Eviscerating the Snake - The Complete Trilogy Read online

  “GET HIM THE FUCK on the phone!” Olin bellowed from his plush office chair, his thinning hair falling out of place as he slammed his well-manicured hand on his desk. His poor, frantic assistant, Gabrielle, fumbled with her phone to dial the office in Montana yet again. “I told you, I have to talk to him now, no excuses!”

  “Yes sir, I’m on it,” Gabrielle shot back, fighting the urge to just take the phone in there and smash it into the side of his ego-inflated head, matching the bump she had given him yesterday. She wished now she would have kicked him harder and knocked the bastard out. She consoled herself with the thought that she soon wouldn’t be his assistant anymore; surely Lily had found a new spot for her within the company after the disastrous events of last night!

  She dialed Reed’s office number, only to be told by his own assistant, once more, that he was unavailable and may she take a message? “Yes, please. This is Olin Kemper’s office again. Mr. Kemper needs to speak with him as soon as possible regarding an urgent matter. Might you be able to get word to him and have Reed return the call as soon as possible?” Gabrielle pleaded, hoping her counterpart on the other end would hear the desperation in her voice. Reed’s assistant assured Gabrielle that he would receive the message as soon as she could convey it to him.

  She hung up and decided not to walk into Olin’s office to deliver the message in person; instead, she opted for calling him on the intercom, thus steering clear of any objects he might feel the need to throw, as he had done in the past. “Olin, Reed is unavail…” was all she got out before Olin began berating her loudly, storming out of his office to her desk to continue his verbal tirade face to face.

  “Are you really that fucking incompetent? How difficult is it to get someone on the phone? Did you not hear me when I told you this was an emergency and I need to talk to Reed now? Oh, wait. I know what’s wrong!” Olin hissed as his clenched up fist pounded Gabrielle’s desk with a loud thud that sent papers flying. “That brunette color on your head is hiding the fact that you are actually a blonde, of no use to anyone except to suck their dick; and you can’t even do that right!” Olin shouted at Gabrielle as she sat frozen in her chair, his eyes turning the color of frosted ice as he glared at her.

  Too stunned and mortified to even respond to his outburst, Gabrielle felt the heat rising from the back of her neck to her face as her peripheral vision let her know that everyone in the office had suddenly stopped what they were working on and were fully engulfed in watching the freak show that was in full swing at her desk—morning entertainment for the masses that forced her to be the unwilling star of the Olin Show. Scared and shocked into silence, she just stared at Olin with her mouth slightly agape in utter disbelief. Her eyes pleaded for him to stop, yet she knew from past experience he wouldn’t. He was in his element and took full advantage of his prey being rendered helpless from his onslaught.

  OLIN was well known to all who had ever had the unfortunate experience of working for or with him as a classic “Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde” personality. The “Dr. Jekyll” side was endowed with an impressive legal mind as well as a head for numbers and held duel licenses as both a lawyer and certified public accountant. Early in his accounting career, Olin had discovered that the lucrative oil and gas sector, especially rigging manufacturers, was where he wanted to focus all his energy since he realized that everyone, everywhere, needed gas, and roughnecks tended to have pockets full of money and heads full of rocks. Olin preferred his clientele to be rich and dumb, which is exactly what he found to be the case within this niche.

  He had worked diligently for over thirty years to be known throughout the industry as the “go to” guy when financial troubles came knocking on their doors, or if the polar opposite happened, where to hide ill-gotten gains or excessive wealth from the Internal Revenue Service. Olin’s ability to finagle the books and circumvent the law drew clientele to him, along with his brash and irreverent attitude, both of which tended to come off as supreme confidence in not only his own capabilities, but the firm’s as well. Word of mouth spread quickly throughout the gas companies of his skills, and clients flocked to him like starving seagulls that spotted the lone piece of bread on an empty beach. Olin was at the peak of his career, for his firm had a stronghold on over seventy-five percent of the U.S. owned drilling companies.

  Armed with extreme intelligence and business savvy, Olin coupled that with his willingness to provide all sorts of frat boy services to his clients including hookers, strippers, drugs, and booze, which had made him an incredibly wealthy man. When it became known that Olin would be attending any convention, attendance would quadruple as CEO’s of the nation’s largest rigging entities would converge to where they knew the fun would be. If he couldn’t make a convention due to other business commitments, then he would just host a business party at his Scottsdale estate shortly afterwards, which throughout the years had become legendary and rivaled only slightly by those held at the Playboy mansion. His despicable behavior had mushroomed to the point that marketing the firm’s services was truly not necessary for him anymore, and he actually had to turn down some clients as they begged to have him perform their audits and tax returns.

  After taking over the reins of the firm almost six years ago after a successful coup from Eric Jennings, the previous managing partner, no one could stop him or slow him down. He had envisioned going from one of the “Top 200” accounting firms in the United States to the “Top 50,” and his determination to do just that had put the firm in jeopardy several times over the years; yet he always seemed to find a way to turn things around in the end and make the company even more profitable than it had been before. His perceived invincibility left him believing that he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he chose to, and to whomever he saw fit.

  Olin thumbed his nose at authority and lived life on his terms; to hell with what others thought about him or his lack of morals. Although he was ridiculously rich, he wore jeans and a dress shirt whenever he decided to saunter into work and was rarely ever seen in a suit and tie. However, he was the only one allowed to do so, for he insisted upon a strict dress code for all other employees—not because he really cared about the professionalism of the firm, but more because he enjoyed having the authority over them. Controlling the strings of his petty puppets was just another way to show his superiority to those beneath him, and that arrogant attitude parlayed well to his clients. He was known for aiding even the severest of corporate criminals in bending the rules, allowing them to make even more money and stay out from behind bars, since several of the CEO’s of the gas companies were some of the lowliest pond scum around.

  His “Mr. Hyde” side, which he showed often to his employees as well as his family, was full of deplorable behavior as he relished demeaning his underlings at any given opportunity, caring nothing about the feelings of the people he hurt in his reckless pursuit of his endless lusts. And although most accounting firms were notorious for working their employees into the ground during tax and audit season, Olin’s firm was even worse. Numerous employees had suffered mental breakdowns over the exorbitant stress levels placed on them by Olin’s heavy thumb over the years, and the usual target of his wretched behavior was women.

  Olin was a textbook narcissist/sociopath that any psychologist would salivate over at the thought of actually being allowed to study him. His deep seated hatred for women was borne from his disgust at his own wretched mother, whose countless boyfriends had moved them all over the country, until they had finally settled down in this arid, desert hell with a rich one who raised show horses. Olin realized early on that women used their sexuality as a weapon as he watched his mother use her sensuality on numerous men over the years, and he refused to ever let that weapon graze him, so he learned to strike first. As a child that bounced from one place to another, Olin was constantly thrown into the “new kid” shoes. Rather than trying to adapt and make friends and then have to pack up and leave again—or worse yet, bearing the humiliation and taunting from othe
r kids—Olin had turned his emotions inward and directed all his attention to books rather than to socializing. He spent numerous hours alone locked in his room, safely tucked away from the soaring heat that Arizona was known for, as he studied behavioral traits of people to soothe himself. He learned at a young age what inner demons drove others, and he would use that knowledge to his advantage against his enemies. Over the years, that number had grown exponentially.

  At fifty-seven, Olin’s notorious reputation for his unabashed sexual conquests had grown to mythical proportions that stemmed from the constant supply of fresh, straight-out-of-college meat that the firm had hired over the years. Winscott & Associates, which took up four floors in Phoenix’s largest office complex, was referred to at times by outsiders and ex-employees as “the den of iniquity,” and Olin never missed an opportunity to ensure that the nickname was not in vain. The firm was his personal hunting ground, and Olin hunted often.

  He had a nasty habit of treating females as nothing but sexual playthings, toys to pass the time away, and when he was finished with them, he would toss them aside like broken Barbie dolls for the next young crop. Countless sexual harassment claims had been brought against him during his thirty years at the firm, but as he learned early on in college, money in one’s pocket was what the majority of people wanted. So, as long as he paid for his toys, they stayed silent, dropped their claims, and walked away with their pocketbooks full and morals stripped. If things became too complicated or he felt as though no more money should be spent on a particular subject, Olin would just have them fired or make their lives so miserable at work that they would quit. When lawsuits were filed or pending, he would just point out that their deeds with him were not something they would want to be made public, which he always threatened to do if things progressed; and then he threw a bit more money at them, thereby ending the problem. It was a win-win situation for him, and every time he won, his ruthlessness grew even bigger.

  As he aged, Olin realized that it wasn’t the actual sex act that turned him on as much as it was the thrill of the chase and the eventual kill, for he had tapped into his dark, animalistic side at an early age. He loved the scent of the fresh, young meat as he would amble up to them, encircling them with his boy-like charm, his light blue eyes boring into their young innocent ones, convincing his prey that he only had eyes for them as he separated them from the herd, and then striking when their reserves weakened. For Olin, once the victim was down, bleeding, and no longer putting up a fight, their delicious scent would waft away and be replaced by the smell of stale, rotted flesh that he would walk away from, never looking back as his dead eyes searched the terrain for his newest conquest.

  The trail of carcasses that Olin had left in his wake over the years had begun to stack up and stink, becoming much more difficult to hide as bodies started poking through the mounds of cover money. The truth of the matter was people talked, and in the small pond that Olin was the biggest fish in, the smaller fish had begun to band together, plotting their vengeance as his deeds grew more vicious and sadistic.

  Olin didn’t care though, since he just left it to others to clean up the mess behind him as they had always done in the past. His cash reserves were long and deep. Not only was he the head of the firm, but he had married old money as well. It never occurred to him that cold hard cash wouldn’t always buy perpetual silence since so far, it had.

  As much of a predator as Olin was when it came to ensnaring his victims, he saved his nastiest side for those who had the audacity to oppose him. Not only would he feel no remorse in destroying a colleague or lower-level employee for not bending to his will, but God help the unfortunate female that had the impudence to turn him down when she sensed he was like a stag in rut, snorting and sniffing as he strutted in her direction.

  DENIAL of Olin’s advances was exactly the reason that Gabrielle found herself the recipient of his verbal barrage on the day in question. Since her hiring as his assistant over three months ago, Gabrielle had been the object of Olin’s never-ending attempts to bed her. With her long, dark brown hair, vibrant green eyes, young nubile body, and bright smile, Gabrielle was not only a radiant beauty but was also intelligent enough to not fall for his numerous attempts at seducing her. For one thing, Gabrielle found his brash demeanor utterly revolting. She assumed he thought himself charming as he would say the most outrageous things to her, but he just sounded like a sick, horny, old pervert.

  The other thing that had kept her from succumbing to his advances was the fact that he was the same age as her father, which she found thoroughly disgusting. Gabrielle preferred young, muscled up Adonis types, and Olin didn’t fit that category at all. Over and over again, she would tell him that she didn’t date married men. In actuality, she really wasn’t morally opposed to adultery, but the mere thought of Olin naked made her stomach churn. Every time he suggested, in his most charming voice, what he wanted to do to her and dangled baubles and posh trinkets her way, Gabrielle would politely spurn his advance, never accepting any of the gifts he threw in her direction. But last night had been his boldest try yet when he followed her out as she walked to her car, then suggested that they go out for a drink so she could take a ride in his brilliant black, brand new Audi TT Roadster, even offering to let her drive. She’d had enough, and flat out shot him down.

  “Olin, I’m not interested. I’m seeing someone, and even if I were single, I still would not be interested in having any sort of relationship with you, other than one of the professional nature we currently share. I’ve made it very clear to you that I don’t date married men. I’m your assistant: nothing more, nothing less. If this is a problem for you, then perhaps we need to talk to Lily about moving me to another position in the firm. I enjoy the work I do, but this constant harassment from you is making me extremely uncomfortable, so please, let it go,” Gabrielle told Olin firmly as he cornered her at her car.

  Olin threw his head back and laughed an evil, cynical laugh that made Gabrielle’s hair stand straight up on the back of her neck. His perfectly whitened teeth caught the parking deck light just right and almost glowed, and the twinkle that had backlit his light blue eyes before was now replaced by darkness as they narrowed into small slits. He moved closer, peering straight into her glimmering, green eyes, making Gabrielle wish she could shrink back from their cold stare. But she knew she needed to hold her ground firmly and not show the fear that had begun to creep up her back and settle over her arms and neck. Never had he been this close to her, and she realized, a bit too late, that he was not just some perverted older man flirting with her. She sensed a darker, more ominous vibe that radiated out from him almost strong enough to actually smell, and it made her stomach lurch, as she was now fully aware that she was in trouble. He stopped laughing, and his voice changed from the sly, flirtatious mode it had been in to an ominous rumble that seemed to emanate from deep within his chest.

  “Do you really think that I give a rat’s ass whether or not you are interested in me, Gabby? This isn’t about you, little girl…this is about me…what I want and what I will get. No one denies me, Gabby, no one. This little cat-and-mouse game we have been engaged in has just been for fun. Well, playtime is over, and now you think you can draw a line in the sand on my behavior that I’m not allowed to cross anymore? You think your impassioned little speech is going to change my mind?” Olin’s voice reverberated in her ear as he leaned his full body weight onto Gabrielle, slowly forcing her up against her car. “You will be mine until I say we are done, starting right now,” Olin said as he squeezed her face tightly with his right hand, crushing her lips in his direction, his eyes full of silent rage.

  Gabrielle forced the rising bile back down her throat and sucked in a deep breath. Then, with all her strength from years of kickboxing, she brought her left knee up as fast and hard as she could, landing it firmly between Olin’s thighs. He let out an “Ommph” as all the air left his lungs, and his hand dropped from her face. He clutched his crotch and doubled ov
er in pain, then collapsed and hit his knees squarely on the asphalt. Gabrielle followed the groin kick swiftly by planting her right foot dead center on his chest and pushing, knocking him backwards, and she smiled as she heard the dull thud of his head bouncing off the car parked next to hers. She wheeled around and quickly jumped in her car, started it in record time, and sped off, looking in the rearview mirror only once to make sure he was still on the ground; thankfully, he was.

  Once out of the parking deck, Gabrielle realized she was shaking so badly that driving was almost impossible, yet for fear that Olin might follow her, she kept driving aimlessly until she found herself at a Safeway Groceries parking lot several miles away. She pulled in and parked between two big trucks, praying that if he were following her, she would be well hidden. Hands still quivering, she dug her cell phone out of her purse and stared at it, trying to decide whom she should call. If she called the police, would they believe her? It would be the word of a lower level staff person who had been employed for less than six months against the word of one of the most well-known men in Arizona—one that was the head of the largest accounting firm in the region and had piles of money to spend on high priced attorneys that would do everything possible to destroy her credibility. And with Olin’s connections, would she ever be able to find a job that paid more than minimum wage again after accusing him of assault? Doubtful.