The Group Chat

Jove Latimer is a very powerful, wealthy, not to mention, very influential man so if he was hiding a skeleton in his closet, he must have paid a huge amount of money to hire people to make sure that his closet is sealed and no secrets will come out in the public.

Jove Latimer is a business magnate who owns multiple companies. He owns a pharmaceutical company, a hospital, a tech company, a real estate company, and hotel and restaurant chains. But he was best known as a philanthropist. His face was always seen in the news and on the internet because of his philanthropic acts.

He founded his own charity foundation that focuses on providing healthcare, housing, and education for the poor. Yearly, he was donating a huge amount of money from his investments to his foundation. He was also known for various charity events to raise funds for the foundation such as auctions, art exhibits, gala, and concerts.

To the public's eyes, Jove Latimer is a saint…a savior…an angel. For years, he had managed to make a picture of himself that would make it hard for people to think that there is a bad cell in his body.

And now, Olivia was wondering if there were any.

But then, when she looked at it, Jove Latimer had a perfect image. Too perfect in fact that Olivia started to become suspicious of him. And she doesn't blame it if Bardwell was suspicious of him as well. Bardwell is even more distrustful than her.

Olivia sighed and closed her laptop because the internet only shows the good in Jove Latimer. Not even a word about him was published to make people suspicious of him. She leaned on her chair and closed her eyes for a while.

When she opened her eyes again, she remembered the piece of paper that Bardwell gave her. She reached out for her bag and searched for the piece of paper that she grumpily put in there because she was disheartened that she could not work on her vigilante theory but instead was given an almost impossible task.

Finally, she found the piece of paper where there were a couple of names written on it. She hastily grabbed her phone from the desk as well as her bag. Then she put the piece of paper in her pocket and left her desk.

Meanwhile, Matthew sat in his office as he worked on a new strategy to transport historical artifacts from a museum to its new house without the people knowing or noticing. Aside from providing combat forces to the government and private sectors where they could launch hundreds of soldiers equipped with powerful weapons and vehicles.

The private army company where Matthew was working as one of its strategists also provides protection forces not only to the government and its subsidiaries but to private individuals and organizations as well.

Just recently, they got a contract to provide security services to the country's national museum. They were going to transport important and historical artifacts that could probably cost millions if not billions to its new location. And they need to transport it without making people aware that it was being transported.

Matthew was working on a strategy to make it happen.

Matthew was not the only strategist in their company but he was among the team that was assigned to draw up strategies for protection and security. Though he could draw up a combat strategy he was more knowledgeable in protection and security.

A different team of strategists is assigned for combat strategy. The same goes for training.

Matthew has been in his momentum for the last six hours now that it is starting to fade off. Until his thoughts drifted to his girlfriend. He loves Olivia with every fiber in his cell. He would give anything and everything for her but most of the time, her inquisitiveness and stubbornness that would definitely bring her trouble made him want to just imprison her in his bedroom and never let her out.

He had probably drawn out the best protection strategy he could come up with for Olivia but sometimes, with the way she was deliberately chasing troubles, he worried that it was not enough. Despite his having control of Olivia's security, there has always been an element of uncertainty.

One could never tell if the people she was associating with, the people around her, or the people who were talking to her with smiles on their faces were not a threat to Olivia's safety. One could never really tell.

Matthew could only sigh in relief once one of the security details he assigned to protect Olivia reported to him that Olivia was already home.

Others might only see Olivia as an ordinary person but with the kind of protection that Matthew placed on her, one would mistake her for royalty. Olivia has round-the-clock protection. Two during the day and one at night time. Not to mention Matthew who was also checking out on her once in a while.

Her details were discreetly armed with handguns, a radio, and a first aid kit. Matthew handpicked them from the senior agents of the private army company he was working for. They have years of experience and were trained in firearms and hand-to-hand combat, advanced driving, and emergency first aid. Aside from that, since Olivia's job requires her to be everywhere to gather information, her details were also trained in venue recce. They need to become familiar with the place where she is going as well as the people she is associating herself with.

But the challenge in their job was protecting Olivia without her noticing them. And they do that through disguise. One of them is a janitor on Olivia's office floor. While the others pretend to be random people that are present wherever Olivia is.

That seems to work because Olivia never once caught or suspected them.

Matthew leaned on his chair and sent one of her details a message just to check that she is safe. With the kind of people Olivia was trying to expose currently, danger could come at any time.

Just after his message was sent. A message from a group chat flashed on the screen. Upon seeing it, Matthew's face darkens. 'She asked me to meet her,' The message came from Megan. That means the person she was talking about was no doubt, Olivia.

Matthew sighed. He could only be thankful that Olivia was working with Megan instead of other police officers. That way, he would know what kind of trouble his girlfriend is trying to get herself into before she could tell him.

Matthew quickly typed a reply, 'Did she tell you why?'

'No. But I am just about to find out,' Megan replied back. Matthew understands that Megan was already on her way to meet Olivia.

Before Matthew could type a message. Someone had already sent a question. 'What has she been up to since this morning?' It came from Nic.

The members of their group chat include him, Nic, Mason, Daxon, Timothy, and Megan. Though they have a separate group chat that includes all of their friends, they needed another group chats for the kind of activity they were involved in.

Matthew deleted the message that he was constructing earlier to type a new message to answer Nic's question. 'She's still on to Latimer,' Matthew did what his conscience was telling him not to. He hacked Olivia's computer but only to find out what she was currently working on and nothing more. He would rather do it than let Timothy do it with the risk of invading more of Olivia's privacy. Though they had already done it.

For one, Matthew just wanted to know the development of Olivia's vigilante theory. If he found that she was getting close to them, he would be able to find a way to steer her away. Not that he doesn't want her to find out. But he prefers to tell her than her finding out on her own.

And two, he just wanted to know if Olivia was digging herself deeper into trouble. He wanted to know ahead of time what she had found out about Jove Latimer so he could take precautions if it turns out that Olivia was threading in a dangerous zone on her own.

'We need to find out what Bardwell found about Latimer,' Nic sent another message and though Matthew could not see him or hear him speak, he could already tell that he was wearing a grim expression on his face.

With them working together finding the dirtiest men and women in society, they know who among the people in the government or the elite society wears sheepskin when in fact they were rotten wolves on the inside.

They knew who were the dirtiest people in society but they only 'took care' of the chosen ones. Those whose victims were women and children.

So, they could not believe that Olivia's chief managed to get a whiff of dirt from Jove Latimer that they didn't.

'I can't believe Bardwell got something that we didn't,' Mason, who had just read the messages, said.

It was followed by Daxon who had been just silently reading, 'Her informant must probably be that good,'

If there would be anyone among them who was more pissed at the fact that Bardwell outdid them, it would be Timothy. They all see Timothy as a genius. It was as if he had ears and eyes in every corner of the city. No secrets would remain hidden as long as Timothy exists. Just how he managed to do that despite his hectic schedule at work, they do not know.

All they know is, that if there was a person who was more inquisitive than Olivia and Bardwell, that would be Timothy. He had that insatiable hunger for knowledge and skills that was never-ending.

'And ours is not?' Mason replied, talking about Timothy himself. They knew that Timothy was just silently reading their messages but he was not saying anything which they had expected. Timothy is someone who doesn't speak unless necessary.

Well, of course except when it was just him and Megan or the topic involved Megan.

'But one thing is certain though, we should steer clear of Bardwell. We should not let her suspect us,' Nic sent a message that they all thought was right. With Bardwell's level of inquisitiveness, it wouldn't take long for her to make up her own vigilante theory. And knowing her, she would suspect anyone that her eyes landed upon.

They cannot risk Bardwell's eyes landing on them.

'If only I could do something to stop Liv from working with that woman,' Matthew said. He knew that Olivia worked hard to get into the position she was in right now. And though Olivia doesn't like Bardwell, she respects her and looks up to her because of Bardwell's work history.

'We could use some more of her in our department,' Megan said. She was driving earlier which is why she wasn't able to reply to their messages. But as soon as she reached the location where Olivia asked to meet her, she picked up her phone and read their conversation before she walked out of her car to meet Olivia.

Matthew groaned internally. Being a journalist was dangerous enough especially when you were working with dangerous people but Megan's line of job is in another category of a dangerous job. There is no way Matthew will let Olivia leave her current job, which she loves, by the way, only to become a police officer.

'No thank you but I still prefer her to be my personal assistant,' Matthew replied.

'You mean maid,' Mason mocked him.

'Fuck off,'

'Speaking of maids. Daxon, have you found one?' Nic suddenly changed the topic since it seems like they would have to wait until Megan had already talked to Olivia for them to know what Olivia needs from her.

'Yeah, the agency sent her yesterday,' Came Daxon's disinterested reply. Though they could not see him, they could already tell how pissed he was.

'Is she beautiful? Is she good?' As expected from a playboy, that was the first question that Mason asked.

'Yeah, for a fifty-year-old woman. She is considerably beautiful. But having raised ten of her children, she seemed to be obsessed with it and thought that I was one of her children,' Daxon sent them a message which was followed by a series of laughter emojis.

Then Daxon started to rant. 'She cannot stop giving me lectures while picking up my things and placing them in a bin that she called the organizer. Who the fuck calls a bin an organizer?'