Never Judge

"Adrianna, I know you are in love with my brother, but he is being selfish by doing this." Ayanna said in a concerned voice.

"Cedric hasn\'t abandoned me or his children." Adrianna said, shaking her head. "He visits Mae everyday to tell her what to do and to check up on me." Adrianna revealed, shocking everyone.

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"You knew?" Ian asked with a chuckle.

"It wasn\'t difficult to figure out." Adrianna said with a shrug as she leaned back against the seat. 

This was another thing Cedric had arranged for her. When he found out she was pregnant he had asked Mae to swap out his old chair for something more comfortable.

"The Mia story?" Ian asked with a raised eyebrow and a gin.

Adrianna simply nodded in response. "I knew Mia the best, and I picked up on it." 

"So you knew everything this whole time?" Veronica asked in an annoyed tone. "That\'s very stupid and irresponsible of you Adrianna."

"All Cedric needs is time. Time to cope with his emotions and to gather himself. He can\'t do that with everyone breathing down his neck." Adrianna said with a shrug.

"So you give him his so-called space and you risk yourself and your unborn child?" Katerina asked angrily. 

"I\'ve never been risking anything Katerina." Adrianna said as she looked at the woman directly in the eyes. "Cedric has always sent the Chan siblings to look after me, yes Nicole. I know that you and Eric have been hiding Cedric." 

Nicole stared at Adrianna, wide eyed in shock.

"You were hiding him and you didn\'t tell me?!" Miguel angrily asked his siblings.

"You have no control or say in the psych ward, it was of no interest to you." Eric said with a shrug.

"Don\'t play blameless and cool and calm now Eric!" Miguel said angrily. "You knew that Cedric was needed here! And still you hid him!"

"His mental well being is also important Miguel!" Eric answered back, shouting at Miguel for the first time. 

"I can\'t believe you Eric!" Miguel fired back. 

"You claim to be a doctor Miguel, why can\'t you understand that a person needs both physical and psychological healing?" Eric asked as he tried to calm himself down. "Cedric has been through so much trauma that this one week has been way too short."

"It\'s been way too long too!" Miguel scolded his brother. "Don\'t play a fool Eric, you know just as I do, how much this company and the country\'s economy depends on him."

"And don\'t you think that is too much for a man who has just lost his mother, a man who lost his friend, a man who ended up shooting another?" Eric asked everyone in the room. "How many of you even noticed that Cedric was beating himself up over all of the deaths."

"All of the deaths?" Ray asked, unsure as to what Eric meant.

They knew that Cedric was hurt by Jam\'s death. They knew he blamed himself for Prisiclla Reyes\' death and Mia\'s death. But Eric\'s statement of all deaths confused them.

"Yes, all!" Eric said, shaking his head. "Whether it was a friend or a foe Cedric blamed himself, he thought that if he could have protected everyone better then there should have been no bloodshed. Had he realized sooner that Aiden was the one behind everything, then Mia wouldn\'t have to die, his mom wouldn\'t have had to die."

"But we\'ve told him time and again that it didn\'t matter, he couldn\'t have done anything. No one blames him." Ayanna said in a sad voice.

"Did any of you know that the moment Aiden had died, Cedric started to feel bad?" Eric asked, surprising almost everyone.

Eric noticed Adrianna and Ian frown, clearly they both had known.

"Cedric felt he was taking away from Aiden the chance to change, to be better." Eric said, shaking his head. "He thought he had taken for Camilla and Benedict and their Grandfather."

"It was eating him up when we got back." Ian suddenly said.

"You weren\'t there much." Ray said as he looked up at Ian. "How did you know?"

"I visited a few times." Ian said with a shrug. "Cedric sometimes lowers his guard around me. I guess it\'s because we spend too much time around each other for work."

"I\'m his brother-in-law, one of his best friends, why didn\'t he tell me too?" Ray asked, the regret visible in his eyes. 

"He didn\'t want to bother you." Adrianna suddenly spoke up. "In public, Cedric is a strong man, what everyone expects a CEO to be. He didn\'t want to bother you with something he thought was merely an image thing."

Ray frowned and sighed. 

"You aren\'t to blame either Ray." Ian said, shaking his head. "He slipped around me. He didn\'t want any of us to know."

Ray sighed and frowned.

"Cedric also blamed this whole mess with Aiden for the deaths of Aiden\'s men and his own." Eric told everyone. "Those people were still someone\'s brother, father, son. They were still lost and their families could not mourn them."

"Their bodies were returned." Ray hissed. "But, even so, Cedric shouldn\'t blame himself. No one is blaming him."

"Cedric needs time to heal." Eric explained. "Give him that time."

"And it\'s not like he completely abandoned me." Adrianna said with a smirk as she typed something on to her laptop.

"What do you mean Adri?" Ayanna asked. 

Adrianna turned her laptop screen. Everyone could see an image of the CEOs office, clearly empty with stacks of documents and Adrianna\'s laptop on the table.

"Cedric, pretended to be a janitor at the Reyes Group." Adrianna said as she pressed play.

The screen came to life as a man in a janitor\'s uniform snuck into the CEO\'s office, from the angle they couldn\'t tell if it was Cedric. 

The man took a seat and powered on the laptop, he began to type and he sorted out the documents. He also labeled them, clearly giving Adrianna guidance on what to do.

"It could be someone trying to steal company secrets Adri!" Veronica said as a look of worry crossed her face.

Adrianna smiled and shook her head. She turned the laptop to face her once more and opened another file.

When she showed it to them it seemed to be the same video, but the angle was different.

Here they could clearly see Cedric\'s face as he worked to clear out Adrianna\'s remaining workload. 

"How did he slip from your investigation?" Ray asked as he looked at Ian.

He knew that Ian was looking at the employee files trying to figure out if Cedric was hiding at the Reyes Group.

Ian grinned and laughed.

"You\'ll call all of us stupid." Ian teased.

"What is it?" Alexi asked Ian in an impatient tone.

"Cedric outsmarted us, again." Ian said with a shrug. "He used his name, I didn\'t think he would and come on guys Cedric Reyes is not exactly a unique name."

"And no one realized it was him?" Alexi asked with a raised eyebrow.

"There were a few." A familiar voice said as the door to the CEO\'s office opened.

"Well, nice of you to return." Alexi teased as Cedric entered, looking like his old self.

"It\'s good to be back." Cedric said with a playful smile.