The Chronicles of Young Dmitry Medlov: Book One Page 16

  “Thanks,” Dmitry said, straightening his tie.

  “It’s my job,” she said proudly. “I think there was even a reporter from the Wall Street Journal out there.” Shaking her head, she wrote a note on a pad. “We need to get them in our pocket before the shit hits the fan.”

  “I’ll leave you to all of that,” he said, dismissing any thought of the dreaded media.

  Staring at himself in the reflection of the elevator doors, he cringed at the tailored three-piece suit Elsa had picked for him to wear today. He looked like an old man – not his style at all - but she had insisted that he wear something that would make the board relate and take him seriously.

  He looked down at the top of her head gratefully. Elsa was a hard worker and a smart woman with thick skin and a penchant for disaster-relief. And while he was still trying to figure out why she had agreed to any of this, he was happy to have her by his side now.

  As the doors opened, a borage of people waited. All smiling with either eyes of wonderment at his size or eyes of deceit and conniving mischief, they greeted Dmitry and Elsa as they walked briskly down the hall, past the open doors of worrying execs and cubicles of overworked underlings to the board room where the real men of industry waited.

  Elsa walked in first with her hair pulled back in a bun, a blue skirt-suit, brief case and black stiletto pumps that made her appear nearly as tall as her boss. Dmitry wanted it that way. Everything larger than life.

  The board stood up and waited as Dmitry entered, towering above everyone, more beautiful than all of them and even more uncomfortable. Trying to remember not to pull at his suit, he slipped his large hands out of his pockets and shook the men’s hands as they stood in a receiving line. Each of the men stared not only at his massive size but also at the many tattoos that were not able to be hidden on his hands and wrists.

  Formalities, formalities, Dmitry thought to himself as he tried to remember each of the older men’s names. Having been conditioned by Catherine, he amused himself with the fact that there were no women on the board of directors, no minorities and no young people. He also amused himself with the fact that that each of the men were in need of a personal trainer and diet. Fat cats living high off the hog, he said to himself as he unbuttoned his jacket and sat down at the head of the hand-crafted wooden board table.

  “Good afternoon,” Dmitry said, checking to make sure that Elsa was standing behind him. She was.

  The group all greeted him in unison. They all locked their hungry stares on him, eager to take a bite out of his fortune.

  “It’s nice to finally meet the man instead of just see your face all over the local rags,” Brenneman said, pushing his way up the table.

  Dmitry looked down the table at him and smiled. He had to remember his temper, at least for the moment. “I believe in the saying, all press is good press. Are you familiar with the saying, Mr. Brenneman?”

  The obese man looked up stunned. Either the boy had remembered his name from their brief introduction or he had done some background research on him also.

  “I am familiar, Mr. Medlov. But trust me, when you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you can rest assured that not all press is good press.” He looked around at his allies nodding in agreement. A surge of superiority rushed Dmitry’s way. Most, if not all of the men there, felt as though they were much better than he. The smug grins on their faces confirmed it.

  Dmitry crossed his finger as he planted his large elbows on the table. “Well, Mr. Brenneman, it’s better than being obsolete, which by the end of this meeting will be a very relevant and regretfully necessary title for some of you.”

  The room grew still and quiet with silent chaos.

  Dmitry continued with a more devious grin, sure that he had their attention now. “But before we get to that, I’d like you all to meet Elsa. She is my right hand.” He raised his own right hand in demonstration of their cohesiveness and waved it at them. “All matters will go through her to me. Consider us one for the time being, gentlemen. I do not take calls, emails, letters, faxes, anything. Elsa, however, is available…within reason.” His eye twitched.

  It was as if the young man had just immediately added insult to injury by insisting that even they, men of this illustrious board, go through his black assistant to get to him, when they for so long had gone directly to Catherine.

  The collective discomfort was obvious, but it only made Elsa smile. She stood behind Dmitry to his right side with her hands wrapped around a pound of books and papers waiting to attack on his word. She had trained for this for nearly four years. Now, she was actually getting a chance to live her dream, to be in control, to make a difference. Pinching herself quietly, she looked around the room and smiled.

  “We have to decide where we are going with the company,” another older man on the left side of Dmitry said, cutting through the tension. “Investors are worried that with Catherine’s passing and your ascension, for lack of a better word, that Hutton Industries is going belly up.”

  Dmitry raised his brow. “Quite the opposite. I’ve taken the liberty to look over the various departments and their productivity. Elsa, please pass out the packets now.”

  Obediently, she pulled the leather bound reports from her bag and began to pass them around the table. The men took them quickly, opening them to see what departments had been possibly cut.

  Dmitry watched their faces as they broke in horror. He sat quietly for a moment, wanting his expulsion of them to be as dramatic as possible.

  “What are you suggesting?” asked Brenneman, “that we actually cut all of these departments?”

  “I’m not suggesting,” Dmitry said, pouring himself a glass of water. “As of tomorrow, they will be cut permanently.”

  “Do you realize the financial implications of such a thing?” the young board member, Thomas Emerson, asked horrified.

  “I do realize the financial implications, but I have a different vision for Hutton Industries than my late wife did,” Dmitry explained. “And I appreciate your kind flowers and note during my loss.”

  “It was the least that I could do,” Emerson said, closing the report. “What about the jobs associated with the departments?”

  “They will be cut also,” Dmitry said without blinking.

  Emerson was a man in his mid-forties of reasonable wealth and education. However, he seemed extremely more disturbed by the idea of hundreds of working-class people losing their jobs, rather than only he losing his. Dmitry liked that. At least there was one man who wasn’t solely out for himself in the room, but there was only one.

  “I’m cutting the fat to get to the meat of this business,” Dmitry said, answering Emerson’s frown. “We are going to invest more heavily in technology, transition the manual labor factory positions into more efficient, machine-operated facilities with less man power and more accuracy. Hutton has been losing far too much money over the last couple of years with risky investments and poor management of human and other resources. I’ve read the case studies. We have to turn the corner.”

  Elsa cracked a smile. Dmitry had only been under her tutelage for a short while, but he was a fast learner. Watching him as he commanded control over the room, she realized why Lady Hutton must have chosen him. He had a natural charisma that drew people to him and a lion-like aggression that created fear in his opponents.

  “What do you think the other stockholders will have to say in the matter?” Brenneman asked, shocked that Dmitry had such a firm grip on the company in such a short time. He was growing rather uneasy with the situation. This brut was supposed to be an idiot not a genius.

  “Well, I made a few calls after the funeral and bought a few more of the major investors out quietly. I now own more than the original 58%,” Dmitry said, looking back at Elsa. “I believe that the number rightly sits at 74% now. In fact, the 26% of the business that I do not own is owned by the people in this room. Everyone else is out of the picture.” He casted his glare back out over the
men and swallowed hard, jolting his large Adam’s apple.

  “The reason that I’ve brought you all here today is not to bargain with you or seek your advice, but to simply offer to buy you out as well.” Dmitry watched their faces. The lot of them was sick with disbelief, unhinged by their opponent. He hoped to never be in such a situation, to underestimate someone, regardless of their background.

  “Buy us out?” another board member bit out.

  The whispers in the room became a larger roar. Power was shifting now from the clutches of the greedy handful to one single man who obviously was hungrier than them all.

  “Well, not all of you. Just as many of you who can’t see the potential in what I am doing,” Dmitry answered their discontent. “Those of you who can may stay. It’s just that simple.”

  Elsa walked around for the second time passing out a completely different proposal in a red leather binder. The men were even more hesitant to open the packet than before.

  Dmitry watched them all carefully, studying each man and his tell signs. None of them were ready for what had happened. He tried to hold his grin but could not. Victory was in reach. It was a big blow to elitism. How he loved Catherine for giving him this opportunity.

  He cracked a smile at Elsa as she made her way back to him, glad to have someone here to witness history and to be able to recount the events later. Such a monumental thing would have been wasted on one person alone.

  Dmitry continued a little more at ease now that he had stated his intentions. “Sometimes you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, eh. This is why I am offering you an opportunity to simply bow out, gentlemen, through a very generous offer that would allow you to go on and pursue other dreams or business ventures without feeling obligated to Hutton Industries.”

  “Hutton Industries has been in business since 1873, and you come here and want to usurp us -men who have sat on this board for more than three generations – overnight because of a two-year hump fest that you’ve had with Catherine?” Brenneman asked. Sweat formed on his meaty, red forehead. He slammed the portfolio closed. “Tell me that you at least expect an uprising, a war? We will not take this sitting down.”

  “What kind of war can you wage with a man who owns everything?” Dmitry asked quietly. His eyes were focused on the fat man, but it was his heart that gave away his story. It beat like a lion against his chest, urging him to attack. If this had not been a boardroom, Dmitry would have already gutted him from his bulging belly to his double chin. He thought of doing it now even. In fact, the thought is what helped him stay calm.

  Brenneman narrowed his beady, brown eyes. “You are a thug – a common rat that has managed to crawl its way out of the gutters of Moscow and bring your troubled little clan with you. Don’t think that we don’t already know about your sordid past – the ties to the Vory v Zakone, your old title as butcher, your stint in prison, the long money trail behind you covering up your many indiscretions. You are no match for men of industry, of name and most importantly of quality. When the world finds out what you really are, this company will go belly up and your vision, as you call it, will go down the tubes where it belongs with the rest of common pipe dreams from greedy little idiots who don’t know how to stay in their places.” He looked around in a huff as many of the men around the table silently agreed.

  Dmitry could feel the heat rising under his thousand dollar shirt. Raising his arched brow, he clasped his gigantic hands together until his red, sweaty hands had turned a pale, nearly translucent white.

  “Is this the consensus of the group?” Dmitry asked in a low growl.

  Many of the men shook their heads.

  Emerson, however, disagreed. While he had come from a good family and had a good name, he was no elitist. And he had no gripe with Dmitry Medlov about his desire to take the company in a different direction. In fact, as 74% owner, he had that right. “I do not care how you came to your position. It is not my business. However, I do not wish to be bought out either. I want to make a difference, Mr. Medlov. I wish to find a way to keep jobs for those who depend on them and see this company grow to its potential. That is why my family invested in Hutton many years ago and that is why I have stayed.”

  Dmitry looked past them at the sun shining brightly through the blinds of the high-rise building and stood up at the head of the table. Two different forces were at work here at the same time. Outside, the world was calm and beautiful. Inside this boardroom, there was a storm brewing. At that moment, his size was even more intimidating. His large chest stuck out, pulling at threads of his fine clothing. An animalistic desire rose in him to tear at his shirt and reveal his true identity, but he kept his fleeting composure, pulling himself into a calmer state before he spoke.

  He bent and placed his hands on the table, scratching the wood with his nails and he dug into family heirloom. Looking across at them, his deep baritone voice snarled like a mad dog. “The fact that I am a rat from a gutter should only put the fear of God deep into each of you. The fact that I have in a short time arrived where you have been trying to get your entire lives with all of your money, and all of your titles and still have essentially failed, should be a testament to my superiority. And the fact that I have carried the title of butcher, the fact that I am a member of the most respected and powerful organization that you could imagine – an organization that could not be snuffed out by the government or controlled by other ethnic groups, should let you know that I am more than capable of going to war with you. And if it’s war that you want, it is war that you will have. And this is how it starts. Those of you who are with this fat suka with his shit-eating grin and plans of controlling the universe, stand on this side.” He motioned to the left wall. “Those of you who wish to either buy out and move on or simply continue with business as usual, move to this wall.” He motioned towards the right wall.

  “You can’t be serious,” Brenneman said with a chuckle. “It’s a bit elementary, don’t you think?”

  “Oh but I am serious. There is nothing elementary about war. And I would ask that you each make your decision very quickly,” Dmitry said with a grin of his own.

  Emerson stood on the right wall alone with his paperwork in his hand, while the rest of the board got up and walked over to the left wall with Brenneman.

  Dmitry stood still at the head of the table and watched. “Very well. Emerson, if you don’t have anything else to add, get with Elsa so that we can talk later this week about the development of the new departments, but I would suggest you leave now before things get ugly.”

  Emerson did not say much. He nodded at Dmitry then at the group of men on the left wall and departed quietly, closing the door behind him.

  When they were alone, Dmitry turned back towards the men.

  “And for the rest of us?” Brenneman said, looking around at his counterparts.

  “You’re all fired. Everyone who works for you and reports to you is fired. I want all of your shit out of my building by five. I want all of your keys to your company cars turned over. Every perk, every fucking credit card, anything that belongs to me had better be turned over to me. If I find out that you go on spending spree tonight after you leave here, any sudden changes in my cash flow, anything usual, I come and take it out of your ass…show you why they call me the butcher.” Dmitry hit his chest.

  “And who is going to help you facilitate all of this?” Brenneman asked, both outraged and in awe at how quickly his world had been turned completely around. He wasn’t even sure if Dmitry had the resources to pull such a coup off in such a short period of time.

  “A new group of men, my men, will be reporting in tomorrow. These aren’t the types you want to fuck with, gentlemen. They don’t carry the same type of titles that you do. They actually earned theirs through blood and sweat.” Dmitry laughed. “I’ll leave the rest to Elsa until they arrive.” He went to the doors and swung them open. “Now get the fuck out,” he said, standing at the door as they passed.

  Brenneman was the
last one to leave. Stopping at the door, he looked up at Dmitry with a scowl on his pudgy face. “This is far from over. If it’s the last thing that I do, you will be ruined, Dmitry Medlov.”

  Dmitry bent to the Brenneman. “Is that a threat?” His eyes gleamed with pure anger.

  “Of course,” Brenneman said, without blinking.

  “Good,” Dmitry said, standing back up. “I just wanted to make sure that we are both on the same page.”

  “Sleep with one eye open,” Brenneman said repulsed by Dmitry’s audacity. “You aren’t the only one who knows unsavory characters.”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t sleep at all,” Dmitry answered, “because I am an unsavory character you smug, little, fat oily bastard. And when I come for you, I’ll be doing it myself.”

  Brenneman stalked off. His assistant followed behind him, carrying the paperwork that he quickly discarded on the floor.

  The workers, who were witnessing the fallout, were in disbelief. Rumor was that many of them were fired, anyone who didn’t work for Emerson or worked directly for any of the men on the board were now without jobs.