Heirs To The City: The Quartet

Chapter Fifty Five

Nicholas Harrington

Since the day Adrian and I dug up everything on Grace Haskall, I'd done more investment into what more I could find on her, along with numerous other links that had included her name and backtrailing the email links and names while I stared at a similar program as the one Adrian had programed for a since use, though I knew him well enough. He'd saved it and would use it later on someone else when he needed to find out all the dirty little secrets that someone had.

He also was smart enough to cover his tracks; however Harrington programmed military technologies, and had a hundred billion dollar contract with Lockhead Martin over the course of the next decade to ensure the most advanced tech went into the weaponry that defended the United States, and all other nations with contracts.

Going back I swiftly found a trail link of email address exchanges, all under VPN, and all breached by a reworked virus, that gave me access to all of it, and had no where to send the warning message because details and logistics showed that the email had been cancelled, but the internet never let anything disappear even if there was a database timeline before things were server wiped by most companies, the exclusion was the US Government. Something I learned when someone had tried to break into the New York Senators personal server, and found two hundred years of documents either saved, or kept by PDF and basic font written previews.

I traced the names used, and by the time I got to just shy of five years ago I found the change in name Grace Haskall, turned into Taliya Czellovina.

What the fuck.

Quickly typing in a cross reference program, I ran it on separate screens and within a few moments it found exactly where the name change came from, why it was a complete ethnic shift, and why she never sounded like she was actually Slavic. Her father was named William Haskall, a day trader that had just happened to make close to fifty million dollars in real estate investment, both in the actual properties and the companies that sold them. Her mother divorced him after he'd gotten into gambling, and as a result her mother aquired ten percent of what he had. Sure four million dollars wouldn't make someone's life completely simplified, but in retrospect sixty thousand dollars a year in extra spending was an incredible amount of money for the average person, and most people had around ten thousand dollars in monthly expenses if they lived in New York. Further investigation showed that her mother was Jara Czellovina, a surgeon who worked at the same hospital as Olivia's mothere did, which explained the lavish life that Taliya grew up with. A mom that made half a million a year, and a father who made three point four million as a annual average wasn't a hard off household for this city.

Also makes Taliya's rise to influence in the digital world make more sense.

The thing that disturbed me the most was that she'd clearly taken after her mother, and used a long string of lawsuits to make her money on the side, and now she did it against people who made leagues more money then she ever would, and by the end of the first week of December the influence Taliya had would be destroyed simply because greed was the destroyer of all where Adrian was concerned. He didn't care who it was, what their age was, what they identified as, nothing. He took what he wanted from those who took advantage of others, or used immoral action to gain more.

Irony was also that those same people felt their own medicine, and were given just a few million to rethink their lives, and the poor decisions they all made.

Served them right.

I also though about Olivia who was close friends with Taliya and I began to wonder just how intricate the plan had been since going after Adrian and Olivia was perhaps the dumbest idea I'd ever heard over my twenty years of life. I'd seen people kidnap Olivia, others fight Adrian, blackmail the couple, plan to kill them, and now it was to destroy their reputations which a court couldn't accomplish with Adrian at age sixteen, and he was a fraction as wealthy as he was now.

Money always equaled influence and power, and at current there was very few people with the kind of influence or connections that the heir to the Winter Family had, or his significant other. There was always backdoor dealings with billionaires, but people like Adrian Winters, Olivia Thorne, and other billionaires weren't really questioned about the things they did, since there was a degree of don't fuck with them, that they carried everywhere especially New York's elite power couples.

I also thought it was best to ask Adrian what Olivia was doing since I knew she had begun to have days she worked from home, and days she was in the office, since she had more flexibility with place of work then he did. Lifting my phone from my desk I found Adrian's contact and dialled him while I contined looking through what I could find on Taliya that Adrian likely knew already, but I wanted to know what we all were walking into.

"Harrington," Adrian's clipped tone says from the other end sounding bored at best, and annoyed at worst, though he hated dealing with planning the Gala's though he also viewed it as his personal responsibility since it was his name that started the tradition to begin with.

"Adrian, when were you going to tell me that Grace Haskall was Taliya Czellovina, and that she went by her Slavic name not her Scottish one," I say and he hums sounding amused, and a part of me was greatful I could understand his hums, and inaudible responses meanings.

"You knew, even before the investigation," I state, and I could practically hear him smirk.

"Secrets are currency Nico, we both know that, and I'd never let anyone know anything about me before I knew everything about them," Adrian's calm tone resuming the bored afflection it always had when he made any conversation to anyone but Olivia which caused his voice to deepen to gravel, and then business partners where it seemed like he was domineering the room, which usually was the case.

"How long have you known, about all of this?" I ask and there was since for a moment then ice hitting a glass.

Of course he's making himself a drink like a James Bond villain.

"The nightclub, when I took Olivia home. After Taliya tried to come near me, and made eyes at me, I chose to look into everything about her, within a week I knew her history, I could tell you her blood type, and that she has the autoimmune disorder Diabetes Type 1, after she started stalking Olivia I found all the linked photos and that her home was near to the printing location. Within a month I realized everything I would need, but the fact that her greater plan was to blackmail us was a recent development," Adrian replies genuine displacement in his voice, though not a single thing had taken him by surprise for long.

"I hope you know that you also stalk everyone," I point out and he snorts, something he almost never did.

"Aquiring information is a little bit different. I also don't give a singular fuck about any of those people when I have them investigated, but if I personally followed every movement, and action they did, then certainly I'd be stalking them," he corrects and I sigh, knowing he got the point and chose to be an asshole and not directly admitting that perhaps he did have an interest in everyone he met just so that he could know more.

"I wanted to know where your girlfriend was. She and Taliya are relatively close, something I can't believe you allow, knowing she's behind all the shit in the past two months," I say and silence followed for a few seconds.

"Olivia is her own person, and we both know she would never listen to my warning of Taliya without revealling everything to her in one go. If you want to tell her, I'll cut out an fifteen minute interval of fuck all so that I can talk to her about what I do know," Adrian replies.

"You should do that, I know I don't usally intervene but she should know," I mention and an agreeable hum did he reply to my logic.

"So be it, my time break is set, do your work, I'll be here preparing for the conversation I'm now going to have with Olivia once she knows".

"Okay, I'll tell her quickly," I say and hang up before he could do it himself, and began to type out the message to Olivia, including a warning that Adrian did what he always did, and kept something secret for safety reasons. Then I watched it load, and send, and there was no going back. We all knew now.
     
    
It's a good length thank god, I'm actually kinda proud of myself. Comment, vote, and share. Also next chapters are two Olivia, and three for Adrian to conclude this novel, then it's to Deviants. Anyways

Peace✌️