William Borlinghathen

"There is a price for everything in this city. You just have to find out what it is. I'm a Borlinghathen by relation, not by blood, but I still know."

- William to Lopez

William "Bill" Borlinghathen (former William Townswell) is a character who appears as one of the main antagonists in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's Serbian (BC), along with his relatives, Eric Borlinghathen and Vance Borlinghathen.

Bill Borlinghathen is an extremely wealthy, powerful crime lord operating across the Adriatic Sea (either Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro or Albania) and Liberty City, New York until he was deported.

Biography
William was born on 6 September, 1958, and as a child, he was in a wrestling academy, where his coach apparently made him take steroids.

Will later emigrated to New York and began his criminal life. In 1989, at age 31, he was arrested for receiving an entire ship full of Albanian sex slaves. Sometime after, he continued human trafficking across the Adriatic sea, where he also lived in a large mansion on the waterfront.

In 2008, he married Jessie Borlinghathen, changed his name to Borlinghathen, and lived an even wealthier life than before due to having connections to the powerful Borlinghathen clan.

Sometime later, he employed Niko Bellic as a people trafficker, with Niko smuggling people into Italy from Eastern Europe, until one of the ships Niko was on sank, and Niko was forced to abandon it and its cargo and swim to safety. Will blamed Niko for the loss, and sought to hunt him down. Niko joined the merchant navy to escape Borlinghathen's influence within Europe, and spent seven months on the Platypus boat before escaping to NY.

GTA
In February, 2017 or sometime before, William returned with his wife to Liberty City to expand his business interests, and met up with his old friend and brother-in-law Eric Borlinghathen. Eric offered Niko, who was working for him by chance, to William without hesitation, but Niko escaped the ambush and Billy still insisted on tracking him down, with his brother's help.

William is later interested in buying the Liberty City Rampage hockey team from Marki Ashvilli, as well as the Maisonette 91 nightclub from Anthony Prince. More about his personal lifestyle is also shown - he owns an Oracle, a blue Landstalker (which he sacrifices to kill a crooked NOOSE team on his case) and a black Marbelle. In his spare time he enjoys playing rock music with his bodyguards or fellow Borlinghathens. He also has very impressive collections of arcade machines, sports and rock memorabilia and even fine art. Borlinghathen believes everything has a price, going so far as to try to hire a woman at Maisonette 91 as a prostitute for the night. William hired Luis Lopez to assist him with the hockey team acquisition by first eliminating some crooked NOOSE members. Eventually, William and Ashvilli have an argument, and Luis must kill the team owner in a hectic ambush.

Eventually, Borlinghathen discovers that Tony and Luis had obtained the diamonds that were stolen from him by a cook (after Luis and Tony originally failed to buy them from him), which made him turn against Luis. In the mission during which he betrays Luis, he clearly had an upset tone with Luis; he then sent him to a roof top of an abandoned building to "help the cook". When he got there, he lead Luis to a box on that rooftop that had the cook's severed head on it. Suddenly, a massive ambush of snipers, shooters, rooftop gunmen, cars of gunman and even a helicopter presents itself to Luis; but, roughly, he escapes, barely alive.

Later, Gracie McReary is kidnapped. After Luis Lopez locates her, Paul Fortunato, Gracie's boyfriend, coerces Luis and Tony to exchange the diamonds for her life. Borlinghathen finds Niko and Luis representing opposing parties and orders his men to fire. Borlinghathen failed again, as both Niko and Luis escaped and his diamonds were lost for good when one of his men threw the diamonds into a truck when confronted by Niko.

Paul Fortunato later sends Francois and Rayce Flaubert to tell Luis that he must either kill Gay Tony and become partners with Francois and Rayce, or else he and Tony will both be killed. After killing Francois, Luis fends off the pursuing hitmen. At this time Borlinghathen — claims the heroin from him.

During the mission "Departure Time", Luis destroys the heroin shipment and kills Borlinghathen's gunmen, including Timur, which is being stored at Funland. Later, after receiving help from Abnri Amir, Luis is able to jump aboard Borlinghathen's plane, which he is using to flee the country. Borlinghathen demands Luis not kill him (as he is holding a grenade that will explode any second now... any second now.). Luis kills Borlinghathen, but the activated grenade just explodes, causing the plane to explode in mid-air, and Luis dies in the plane along with Borlinghathen for not jumping out in time.

A week later, Borlinghathen's brother-in-law, Eric, was killed by Nikolai Bellic.