The study

In the course of the next few weeks, Philipp had more and more trust in Pamela. He told her about the problems in the company, the study that was commissioned, and the vast sums of money the research devoured. In this context, he had also told her about the problems with his brother and that he had no idea how difficult it was to raise this money, when the company was nowhere near as much as the research was currently devouring. And investors were in short supply anyway. In addition, the banks did not want to grant any more credit increases. On the contrary, they were even considering calling the loans due if the necessary progress was not made soon.

Without being aware of it, he had given Pamela exactly the information she wanted. Pamela had made it appear as if she wanted to help Philipp out of a tight spot and offered him a change in the amount of the loan amount to cover the loan. Seen in this way, he would have been creditworthy again and more time could have been given to research. She had asked for the money for this from her uncle, who had wanted to help his niece and her future husband. The bill of exchange had been issued for 12 months. This timeframe should have been enough to allow progress to be made.

In love as deeply as possible, as ignorant and trusting as a puppy, he had agreed to this deal. But after the deal was wrapped up, Pamela dropped her lovely mask and showed her true colors. Regardlessly and unequivocally, she had given him to understand that her interest was not in him, but exclusively in his company. Without a trace of bad conscience she had informed Philipp that she had acted on behalf of her uncle, who wanted to win the majority of the company shares for himself.

Philipp could not believe the cold-bloodedness with which this woman had gone to work. All the love and care for him had only been a pretense and after his signature on the bill of exchange it dissolved into smoke. The fear of not being able to get the 15 million dollars in time had not let him sleep soundly from that day on.

Philipp had signed the bill as a private person and was solely responsible for it. The company could not be prosecuted. John and the shareholders would never have given their consent to sign this bill of exchange for a private person.

One would have loved to slap Philipp himself. With his tail-controlled brain, he had given himself up to the Canettis and lost everything. Not only were the Canettis secure their 35 percent of the company's shares in the event that he could not cash the bill. In his naivety he had sold himself to the Canadian mafia.

It took time for Philipp to fully understand this nasty game. The Canettis' interest in Lombard Pharma had existed for some time. With its research department, the company offered good opportunities to launder black money. A large part of the lengthy and cumbersome transactions abroad with drug and smuggling money via the Caymans would then be pretty easy to wash white in your own country. Research was a bottomless pit into which money had to be constantly pumped without really being able to understand the flow of money.

When old Canetti had found out that the pharmaceutical company was in financial difficulties, he had sensed his chance to snatch the company under the nail. The company enjoyed a good reputation and was set up just right for its interests.

For this reason, old Canetti had initially set his bloodhound on Philipp in order to secure his company shares. As a result, Pamela's attention was then turned to his brother, who owned the other 35 percent of the company. And after Pamela had had so much success with her Becircen, she wanted to use this scam with John too.

Philipp had been forced to introduce Pamela to his brother, who was just as crazy about this piece of dirt as he was. But John had always better understood how to separate business from private. But Pamela and her extensive repertoire of seductive arts had not been able to crack this nut. Pamela therefore had to go a step further and became John's wife.

In the meantime, Philipp had saved wherever possible. He also tried to exhaust all other possible resources to get money. If he could really prove with the commissioned study that herbal mistletoe preparations were in no way inferior to chemical active ingredients, then Lombard-Pharma could expect a tremendous upturn in the market, as the trend towards organic substances was also gaining ground in medicine. But the study had only just begun. And in oncology in particular, it took years for usable results to be available.

So the only bright spot had been the slimmer who could have pulled Philipp out of this misery. RNV3 had already achieved such good results in the test phase on animals that it was on the verge of administering the drug to test subjects. But John absolutely wanted to wait and do a few more tests.

But at the end of the month the change was due. If Philipp had been able to show the banks that the drug was almost ready for use, the flow of money would certainly have flowed again with his persuasion and the 15 million would have been off the table.

Philipp had obtained documents from the research department showing that RNV3 was mature enough to move on to the next phase. With his 35 percent and the other 30 percent of the remaining shareholders, he could certainly have outvoted John.

Although the research department was not in his area of competence, he was still able to access the laboratories. One week before the general assembly, Philipp had rummaged through the researchers' desks that night. He had almost given up hope of finding what he was looking for, since the research reports were kept in the safe, the combination of which only John and Alex Summer knew. It was pure coincidence that he found one of the last research results of RNV3 on Summers chaotic desk, which, as usual, he had first handwritten. Alex must have forgotten to destroy it. But that was nothing special for the absent-minded professor, who never took the security measures so closely.

It was a relief for Philipp when he excitedly scanned the report. He had held the ticket to freedom in his hands.