Never Judge

"We're back." Ayanna called out as soon as she entered the door to her brother's home. 

She knew that her brother and the others would be quite worried about them. Their trip to the Chan Family home took longer than expected. 

It seemed that the old man was trying his best to get back in the good graces of the Reyes family, which Ayanna found amusing. His son and grandchildren were already good friends of the Reyes family, there was no need for him to try so hard.

"What took you so long?" Ian asked as he marched out of Cedric's office ahead of everyone else. 

He quickly made his way to Nicole, who was standing right behind Ayanna. He picked her up and held her tightly in his arms.

Cedric, who had just stepped out of the office, laughed as his friend held Nicole in his arms.

"You do know that she just went to her parents' place, right?" Cedric asked.

"I do, but it's also not the safest place at the moment." Ian said as he released Nicole from his hold. The young doctor, in turn, rolled her eyes at him, making everyone laugh along with Cedric.

"I went to my parents' house, the place I grew up in with my security team and Cedric's security team. I'm pretty sure if anyone wanted to harm me they would be captured or dead before even making it close to the house." Nicole pointed out.

"You can't blame me for worrying." Ian said as he tried to defend his actions. "We are in dangerous times, we don't know who we can trust right now." 

Cedric frowned at Ian's words, he was right, of course. Things were more dangerous than ever, especially after what happened to Julia.

"How was your trip?" Cedric asked as he gestured for everyone to take a seat in the living room as he waved a maid over to get them some drinks.

"You can go home if you want, Marco." Cedric said as he noticed Marco following them. He knew that he couldn't ask too much of his father's old assistant. Even if Marco was younger than his father, the old assistant was not young either.

"I think I'll stay." Marco said as he found himself a spot in the living room. 

"Aren't you sleepy yet old man?" Ian teased earning him a glare from Nicole.

"It's fine, Nicole." Marco said with a laugh as he shook his head. "I missed that idiot too."

"So, what happened?" Cedric asked as he shifted the conversation back on topic. He knew that if he let Ian's and Marco's banter continue things would get out of hand.

"Right, right." Ayanna said with a nod as she pulled her attention away from the bickering men. "As you all know we went over in the guise of visiting Nicole's parents. Our excuse for being together was that Veronica wanted to visit her in-laws while I was already with them and just got dragged along."

"Honestly, that has happened so many times that they wouldn't believe it if we showed up without either Nicole, Katerina, or Natalia." Veronica added as she laughed at their situation.

"Where is Katerina, by the way?" Nicole asked Cedric. "Knowing you, she's already running a side of your plan that we don't know."

"Everyone is helping out, and everyone has their roles. She's making sure everything is nice and clean." Cedric said with a grin as he thought of how their plan would end.

"Pretty sure whatever she's doing involves my brother too." Nicole said with a cheeky grin.

"That is just gross." A voice said as Alexi entered Cedric's home. "I do not want to think of my sister with your brother." 

Nicole laughed so hard that Ian had to catch her from falling over, Alexi's timing was perfect as he made his way to the living room to join them.

"Why are you guys having secret meetings out in the open?" Alexi asked. "What if someone walked in and overheard you?"

"First of all, Alexi, no one will be able to even enter this compound without my permission." Cedric said as he signalled a maid to ask Alexi what drink he wanted. "And secondly, we didn't say anything that everyone doesn't already know or cannot be trusted with."

"Fine." Alexi said as he rolled his eyes. "I have the documents you need." He told Cedric as he handed a thick envelope over.

"Perfect." Cedric said with a grin as he took a quick look at the contents.

"Is that what I think it is?" Ian asked Cedric as he tried to get a glimpse of the documents inside. 

"Of course." Cedric said with a nod as he handed the envelope to Ian. "Well these are what you needed, so knock yourself out."

"With pleasure." Ian said with a grin as he placed the brown envelope on his lap, guarding it with his life.

"As you were saying, Ayanna?" Cedric said as he asked his sister to continue.

"Right." She said with a nod. "At first they found it odd that Mien was with us, but I just said he was a trusted employee of yours that you just shared with me. So they let him stay and didn't question his presence after."

"We wanted to get straight to business and ask my parents who could possibly want to get rid of our line in the Chan family, but one of our more annoying uncles arrived." Nicole said with a frown.

"Which one?" Cedric asked, he was quite well acquainted with the members of the Chan extended family having spent many days and nights over at the old mansion. Growing up they were introduced to many of Eric's, Miguel's, and Nicole's aunts and uncles, most of whom were eager to get their own children to interact with the group.

"Uncle Jordan, he wasn't around often when we were growing up." Nicole explained. "Both him and Uncle Colton spent their younger years abroad. They were younger than dad and much less responsible."

"So did you find anything out from your parents and grandfather?" Ian asked Nicole as he held her and and played with her fingers, it was clear that he was anxious for news.

"We did." Nicole said with a nod. "According to grandpa when we were younger, a lot of people were already opposed to dad inheriting."

"That's odd." Alexi said as he became more invested in the conversation. "Why would they be against the first born son, who is in all aspects capable of managing the family business, inherit? It doesn't sound like the Chan family."

"They said it was because my dad was too soft." Nicole said with a frown. "They still think that, but there is no way for them to contradict him since most of the shares are now ours or with our friends and family."

"So who was it? Who was against your father inheriting?" Ian asked.

"Grandpa said it was some small branch in our family that had managed to marry into another fortune." Nicole explained. "They are called the Chan-Wang branch. They normally had no opinion about who would inherit but they married a family that owned some shares in Saints hospital."

"And do we know where they are now? Or at least who the members are?" Cedric asked.

"That's the thing." Nicole said as he bit her lower lip and frowned. "The members of the Chan-Wang branch vanished after Miguel was born. Grandpa said that over the years their shares got sold and some of them were the ones we purchased."

"Family branches don't just vanish." Alexi pointed out. "That's very suspicious."

"Don't you think I know that?" Nicole asked as she rolled her eyes at Alexi. "I'm not stupid Alexi."

"Nicole, calm down, I didn't mean to offend you." Alexi said as he was shocked by Nicole's reaction.

"Sorry, pregnancy hormones." Nicole said as she apologized to Alexi. Under normal circumstances she would never snap that way at someone she considered to be like another brother.

Ian gently wrapped his arms around Nicole in an attempt to calm her. He had been on the receiving end of much of her mood swings lately and Nicole felt bad for hurting the man she loved so many times.

"I'm assuming you did some investigating on what happened." Cedric said knowing that the girls wouldn't pass up a lead like this.

"We haven't got anything concrete, but from what we know that branch of the family possibly lost all of their wealth, the reason why they needed to sell the shares they had." Veronica said as she spoke for Nicole. 

"We've also sent people to investigate, maybe figure out who they were working with. But for matters that are closer to family, I doubt they will find much." Ayanna said with a frown. "The best resource for that would still be grandpa Chan."

"I wonder if our grandparents remember anything about that time." Cedric said as he considered the possibility.

"The parents might recall something too, it won't hurt to ask." Alexi added. 

"Do you mind helping us with this?" Cedric asked Alexi.

However, before Alexi could answer, Marco suddenly began to laugh as if someone had told a funny joke.

Everyone turned to him and gave him a confused look.

When he realized that everyone was looking at him, Marco smiled at them.

"I might know who the Chan-Wang branch members are, and they might be in my files. I was just too slow to realize who you kids were talking about.." Marco said proudly.