Jungle Corp – CEO on Death Island

Chapter 4

 

The jagged wooden spear tip was less than a centimeter away from Avery Prescott's jugular. The heiress to the Prescott Group froze. She held her breath, her tears even stopping from the sheer shock of seeing the barbarian Amazonian woman ready to kill her.

Zane Mercer's brain spun at lightning speed. Avery was a long-term asset. If he could save this woman, the Prescott family would owe him a debt of gratitude. It was a VVIP ticket to destroy Ezra and Sloane back in New York. But if he misspoke even a little in front of Xara, Avery's head would literally be separated from her body.

Zane laughed. The laugh echoed loudly across the square, sounding arrogant and full of mockery.

"Requested her alive? My mighty wife, please don't insult my taste!" Zane swatted the tip of Xara's spear away with one finger, the signature style of a CEO dismissing a cheap competitor. "Take a good look at this pile of skinny bones!"

Zane pointed at Avery from top to bottom.

"She has no muscles. Her legs are trembling just from standing on the ground. Her hips are too narrow to bear warriors, and her hands are too smooth to chop firewood. Where I come from, a woman this weak belongs to the lowest caste. Why would I bother requesting her from Grok?"

Xara narrowed her eyes, staring at Avery with an evaluating look. Her facial muscles relaxed slightly, but her guard wasn't completely down.

"Then why did you stop Grok? Just let him slit this woman's throat and boil her for dinner!" Xara demanded.

"That is exactly the main problem!" Zane turned to face Grok and the dozens of warriors still drooling around the stretcher. "Grok, have you noticed this woman has been crying hysterically this whole time?"

Grok nodded slowly. "Yes, Mr. Boss. Her voice is very noisy."

"That's because her stress hormones and cortisol are flooding her bloodstream!" Zane snapped. "If you slaughter her now, her meat will harden like a tractor tire! It'll taste as bitter as bile! I've already taught you how to roast delicious boar, and now you want to commit culinary suicide by eating this stressed meat?!"

Grok and the warriors immediately took a step back. They stared at Avery with disgusted expressions, as if her tens-of-thousands-of-dollars white designer dress had just been smeared with pig feces. The threat of eating bitter meat turned out to be far more terrifying to them than a curse from evil spirits.

"B-but Mr. Boss," Grok scratched his bald head, "if she's not going to be eaten, why did our troops go through the trouble of bringing her here?"

"This is what we call Return on Investment, Grok," Zane answered cunningly. "We are short-staffed. Xylok is recording the village logistics way too slowly. Starting this second, I am employing this woman purely as our village's logistics and administrative staff."

Zane then turned toward Xara. He lowered his voice and put on his best manipulative smile.

"Besides, my Wife..." Zane coaxed. "You are the Tribe Princess. The Wife of Mr. Boss. Should your strong hands, experts at snapping bear necks, get dirty taking care of the dust in the hut? I let this woman live specifically to be your personal servant. She will be the one washing your leopard skins, fetching your drinking water, and fanning you when you're hot."

Xara's eyes instantly sparkled brightly. Imagining herself walking around the village while this woman with snow-white skin followed behind her as a servant... that was the ultimate display of high-caste power on the Island of Death!

A wide smile bloomed on Xara's wild face. She burst into uproarious laughter and immediately patted Zane's back.

"Hahaha! My Husband is indeed incredibly smart!" Xara exclaimed proudly. "Alright! This skinny bag of bones is officially my assistant. If she works too slowly, I'll throw her into the crocodile enclosure myself!"

Grok and his team dispersed with disappointed faces, returning to their respective posts since they failed to hold an imported meat feast. Xara also left toward the forest to patrol, leaving Zane alone with Avery in the middle of the square.

Avery still sat stiffly on her wooden stretcher. Her Ivy League business master's brain was working hard to process what had just happened.

Cortisol? Lowest caste? Administrative staff? Personal servant?

Amidst her severe shock, Avery glared sharply at the man in front of her. The man spoke English with a very fluent, elite New York accent. Not only that, the way he controlled the situation, shifting the opinions of these barbarian people... that was pure high-class CEO manipulation tactics.

"Y-you..." Avery muttered softly as Zane squatted in front of her. The distance between them was now only a few spans. Avery's eyes looked at Zane's dirty face, then at the remnants of his expensive suit. "Zane Mercer?! The CEO of Mercer Group who was reported to have committed suicide at sea last week?!"

Zane smiled cynically. The glint in his eyes was as sharp as a scalpel.

"Welcome to my new subsidiary company, Miss Prescott," Zane whispered coldly. "Starting this second, you are entry-level staff here."

Avery's eyes widened. "You're crazy! I am Avery Prescott! My father could buy this island and everything on it! How dare you make me a servant!"

"Go ahead and call your father. Oh, wait. Your phone is missing, right? Your private helicopter isn't here?" Zane gripped Avery's arm tightly, forcing her to look him straight in the eyes. "Wake up, Princess! This is the Island of Death. Your father's billions of dollars are worth less than a piece of rotten yam here."

Tears welled up in Avery's eyes again. That brutal reality slapped her face without mercy.

"Xara is a monster," Zane continued, his voice soft but full of pressure. "If I look even slightly like I'm defending you, she'll consider you a threat. And if she gets jealous, she will tear your stomach open right in front of me. Do you understand?!"

Avery swallowed hard and gave a jerky nod. Her ego as a New York elite was shattered to pieces right then and there.

"Your job description is simple," Zane said as he stood up and dusted off his pants. "Be a good servant for my wife during the day, and help me record this village's inventory. Don't fight back, don't seek attention, and blend in. If you're useful, I'll make sure you stay alive until we find a way to escape this damn island."

Avery looked down, staring at her dirty and scraped palms. There was no other way. To survive, she had to engage in Corporate Slaving—becoming a corporate drone under the control of Zane Mercer, her own family's business rival.

"Grab that large banana leaf near the basket and fan the bed in the hut," Zane ordered without mercy. "Don't let my wife come home and see your work isn't done."

Avery got up with great difficulty and dragged her trembling feet toward the hut.

Zane let out a long sigh, massaging his temples. The internal issues were just settled. He turned toward the wooden tent to check the logistics report from Xylok. Everything was slowly falling under his control. He just needed time to assemble his strength before settling the score with Ezra.

However, Zane had only taken three steps when the shrill sound of a giant conch shell trumpet pierced the air.

BWOOOOOOM!

Zane stopped in his tracks. It was the tribe's emergency signal.

From the direction of the village's front gates, a warrior from the Acquisition Department came stumbling in. His body was covered in fresh blood. He fell flat on his face and vomited blood right at Zane's feet.

Lodged in the warrior's back was a wooden arrow with a sharply jagged black stone tip.

"M-Mr. Boss..." the warrior groaned, his breath hitching as he clung to life. "The Blood Skull Tribe... they're coming..."

Before Zane had the chance to ask further, the beating of hundreds of war drums thundered from behind the dark forest trees, making the ground beneath the CEO's feet tremble violently.