Never Judge

"Sir." A maid said again as she knocked on the door.

"Who is it this time?" Cedric asked angrily.

​​

"Sir, the Chan siblings, Mr. Alexander Sebastian, and a Miss Selina Ramirez." The maid said as she shrunk back.

"Send them in then." Cedric said with a sigh. 

"Why are you and your siblings all suddenly coming over?" Cedric asked Katerina and Eric.

"I honestly have no idea." Eric said with a shrug. "Would you know Katerina?" Eric asked as he turned to look at his girlfriend. 

Katerina did not respond and continued to look down at her feet.

"Katerina, what do you know?" Cedric asked in an angry tone. He rarely got mad at his friends so they were quite surprised to hear him like this.

"It\'s not my place to say and I\'m not even sure about the details Cedric." Katerina said with a frown.

"Wait, shouldn\'t you be at Pris Mall with my mom, wife, and sister?" Cedric asked as he looked at Katerina.

"What? No." Katerina said, shaking her head. "They said it was girl bonding time for the Reyes women."

"Cedric, you have a lot of people watching over them. They will be safe." Ace told his cousin. 

For a moment Cedric forgot that Ace was sitting on the couch. 

"Wow, so many guests." Alexi said as he entered with Selina in his arm.

"I see that the rumors are true." Calathea said as she spotted Selina and Alexi together. 

"Shouldn\'t you be with that mysterious boyfriend of yours Calathea?" Alexi hissed. He didn\'t like Calathea since she had tried to hurt his sister on multiple occasions. 

"My ex-boyfriend." Calathea said, correcting Alexi.

"I knew no man could stand you." Alexi said with a laugh.

"Oh, that\'s rich. Coming from you." Calathea said with a knowing smile.

Alexi just gave her a puzzled look and pulled Selina to one of the vacant couches. Nicole and Miguel entered after him greeting everyone as they arrived.

"Who wants to go first?" Cedric asked as he stood by his desk and leaned against it.

"I will then." Ace said with a shrug as he pulled out an envelope from his bag. "You asked me to find Calathea\'s boyfriend, that\'s him." 

"Why are you stalking my ex?" Calathea asked. 

"I need to know about MT Summit and your boyfriend is the only one that can tell me about it." Cedric said as he pulled out the photo from the envelope.

"Oh that shell company of his?" Calathea asked, making Cedric look at her.

"His shell company?" Cedric said as he threw her a glare.

"Yeah, he uses it to cover up some things." Calathea told Cedric.

"This is impossible." Cedric said as he stared at the photo Ace had given him. "This can\'t be him Ace. I know this person."

"What? Who is it?" Alexi said as he tried to take a look at the image in Cedric\'s hands.

"Ask her." Ace said as he pointed at Calathea.

"Calathea, is this your ex-boyfriend?" Cedric asked as he showed everyone the familiar face in the photo.

"Yes, that\'s him." Calathea said with a nod. "Why were you looking him up?"

"His company was involved in the death of a friend." Cedric explained as he glared at Calathea. "At first I simply wanted to know who he sold MT Summit to, but now, it seems he might be responsible for the deaths."

"Well, then you\'re gonna wanna sit down for this." Eric said as he looked at Katerina, who had a deep frown.

Cedric looked at Eric and sat behind his desk.

"Spill." Cedric said in an intimidating tone.

"Please understand that I had no idea." Calathea pleaded. "I came over thinking the only people  he had hurt were Selina and Alexi, I didn\'t think he had gone even further."

Cedric simply nodded, acknowledging that Calathea was not involved in the man\'s actions.

"Jen was never with Alexi." Calathea said. "She has always been his boyfriend. He approached my family with one goal in mind. To ruin the people who had ruined his own family."

"Aside from the Sebastians, who has he been after?" Cedric asked Calathea. "And how sure are you about what you know?" Cedric questioned.

"For two years he has been going around, posing to be my boyfriend and the CEO of Regis Inc., but we met him way before that." Calathea explained. "We met him in Milan, my dad was taking a break from work and visiting us when he caught my father\'s eye, and clearly mine as well."

Cedric was not amused that this person had shown up years ago and no one noticed. There were so many crumbs lying around that could lead them to him and yet they didn\'t see it.

"Continue." Cedric said as he noticed Calathea had stopped speaking. 

"I thought he was a good man at first." Calathea confessed. "We dated and eventually became a couple, unfortunately it seems that he only dated me to keep his position." Calathea said with a scoff.

"Last night, he didn\'t know that I wanted to surprise him." She said with a frown. "So I hid in one of his closets. I was about to step out when I realized that I was hearing the familiar clicking of heels. At first I wanted to jump out and tear the woman apart, but I was frozen in place, I got lucky that I was. I overheard everything."

"You spent the night in a closet?" Katerina asked Calathea. Cedric was surprised that Katerina was now worried about her former rival.

Calathea simply nodded to answer Katerina\'s question.

"Go on." Cedric said with a nod as his expression softened.

"According to them, he and Jen planned everything from the start. They wanted Alexi to fall for her and to fall for her hard." Calathea explained. "Then they would drag his name through the mud with cheating scandals and eventually killing him. As for the Laurence family -"

"He was after the Laurences too?" Cedric asked, cutting Calathea mid sentence. 

"Yes, the Sebastian, Laurence, and Lim families." Calathea confirmed. "Although I don\'t know the Lims."

"Ian." Nicole said as she turned pale with worry.

"Why would Aiden Ortiz want to go after the Lim family?" Alexi asked as he looked at the photo on the table.