Is this destiny?

Elanor was super-excited to see the printouts from the ultrasound and she squealed in excitement when JoAnna told her that she can keep them.

JoAnna had to stand up and tighten the t-shirt around her belly to show the bump which is now visible. OK, not really-really visible because it actually looks like she ate too much junk food and got bloated.

"They are about the size of lemons…", JoAnna said while rubbing her belly. "Ah, my bridesmaid dress for Ellie's wedding will need to be altered."

They spoke until late in the afternoon and JoAnna offered everyone to stay for dinner.

"Is Sophia going to join?", Elanor asked with sparkles in her eyes. "If she is coming, can she bring Lia?"

"Sophia is not feeling well.", Sarah responded.

Elanor was concerned. "Is she sick? We should go and visit her."

Sarah and JoAnna exchanged glances. Sophia said not to tell people that she is pregnant, but Elanor is right there, and wants to go and visit her, and Sarah saw a smile creep on JoAnna's face and…

"She is pregnant.", it burst out of JoAnna.

"What?" Elanor was unable to hide her surprise. "So quickly? I mean… great!"

During dinner, the women chatted about weddings and pregnancies. Elanor was telling them about her experiences when she was pregnant.

Aiden fiddled with his phone between bites while holding Sarah's hand under the table, and Jeff and Oscar ate in silence.

When desserts were served, Oscar realized that he is running out of time. He spoke to Jeff: "I know that it might be out of line for me to ask but... do you mind sharing with me what you faced because of Marcus?"

Elanor saw that Jeff is not responding, probably thinking about refusing Oscar's request, so she added: "You kept us out of it. Of course, some information reached our ears. However, we would like to hear from you: what you faced, how you dealt with it and what is the outcome. We are not asking you to give us all the details but knowing more about what happened will help us understand the situation and give us a closure."

Jeff glanced at Aiden, JoAnna and Sarah and saw that all of them gave him a silent approval.

Jeff took a deep breath before responding: "Alright. Let's move to the study…"

When all of them got into the study, Jeff closed the door and summarized how they knew that Marcus is planning to attack shortly after the inauguration, and they monitored his communications, identified people he is colluding with, and then monitored their calls and emails as well.

"Thanks to that, we had a comprehensive list of people who are assisting Marcus… When the attacks started, we had a base in my office in White corp. HQ from where we monitored the situation and decided on next steps… Aiden was navigating forces to guard assets of the White foundation, and Sarah intercepted attacks on White corp."

Jeff didn't mention the army of Chaos, but Elanor wanted to clarify: "You used the army of Chaos?"

Sarah smiled in response.

"Are you interested to hear more or not?", Jeff grumbled.

"Sorry, sorry... please continue.", Elanor responded.

Jeff continued by explaining who all was there and their role, mentioning that they used technology developed by Felix and that Sophia handled the legal issues. Last, but not least, he said that JoAnna (and her concoctions) had an important role in interrogating traitors (and suspected traitors).

Oscar was surprised to hear that Jasper, Charlie and Steve (the Long family) provided their assistance because they are not associated with the White foundation. It told him that those are Jeff's connections who offered their help because of… friendship? Oscar never relied on an invisible thing such as friendship.

"You trust them?", Oscar had to ask. "How do you know that they will not turn against you if they get a better offer?"

Jeff snorted. "What kind of a logic is that? Do you think that holding onto a property deed will guarantee their loyalty?"

Oscar lowered his head while thinking about Jeff's words. True, most of the people who turned against Jeff had interest in staying loyal to the Master of the White family. They risked losing their assets and their dirty secrets coming into light of the day by aligning themselves with Marcus, yet they still did it anyway.

"I see that you are changing the structure how the organization works.", Oscar commented.

"Yes. We are planning for everyone to show their loyalty one way or another. If they prove loyalty, we will return the deeds and other things from the vault in the White Mansion that we hold related to their family. If they fail, they will be destroyed."

"You will return everything?", Oscar had to confirm.

Jeff nodded. "I already started the process. Vincent Price stood by my side in this incident, and I returned him the deed for the property in New York where his family lives. I believe that rewarding loyalty and punishing treachery works better than holding onto a bunch of papers because in time, people forget what we have on them."

"You can just remind them what you have.", Oscar suggested.

Jeff smirked knowingly. "Isn't that declaring hostility? I want people to follow me because they respect me, and they believe that what we are doing is good for everyone. Not because their ancestors were threatened by mine. Also, if anything this incident proved is that if one person is loyal, that does not guarantee that his successor will be as well."

"How will you deal with the traitors?", Elanor asked Jeff.

"It depends on what they were scheming to do. But the general rule is to return the favor without allowing them to retaliate. And… the closer they are to me, the more severe the punishment will be." Jeff saw that Oscar wants more information, so he clarified: "Christopher Fredrickson. We confirmed that he was working with Marcus. We showed him that Marcus promised him benefits he can't deliver and left him to think about it."

"You showed a person who turned his back on you that he did it for nothing.", Elanor summarized. "And then you took over their family business and took care of Christopher as well.", Oscar continued Elanor's thoughts.

Jeff gave a small nod of confirmation.

Now that Jeff mentioned Christopher, Oscar remembered that one more boy from that group is in an unfortunate situation. "What about Bradley Hanks?"

JoAnna responded: "We know that he turned his back on Jeff because he was jealous how Jeff has the power and money and me, while his parents didn't approve of Paige. We all agreed that using Paige against him is the most efficient method, especially because she was in it with Bradley."

Aiden continued: "We have them on record talking how their life will be better once Marcus is in Jeff's place… We manipulated some photos and videos to make it seem that Paige is cheating on him."

"Bradley is in jail because he killed her.", Elanor said.

"We didn't expect that he will kill her.", Sarah added. "We thought that he would break up with her, or maybe hit her in rage, but killing her was outside of our calculations considering that he has no history of violence and every time he was in a conflict he was submissive and took the easy way out."

Jeff looked gratefully at JoAnna, Aiden and Sarah for saying all this, confirming that they are by his side. After all, Paige is one casualty that they didn't expect, and they all know that Jeff feels guilty about it.

Jeff can see that his parents are not blaming him, but he had a need to explain: "The goal was to remove his motivation. Once Bradley loses Paige as his lover, we would destroy his family financially, and allow his family to take care of Bradley. If they are not strict enough with him, I would step in. However, now he is in jail for life, regretting his action while wondering if Paige cheated on him or not. The other man Bradley shot is recuperating well, and the White foundation is paying his hospital bills."

Elanor looked at four young people in the room and asked: "Do you regret any of it? If you could do it all over again, would you do anything differently?"

JoAnna saw suffering and death, and Sarah and Aiden have their share of blood on their hands also, but she knows that Jeff is used to office setting and negotiations and all this front-line conflict where someone he knows gets hurt (and killed) is affecting him.

JoAnna stood up next to Jeff and held his hand in hers while responding confidently: "My Jeff is a man who shares the praise while takes all the blame on him, and that is not fair to him, but that is the man he is. A true leader. We all did this together and if we can rewind and start over, we would not change a single thing. Because of Jeff's swift decision making, we were able to take corresponding actions and protect not only our positions but all the people who are loyal to us. We have no regrets."

Elanor and Oscar smiled in approval. Their kids are all grown up and have found their ways, with good women by their sides.

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