Never Judge

Ian and Dave remained silent as they headed down to the car with Leon. 

The head of security kept giving Ian and Dave curious looks, but neither would tell him what was going on. He was starting to get frustrated.

"Why are you both so quiet?" Leon asked. "Normally I have to tell the both of you to shut up because you talk too much. Now I need to ask you to talk."

"We'll tell you in the car." Ian said in a serious tone as they got out of the elevator, each man pulling behind him one of Leon's luggages. The head of security had to stay in the hospital for two months due to the gravity of his injuries.

When they finally made it to the lobby, a few guards took the bags from them and helped them load it into Dave's car.

"I'm surprised you didn't bring the sports car today." Leon teased. Back when Dave was a new employee he would bring his favorite sports car to work and often get teased by Leon and Ian. 

"It was impractical." Dave said with a shrug, clearly not in the mood to fool around.

"Since when did he start to get all serious?" Leon asked Ian.

"You'll understand in a bit." Ian said as he opened the door for Leon.

Leon nodded his thanks and climbed into the backseat of Dave's car.

"Don't expect this special treatment forever." Dave scoffed as Ian climbed into the front seat and closed the door behind him.

"Let's get out of the vicinity first." Ian said with a nod.

Dave drove off, checking if they were being followed. He knew that there was no longer a threat since Aiden was now dead, but it had become a habit. The Reyes Group had other enemies as well, people that would want to get their hands on the CEOs assistants.

That's why Cedric had gone as far as providing a bodyguard for each of his assistants. There were rarely attacks, just incidents of stalkers.

"The boss always wants your bodyguards around you, why are you guys alone today?" Leon asked as he noticed that the two men had gone to pick him up unaccompanied.

"We were picking you up, there is no need." Dave said coldly, shocking Leon. Dave rarely spoke this way. He was usually the bubbly one in the group. He sometimes reached the point where he annoyed everyone else.

"We'll explain later." Ian said in a calmer, more mature tone.

"Where am I taking us?" Dave asked as he continued to drive around the city with no exact destination in mind.

"Take us to Constellations. There is a room there where we can speak in confidence." Ian instructed, Dave nodded, acknowledging what he had said and quickly changed the direction he was driving towards.

The hotel was thirty minutes from their location, and none of the three men dared to speak. 

Dave and Ian chose not to say anything since each piece of news that they had for Leon would just result in him asking more questions.

When they finally drove up to Constellations Resort, Dave tossed his keys to a waiting valet.

Of course here they knew who he was. The staff were quite surprised to see Ian, Dave, and Leon arriving together. This usually meant that the boss was coming.

The staff immediately hopped into action, making sure everything was perfect. The manager also came out ready to greet the assistants and Leon.

"Sirs, I'm sorry that it's just I that came to greet you. Mr. Velardino is in a meeting. Will the boss be arriving soon?" The manager asked as he shook hands with all three of them in turn.

"No, Mr. Reyes won't be coming over." Ian told the manager. "No need to tell Tom, we know he is a busy man, we just need to use one of Mr. Reyes' private meeting rooms."

"Yes, of course sir." The manager said as he escorted them inside the hotel.

"We are very lucky sir that Mr. Velardino is a good friend of Mr. Reyes, he knows exactly how the boss wants this place to be run." The manager said, clearly sucking up to Ian, Dave, and Leon.

"Tom runs this place well because he has been working here and at the branches for years. It is a testament to his skill and experience, not to how well he knows Mr. Reyes." Dave said coldly, making the manager hesitate.

Dave hated people who tried to suck up, he had seen so many of those around. It was one of the banes of being Cedric's assistant, people always wanted something from you. 

"Here sir." The manager said as he opened a secret door to the back of the elevator shafts.

Ian thanked the man and dismissed him.

"What's with the cloak and dagger?" Leon asked as he gave the two other men an irritated look. "My girlfriend died and I want to visit her grave, so can we speed this up."

Dave frowned at Leon's comment. He knew that Mia and Leon were dating, so when Mia died his thoughts quickly went to Leon who continued to do his work despite her passing.

"I'm sorry Leon." Ian said with a frown as he placed a hand on Leon's shoulder.

"It's fine, it's part of our job." Leon said with a shrug. "We knew that risk when we fell for one another."

"If you need time off just tell us." Ian said as he took a seat across Leon.

"It's fine, I had two months off. All I want to do now is to get back to work and protect Cedric." Leon said with a determined look on his face. "I need to work on a complete overhaul of all of the security systems, Merrick did a good job but clearly it wasn't enough. Aiden still got through, we can't have that happening again." 

"Aiden isn't a threat anymore." Dave said as he gave Leon a smile.

"You captured that fucker?" Leon asked with a grin, of course he wanted to personally take down Leon for killing Mia, but as long as the man was gone he was happy.

"The boss killed him." Dave said with a shrug.

"Wow, the boss managed to put a bullet in someone? That's a miracle." Leon said with a laugh. Cedric had always hesitated when it came to injuring someone.

"He had no choice, it was either kill or be killed." Ian said with a shrug.

"If Aiden isn't a problem anymore, then why all the secrecy?" Leon asked the assistants.

"Something else happened." Dave said with a frown. "The boss is missing."

"What do you mean the boss is missing? How can you lose one of the most popular people in the country?!" Leon asked in an angry tone as he stood up and pulled Dave by the collar.

"He ran." Ian said, shaking his head. "Put Dave down, the boy had nothing to do with it."

Leon sighed and let go of Dave.

"I also think I've found him." Ian said in a calm tone, shocking Dave and Leon. "He was at the hospital earlier."