Chapter 468

In the morning, the Vice President strode to the outside of Steven Johnson’s office. His secretary quickly stood up.

“Mr. Vice President…”

The Vice President, as if he hadn’t seen the secretary, pushed open the office door directly. The lights inside were already on, and the coffee in the living area was brewing.

The newspaper and breakfast were all laid out on the table, but no one was using them at the moment.

It was then that he seemed to notice a blonde girl behind him.

He turned to look at Steven’s secretary. “Steven isn’t here?”

The secretary squeezed out a somewhat awkward smile. “No, Director Johnson hasn’t arrived yet. Should I give him a call?”

The Vice President nodded. “Call now.”

The secretary returned to her desk outside the door, picked up the phone, and dialed Steven’s home number.

He lived alone, having been married but now divorced.

On the surface, he and his wife and child had no more contact, but some of the higher-ups on the board knew the truth.

About a third of his income would be deposited into an anonymous account, and the money in this account would be withdrawn and transferred in another state.

And his ex-wife and child lived there.

To protect his family, he had chosen divorce.

So now Steven lived by himself, with a few dogs. In the photo frame on his desk, there was a group photo of him and three dogs.

Fierce, large-breed dogs. According to Steven himself, these dogs could take on a wild boar.

The phone rang, but no one answered. The secretary glanced at the Vice President. The Vice President said nothing. She could only let the phone continue to ring.

In Steven’s villa, the few dogs were restlessly circling the living room. Their master hadn’t come back all night, and they were already hungry.

Two minutes later, the secretary held the receiver with both hands and looked at the Vice President. “There’s no answer, no one is picking up. Maybe he’s on his way?”

The Vice President stood there in a daze for a moment, then tapped his fingers on the secretary’s desk twice. “Have him come to my office when he arrives.”

The executive president’s side had contacted a high court judge to discuss the lawsuit. At the same time, the company had also dispatched a new legal team to Golden Port.

They still had to keep an eye on this case. After all, the huge penalty for breach of contract had hurt them badly.

There were also some not-so-friendly voices within the board of directors. These people believed that if they had just fulfilled the contract for the Golden Port grape deal last time, they would have still made a profit and wouldn’t have run into so much trouble.

The result was that they had not earned more money by tearing up the agreement. The bonds had been handed over to the bank by Lance and his group. They still had to pay Parkway Bank at the market settlement price.

They had gained no benefit, and the Lance Family had gained no benefit either. It was a successful investment that had turned into a not-so-successful one. They could be said to be “mutually wounded.”

This was what had led to this clearly retaliatory commercial blackmail. If they hadn’t done those things before, there would not be the current problem.

It was not so strange for such voices to exist on the board of directors. This was the result of private communication between the directors and shareholders.

They wanted to use this method to force the directors and shareholders who had made the decision to bear this loss.

Or to bear the majority of the loss. For example, the chairman of the board, the executive president, the vice president, and some others who had played important roles would bear $3,000,000 or more of the $4,000,000.

And the others would bear a small part.

They no longer had much hope of winning the lawsuit. So reducing their own losses was the most important thing they should be doing at the moment.

The president planned to teach these people a lesson, and Steven was very good at this.

But what made the Vice President dissatisfied was that Steven was actually late.

He returned to his office. The secretary was signing for some mail and packages. When she saw him come, she immediately stood up. “Mr. Vice President, there are some things for you here…”

The Vice President had no mind to look at these. “Bring them in.”

As he spoke, he walked behind his desk and sat down, picked up the phone, and called the president through the internal line to talk about work matters.

When a person is not so focused on one thing, they will find something else to do.

Just like… reading a book while taking a shit. So when he was on the phone, he would also have some small movements.

While talking to the president on the phone, he picked up a few letters on his desk and looked at them.

Besides some letters from local agricultural committees condemning them, there was basically nothing else.

He would forward these letters to the public relations team to handle. Of course, this was also within the scope of his work.

Soon his gaze was focused on the box that looked to be about the size of a basketball.

“…I’m saying what if, what if these people want to hold a shareholders’ meeting to discuss this matter? It will also make us very passive.”

“We need to solve…”

The president’s words came through the receiver. He gradually became absent-minded.

He glanced at the package. There were no obvious markings on it, only a note attached, “This is a package for Mr. Vice President…, from your follower!”

Steven’s package?

What’s inside?

He held the receiver with his shoulder and shook the package with both hands. There seemed to be something clanging inside, and it was quite heavy.

“Alright, I have other things to do. You handle what I’ve instructed you to do first. We’ll discuss the rest later,” the president made the final summary of the call.

The Vice President’s hands stopped. “Okay, after Steven arrives, I will have him get to work. I guarantee there will be no accidents this time. We’ll talk later.”

He hung up the phone, then picked up a pair of scissors and cut the straps on top, opening the lid.

Inside were some… white fillings, some were still pink. He didn’t quite understand this. He reached in to feel around, because he had heard that there was something inside just now.

Then, he felt something that might be rubber or the like. It was cold and had a somewhat gelatinous feel. He took the thing out.

Almost at the instant that the thing revealed its original appearance from the fillings, he suddenly cursed “Fuck,” threw the thing he was holding back, and jumped up as if startled, hiding far away.

He paced back and forth by the wall, rubbing his face with his hands, but then as if he had thought of something, he sniffed the palm of his right hand, and immediately felt a strong urge to vomit.

He cursed while retching. The secretary outside the door heard the commotion, knocked on the door, and poked her head in.

He took a deep breath. “Call… call security, and then call the police.”

At the same time, there was also a box in front of the president. On it was written, “Dedicated to… Mr. … , your loyal follower.”

He sometimes received these things. Looking at the decent packaging, he decided to give this follower a chance.

“I hope your loyalty and fanaticism for me can satisfy me.”

He quickly cut the ribbon, opened the box, and then held it up, pouring its contents onto the desk.

“Holy shit!” The moment the contents appeared, he jumped back as if he had been electrocuted.

The chair crashed into the bookshelf behind him, shattering the glass, but his entire attention was focused on the human hand on his desk.

The chairman of the board’s door was also knocked on. His secretary stood by the door, holding a box in her hands. “Someone just delivered this package. They said there’s a solution to the company’s current troubles inside.”

The chairman of the board pursed his lips. “A boring trick.”

“Then shall I throw it away?” The secretary knew what this old man meant, so she deliberately asked this.

“Come on, you know, open it. Let me see what’s inside…”

A few seconds later, curses also came from the chairman’s office. The entire company’s security was activated. They began to search for packages everywhere, and five minutes later, seven or eight police cars arrived at the company’s building.

Director Steven Johnson was dead.

Not only dead, but also dismembered, here a piece, there a piece.

The person in charge of this case this time was the Major Crimes Investigation Division of the New Golden State Police Department. They specialized in major and important cases.

In a short time, there would be no bigger case than a director of a multi-billion dollar listed company being dismembered and mailed back to the company.

The entire building was quickly cordoned off. More police officers arrived at the scene, and he also appeared in the company’s conference room.

In front of him were three trays, on which were placed the three pieces of human remains that had triggered the alarm this time.

Two hands, one foot.

“How do you identify this person as Steven?”

The officer in charge of the investigation was a sergeant. If it were in another place, a sergeant could already be a chief. But here, he was just a middle-ranking officer in the police department.

The vice president was still sitting there, shaken. He dared not look at the remains and could only look out the window, trying his best to calm his mood. “That… emerald ring, I recognize that emerald ring. It was Steven’s favorite ring. He never took it off except when he was sleeping.”

The sergeant did indeed find an emerald ring on the left palm. The description was basically consistent with the vice president’s description.

Being able to roughly confirm the identity of the body had already been a huge boost to solving the case.

Soon more information was gathered. Many board members had received similar body fragments, but the head and torso were missing.

The entire company was shrouded in unease.

These fragments were quickly taken away and sent back to the police department. They would be pieced together after being examined and verified by the coroner.

Next was the questioning time.

The sergeant took out a pen and a notebook. “Has your company offended any ruthless characters recently?”

(End of chapter)