and forced a little smile. “In
fact, I think you should have been in charge of your company
instead of him. As far as I know, you were his assistant. I have a
feeling you’re much more capable than he is.”

“
You don’t
have to flatter me,” he
told her. “If I
had it my way, we’d have broken your neck long ago.”

His
vicious response almost ended her hopes, but
nonetheless she went on. “I only wanted to say that you seemed like
a very reasonable man. Not as stubborn as your brother. I
understand that you’re filled with a desire for revenge. If I’d
known that your company meant so much to you, I would never
have—”

“
Shut up and
stop blabbering. You should have thought of it then, you greedy
bitch.”
His voice sounded more and more
tense.

“
I just
want
to mention that I have two million
dollars in my personal account in Switzerland. No one knows about
it. If you give me the number of your bank account, I can transfer
the money with a single phone call. No risk involved.”

John
hit her so hard that her head jerked sideways. A
strong pain shot through her jaw, but in spite of it Emely
straightened her head.

“
I’m serious,
John. What
use is my life to you if you
continue to be broke? You’ll have the satisfaction,
but—”

“
Damn it! You
talk too much.” He got up and
banged the
door shut. As he was walking downstairs, he lit a cigarette and
thought about what she had said.
The bitch is right. I am more capable than Ronald. If I was
managing that company, it wouldn’t have got into
trouble.

*

In the
evening
Emely heard footsteps approaching
the room. Her heart started racing and she fearfully waited to know
who would open the door. She got the feeling it was
John.

He
swayed over to the bed and by his irregular
movements she concluded that he was drunk.

“
I
ca
me to ask if you wanted to use the
can,” he said. He leaned close to her so that she was able to smell
his breath, which reeked of alcohol.

She recoiled from him as much as she
could.

John
removed the blindfold and took a step back to
have a good look at her. “Hmm, not bad,” he mumbled. “My big
brother has gone somewhere and there’s no need for you to have your
eyes covered. It was his idea, but I’m not sure what for. You can’t
go anywhere anyway.”

“
Yes, I’d
very much like to use the bathroom,” Emely
said in order to change the topic of conversation, which
she didn’t like.

She examined
him from head to toe. He was about ten inches taller than she and
had an unshaven, symmetrical, elongated face framed by short, blond
hair. Emely was surprised by his gleaming white teeth, clearly
visible because of his wide grin. She thought he must be around
thirty years old.

He
took off the restraints and accompanied her to
the bathroom again. He held her hand all the time, visibly
assessing her body.

When she was
finally alone in the bathroom she felt relief.
I need a cold shower,
she thought. In a rush she took off her clothes and turned
on the cold tap as far as she could. Thousands of ice-cold droplets
covered her feverish body. Instead of it being a shock, it felt
incredibly liberating. She was ready to explode.

For more than
ten minutes
Emely kept turning around
under the cold water, breathing deeply. When she started feeling
cold she soaped her body, rinsed it quickly, and rubbed herself
down with a towel. She looked at her wrist that was red from the
restraints. Again her stomach began to churn.
Oh no, I must think clearly,
she told herself.

She
remembered how John had spied on her through the keyhole earlier
and
she quickly got dressed. She fixed
her hair a bit and then knocked on the door to say she had
finished.

The door
opened and she saw John staring at her breasts. Pretending not
to
have seen anything, she said in a
calm, deep voice, “Have you thought about my proposal,
John?”

He said nothing.

“
We could
make a deal
.” Emely said this as if it
were a completely normal, everyday business discussion.

Unexpectedly
he grabbed her neck
and held her like
that all the way to her room.

“
John, please
don’t!”
she shouted in pain.