Never Judge

"Good, you never know who is listening." Seth, Ian's connection with the mafia, told them.

"Did you find anything on the company I sent you?" Ian asked in an eager tone as he leaned forward from his seat. 

Cedric could feel how anxious Ian was for a positive answer. Clearly this was his assistant maximizing his connections.

"I did, and I can already tell you, they are bad news." Seth said over the phone.

"Bad news with you guys is usually worse than normal." Ian said with a frown as he scratched his chin. "Tell us." He urged his friend.

"The company name you sent me was newly registered, right? That's why you had a hard time finding things about them." Seth said over the phone.

"Yeah, Sapphire Mining is only a year old." Ian said with a nod.

Cedric had decided that it was best for all of them if Ian, and only Ian spoke for the duration of the call.

"That's because they've changed their company name, location, and even board of directors ten times over the past five years." Seth explained. "As a matter of fact Sapphire Mining is the longest, shall we say, version of this company."

"Why would they do that?" Ian asked. "They have to be hiding something, something illegal?" 

"Definitely illegal." Seth confirmed.

"Any connection between them and the Baron family in this province?" Ian asked as he quickly tried to connect the dots.

"Not just the Baron family." Seth said, catching Cedric by surprise. It seemed that Sapphire Mining was larger than he expected. 

"How big is this Sapphire Mining?" Ian asked as he took a big gulp of his coffee, burning his tongue, making him yelp in surprise.

"You alright there, buddy?" Seth asked as he heard Ian's reaction.

"Yeah, yeah, just burned myself with this fucking drink." Ian cussed.

"Ha, I was waiting for that potty mouth of yours. You have changed, Ian." Seth said with a laugh.

"I grew up." Ian said with a laugh as he recalled his careless days when he would hang out with Seth and his people. "Let's get on with this, please." Ian told the man at the other end of the phone. 

Ian could see Cedric getting impatient from the corner of his eye. Everyone was quite eager to find out what else they could learn about Sapphire Mining.

"Sapphire Mining operates within many provinces." Seth began to explain. "And it seems like they are working with different political families."

"How?" Ian asked.

"I was getting to it." Seth grumbled as his friend had cut him off, mid-speech. "They would often purchase a low valued property, make it seem like it had a huge potential. Then when a local businessman or a big business spotted the property price they would become interested in it."

Cedric sighed as he realized that someone wanting to purchase a piece of prized property was now just standard operating procedure to Mayor Baron and his family.

"So they get the local businessman to bribe them just to get the property?" Ian asked.

"It's more than just a bribe." Seth said in a grim tone. "They get the businessman to pay a lot for a piece of property that really has no value, then they record him asking for it."

"They did a similar thing to us." Ian said as he nodded and looked at Cedric.

"Who did they catch on tape?" Seth asked as a tone of worry carried across the call.

"Did they get anything, Ced?" Ian asked as he turned to look at Cedric.

"What?!" Seth suddenly shouted in surprise over the call. "You allowed them to speak directly to the CEO of the Reyes Group? The richest and possibly the most powerful man in the country? You let him walk into their trap!?" Seth was clearly fuming as he thought Ian had made such a big mistake.

"He is here, you know." Ian said as he rolled his eyes.

"Mr. Reyes, I'm sorry, but Ian should never have let you walk into that room." Seth said in an apologetic tone. 

"Don't worry, it's fine." Cedric said in a calm tone as he allowed Ian to explain for him.

"Cedric didn't exactly go in there naive and clueless." Ian said with a sigh as he was disappointed that his friend would think so lowly of him. "We already knew that something illegal was going on. And we expected them to record the whole conversation."

"So Mr. Reyes did not agree to bribing them?" Seth asked.

"Cedric didn't even want the property in the first place. We just wanted to know who was behind the displacement of several families. Plus we needed an excuse for being in that area." Ian explained.

"Does it have something to do with the nurse or with the Ting guy?" Seth asked. Ian was also asking him to help in investigating Fernando's past as well as Lucius' activities.

"It may, we don't know for certain. But it was the nurse's family that we had gone to visit." Ian told Seth.

"So what did you say to the mayor?" Seth asked as he tried to decipher if it could be used against Cedric or not.

"I told him I would think about it." Cedric said in a casual tone.

"And we also recorded the whole event, in case he tries to blackmail us." Ian added.

"He went as far as insinuating that the Sebastian family was corrupt, something he should not have done." Cedric said as he recalled the conversation.

"That will hurt him a lot. Especially since the Sebastians are related to, him." Seth said. 

Among those who worked in the mafia or the gangs, just mentioning Ray's position or name was not normal.

The name brought on terror and fear among all those in the underworld. 

What surprised Cedric was the fact that Seth knew who Ray was and how he was related to the Sebastian family. It meant that Ian's connection in the mafia was pretty high up. He wasn't some lowly hitman, he was someone.

"Is that all you have on them?" Ian asked.

"No, there is one more thing. Guess who is involved with Sapphire Mining's many past versions?" Seth asked over the phone.

"Don't tell me?" Ian said as his eyes went wide with shock.

"Yes, a little politician and his family, who just so happened to help one Aiden Ortiz." Seth said, shocking everyone.

"And he just so happens to be in one of my cages." Seth added.