Never Judge

"I'm assuming you know how Aiden Ortiz managed to get my once very loyal Aaron Ting to turn against me." Tomas concluded. 

"I do, but I will need to make a deal with you for more information." Cedric insisted.

"What do you want?" Tomas asked as he was forced to agree to Cedric's terms.

"I will tell you everything I know and I will hand you Aaron Ting or Lucius Ting, I'll even give you a bonus by handing over his sister." Cedric informed Tomas.

"A sister, interesting." Tomas said as he began to think of who the woman could be.

"In exchange I want the following, I get to extract my revenge over Lucius first before I hand him over." Cedric said.

"Deal." Tomas quickly responded.

"I'm not done Tomas." Cedric said with a chuckle. "I want to use your resources to get him to fall into the trap I will set."

"Sure." Tomas said, quickly agreeing to the first term. "But I want him alive."

"Alive, yes, but I cannot guarantee his condition." Cedric explained.

"That will be fine with me." Tomas said, not seeming to care if Lucius was within an inch of his life.

"Second, everyone that I do not hand over to you will not be involved with whatever mess you have with Lucius." Cedric told Tomas.

"And what of those that helped him?" Tomas asked. "People must still pay."

"Some were possibly acting on my orders." Cedric informed him. "They were false aids."

"Alright. I will consult you first, but I expect you to help deliver those that are truly guilty." Tomas told Cedric as he reluctantly agreed to the second term.

"Third, he has a son by Julia, the child is innocent and should not suffer because of his father." 

"The child might come after us for revenge." Tomas pointed out as he indirectly refused.

"I can assure you that the child won't." Cedric insisted.

"You sound confident. What do you know about their child?" Tomas asked."You sound confident that he does not care about his father." 

"The boy was given away at a young age, too young to remember either parent." Cedric explained.

"He will look for his parents then." Tomas concluded. "It is normal for a child to want to find the man and woman that biologically brought him into this world."

"When the boy was found he was half dead, malnourished, sickly, and abused." Cedric was sure that Tomas was now shocked at the state he had found Dominic. "If the boy looks for his parents, it will not be to save them or avenge them."

"You seem to know a lot about the boy." Tomas said as he tried not to betray any emotion. "Did you  adopt him by any chance?"

"No, I found him, he is with people that will treat him as their own." Cedric assured the man at the other end of the call.

"From what my people tell me, Lucius Ting is quite an influential person in your country now." Tomas said as he dropped the topic of Dominic. "Julia's family will want to be on his good side."

"They won't after I'm done with Lucius Ting." Cedric said as he leaned forward and sat up. "It was her own brother that led me to find him."

"And what about Julia herself? She went here to find him, won't she betray you in the end?" Tomas asked.

"To the public, Lucius Ting is dating someone already. Someone I trust with my life. When Julia finds out, it will break her, because she cannot hold a candle to this woman." Cedric declared.

"So she's one of those pawns you want protected after you hand Lucius Ting over?" Tomas asked.

"She is more than a pawn, Tomas." Cedric said in a cold tone.

"It seems I've struck a sensitive topic for you, this Camilla Montero must be quite the woman." Tomas chuckled. 

"She is someone who I consider to be family." Cedric retorted.

"Very well, if you can promise me that you can assure that none of his wife's family or his child's family will suddenly turn on us then I can guarantee that we will not harm them." Tomas sadid over the phone.

"I can guarantee that." Cedric said as he nodded even if Tomas couldn't see his reaction.

"You will also need to bring those we deem as his co-conspirators to us. We will, of course, extend our help in any way possible." Tomas told Cedric his conditions.

"And what if the person you want me to hand over to you is one of my own? Someone I sent to trap Lucius Ting?" Cedric questioned.

"You will need to prove it to us." Tomas said.

"And the ones I've mentioned?" Cedric asked.

"Those we will not touch." Tomas informed him.

"One more, the businessman, Guan Ming, have you heard of him?" Cedric questioned Tomas.

"Yes, the tech magnate from China, the one that is working in cooperation with Lucius Ting at the moment." Tomas spat, the bitterness evident in his tone.

"He is one of mine." Cedric said, shocking Tomas. 

"Then why do you need us?" Tomas asked with an awkward laugh.

Cedric could tell that he was starting to get nervous. 

Despite not belonging to the Underground, Guan Ming was someone that most Mafia bosses respected and feared. 

He was a wild card, someone they considered too clean to be true, after all, everyone had skeletons in their closets.

"I like to have all my bases covered." Cedric said as he laughed at Tomas' reaction. "So do we have a deal?"

"Yes. We do." Tomas said. "As a form of good will, we will release Julia to you before you can hand Lucius Ting over."

"That's very generous of you." Cedric said in a flat tone, not willing to betray any emotion. Right now he had the upper hand, he didn't know how long it would last so he thought it best to maximize it while he could.

"She will be there by tomorrow morning." Tomas said as he dropped the call.

Cedric couldn't help but grin at his success.