2023-11-17 09:12:05Nate looked up at the night sky from the balcony of his apartment. The streets of Vienna were clearly visible from the fifteenth floor. Nate was leaning against the metal railing. His right hand appeared to be holding a cup of coffee.
On the table was a laptop with a screen displaying the profile of Xavier Lucius. Next to the laptop were open files. The contents of the file were corporate records belonging to the Lucius Business Group, which was run by Xavier's family. Next to the file was Nate's iPhone and a box of cigars.
"They divided up all of his father's companies fairly. I didn't expect these greedy people to get along after his father died. Normally, greedy people like them would fight to get the biggest inheritance," Nate muttered.
Soon after, Nate's iPhone rang. It turned out to be a call from an unlisted number. But Nate didn't seem surprised because he could already guess who was calling him.
"Yes," Nate said as he answered the call.
"I got the latest financials for the DeLucion Dev company," the mysterious person on the phone said, his voice sounding like a robot because he was using a disguise.
"Send it to a regular email, I'll give you the money after I receive the data," Nate said.
"Nice doing business with you," the mysterious person said.
"Yes. Nice doing business with you too," Nate said before the call ended.
"Security around Lucius' business group seems to be tighter than before. I didn't think it would take up to a week to retrieve a company's financial data," Nate said as he sat down in front of his laptop.
"DeLucion Dev. That seems to be Xavier's fastest growing company lately," Nate muttered as he read the financial report he had received in his email.
The financials were complete from a year ago. Monthly financial reports were also included. Including sources of income, expenses and other things. Everything was detailed.
DeLucion Dev itself is a company of the Lucius Business Group that focuses on making software and games. Some of their games are even on the rise lately in the state of Vienna. It is even believed that in the coming months, the online game will be among the most popular games in the world.
The biggest source of income for the games comes from the players' top-ups. The second income comes from advertisements and sponsors who come to cooperate. The biggest source of expenses is in advertising costs.
However, this month the biggest expense came from preparations for organizing a game competition owned by DeLucion Dev with a first-person shooter theme. It is planned that the qualification for the new competition will be held next month. This will be the first national competition held by DeLucion Dev.
"As the youngest child, he is indeed more sensitive to technological developments. No wonder his brother entrusted DeLucion Dev to be one of the companies under him," Nate muttered after reviewing all the financial data.
"Judging by the spending data. He seems very confident about the contest. He must have calculated the total profit that will come in if the competition goes well. Most likely, Xavier wants to make this company one of the financial foundations for his other companies," Nate thought.
"Should I ruin the competition? Or is there another more effective way to destroy DeLucion Dev?" Nate said with a deep sigh and then raised his head to stare at the night sky.
"No, no. The competition must go smoothly, at least until the final round," Nate muttered with a grin.
A grand plan popped into his head as he looked up at the gray sky over Vienna. Nate got up quickly and went to his apartment to rest. From the look on his face, he seemed impatient to start preparing his plans for tomorrow.
***
This morning Nate drove his Lamborghini to an Italian restaurant in Vienna. Mr. Sean's car was already waiting in the parking lot. They had rented a private room for this morning's meeting.
"Good morning, Mr. Nate," greeted Sean, who was already in the private room.
"Good morning Mr. Sean. I'm glad you're here alone," Nate said as he shook hands.
"My driver is waiting in the car while my bodyguard, as a customer of this restaurant, keeps an eye on the area," Sean replied as he sat down again after Nate sat down.
"Mr. Sean is always on the lookout," Nate said with a smile. Nate's eyes were now fixed on the menu book on the table.
"After what happened to my family, it's impossible for me to stay calm outside the house," Sean replied as he pressed the bell to summon the waiter.
Soon after the waiter arrived, they ordered food and drinks. They only talked about work matters until all their orders came. Their conversation turned serious after all the food was served.
"Why did you ask me to come here?" asked Sean.
"I want the new Delta Snack product that will be sponsoring one of the teams participating in this tournament," Nate replied while showing the tournament data that will be held by DeLucion Dev.
"A gaming tournament?" said Sean as he looked at the data Nate was showing on his iPhone.
"Yes," Nate replied without hesitation.
"But what's the point, sir? Besides, isn't it a disadvantage for us to be sponsored participants in an event held by the biggest competitor that has ever destroyed us?" asked Sean, frowning.
"There are many advantages. We just have to find the best team that has a better chance of winning than the others. If they win, they will indirectly promote our products directly on their home turf. Leave the rest to me," Nate explained.
"I already have two plans, I will choose them according to the response from DeLucion Dev. I will also look for the strongest team candidates in the tournament, you just need to meet them and offer cooperation as their team sponsor," Nate continued.
"I understand. But what if they refuse our offer, sir?" asked Sean.
"They won't. This is the first year of the competition. Any team will be happy to accept our offer of sponsorship. Major products, even those from companies in the Lucius Business Group, will not necessarily sponsor the participants. They would rather sponsor the event directly," Nate replied.
"They must think that there is nothing to be gained by sponsoring the participants. They may not even want to sponsor the competition because it is the first one. They would rather sponsor a bigger, better known event or competition. Besides, there is still a month before the competition starts, so we have plenty of time," Nate added.
"I understand, sir. After all, our new product will be ready for the market in two weeks," Sean said with a nod.
"If this plan is successful. Then not only will our new product be recognized, but the products of DeLucius Snack and DeLucion Dev will also sink," Nate said with a smile.
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Chapter 189: The Richest Man No One Knows
Five years is enough time for a city to forget almost anything, if the city wants to forget it badly enough, and Vienna had wanted to forget a great deal. The Lucius name still existed, technically. It sat on a handful of old deeds nobody bothered updating, on a mausoleum in the public cemetery where fewer flowers arrived every year, on the occasional business-school case study about family conglomerates that collapsed under their own cruelty a footnote now, cited the way people cited old scandals they only half remembered the details of, more useful as a cautionary shape than as a story anyone still felt anything about. The Alphons name had gone the same way, faster if anything, folded into two paragraphs of a magazine retrospective about corporate consolidation in the hospitality sector, Fredric's own photograph reduced to a small inset beside a chart showing which of his properties had changed hands and to whom. Robert had kept the government-facing pieces alive, quietly, the wa
Chapter 188: Nate Evander
He didn't answer Luna that night. She hadn't pushed him to, had simply watched him stand there with the question hanging unanswered between them, and after a while she'd risen, touched his arm once, briefly, and let herself out without making him fill a silence he wasn't ready to fill. He'd stood in the kitchen a long while after she left, the last glass still in his hand, and understood, finally, that the question wasn't one he could answer standing in an apartment full of the last two years' furniture, surrounded by everything he'd built to survive a war that no longer existed. He drove to the cemetery three days later, alone, no earpiece, no car following at a discreet distance, because some places had stopped needing an escort the moment the last man who might have threatened him there had already been buried himself. The morning was cold in the particular way autumn got cold before it fully committed to winter, the sky a flat, colorless gray that made the grass look duller tha
Chapter 187: What's Left of Dark Crimson
Jo hadn't set foot in the basement in three weeks, and the strangeness of that still hadn't worn off. He kept catching himself reaching for a phone that didn't need to buzz every hour anymore, kept waking at four in the morning out of pure habit and lying there in the dark of an apartment that actually had windows now, curtains he'd chosen himself, waiting for an emergency that never arrived. The meeting happened at Nate's place, the same kitchen table that had held a hundred plans over two years, coffee rings worn permanent into the wood, though tonight nobody had bothered pulling up a corkboard or a laptop or a floor plan of anything at all. Just five chairs, five people, and a bottle of something dark and expensive that Boars had brought and nobody had touched yet. Nate sat at the head of the table the way he always sat, though something in his posture tonight carried less weight than Jo had seen from him in longer than he could remember, the particular looseness of a man who'd
Chapter 186: Delta Ascendant
Sean had never planned a party for four hundred people before, and it showed in the way he kept checking his phone every few minutes even though every possible thing that could go wrong had already been accounted for three times over by a events coordinator he'd hired specifically because she didn't panic at things Sean still panicked at. The ballroom Delta Group had rented for the night sat on the top two floors of a hotel that, six months ago, would have politely declined a company Sean's size the honor of even asking. Tonight the banners hung floor to ceiling on either side of the stage DELTA GROUP, the logo simple, unadorned, the same clean lettering Sean had picked out himself in a rented apartment two years ago with mismatched furniture and a burner phone buzzing on the table beside him. "You look like you're about to give a eulogy instead of a toast," Joseph said, appearing at his elbow with two glasses of champagne, handing one over without asking whether Sean wanted it. "
Chapter 185: Dominic and Sicilia, Last Images
The letter arrived on prison stationery, the return address stamped rather than written, and Nate turned it over twice in his hands before he let himself open it, standing at the kitchen counter with the morning's coffee gone cold beside him the way it always went cold lately, nobody in this apartment ever quite finishing a cup before the next thing needed doing. He recognized the handwriting before he'd read a single line of it. Careful, looping, the particular practiced neatness of a man who'd spent his whole life believing penmanship was one more small proof of superiority over people who'd never had the leisure to perfect it. “Nate ” “I don't expect a reply. I'm not sure I'd know what to do with one if it came. I've had a great deal of time in here to think about the shape of what happened to me, and I find I keep circling back to one particular morning the party, the recording, the sound of my own voice on every screen in Vienna before I'd even finished my coffee that day. I
Chapter 184: Frans's Inheritance
The apartment Robert's people found him was smaller than the one he'd given up the night he broke into his father's study, three rooms above a dry cleaner's in a part of the city Frans had driven through a hundred times without ever once considering he might live there. The radiator clanked when it ran. The window in the bedroom didn't quite close all the way, so a thin line of cold always found its way in along the sill, and Frans had taken to keeping a rolled towel there, the particular petty domesticity of a man who'd spent thirty-one years with staff to handle exactly this kind of problem and now had nobody but himself. He'd been living there eleven days when Robert's lawyer called to arrange the meeting. "Your uncle would like to see you," the lawyer said, a careful, neutral voice that gave away nothing about what waited on the other end of the arrangement. "There are matters concerning the estate that require your presence, given your father's passing." "Which matters." "I'
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