Chapter 770 - Seventy Hundred And Seventy: Ghost Of The Past
The third point of view:
Two weeks later.....
There was a small celebration in Niklaus's residence. He had gathered the whole family to celebrate surviving the whole catastrophe the past week.
As expected, there was lots of drinking and eating and the triplets were left to roam this time because their cousin and watchman, Dash, had his eyes on him.
After that incident, a formal investigation was launched and it was discovered that Rita, Fernandez's official wife had been in cahoots with Deborah. She was the one feeding Deborah with news of Isabella and Pedro during her time abroad. It was also her idea to drug Pedro and get Natasha pregnant.
Either way, all of them knew Natasha's outcome wouldn't have been favorable and so she wanted Pedro to be devastated and distracted enough that his leadership of the company would be questioned and his position taken away from him for being unable to lead by the board of directors.
Rita already had someone amongst the board that would lead till her son, Jodah was old enough to lead. However, all of their plans came running down the drain after Jennifer made that mistake.
Right now, Rita was being persecuted and Jodah would be taken care of by Lucinda, Pedro's grandmother, and Fernandez's mother who still hasn't recovered from the shock of the news. In Lucinda's thoughts, her daughter-in-law Rita was sweet and naive to plot such a scandal. But then, looks were deceiving and she learned hard from it.
Unfortunately, Rita was not the only one in collaboration with Deborah, Sakuzi's own daughter-in-law had been a part of the plan.?Elizabeth, the wife of Finley, the firstborn son of Valentino Sakuzi had not been happy with the transfer of power to Emerald who she claimed wasn't blood and hence wasn't a part of the Sakuzi clan.
Elizabeth wanted her husband at the top, inheriting the position of Sakuzi even though he inherited his mother - Nadia's - businesses and some others from his father. But she wanted the top spot, claiming it was his birthright as the first child and son to be at the top of the food chain instead of answering to others below him.
And so, to ensure that happened, she went into business with the enemy, feeding her the information she could get and at last, hiring one of their men that betrayed the others while busting Mikhail out.
The target was Emerald and they had intended to wipe out his lineage so there wouldn't be another to take his place even when he dies. However, Emerald was smart enough to avert all of their plans, not to mention that Sakuzi supported his every move making it harder to strike without suspicion. But in the end, her plan backfired.
Unfortunately for Elizabeth, unlike Rita who would be prosecuted by the law, she would be dealt with by the family. Sakuzi's were not on good terms with the police judging from the fact that their activities were illegal. Sending Elizabeth to them was the same as asking for a death sentence, with the situation she was in, Elizabeth wouldn't want to go down all alone and would try to do everything to ruin the Sakuzi clan.
So her crime would be judged within the family and would be ten times worse than what Rita would receive from the law. That was for sure.
"Excuse me," Niklaus said from the mic drawing everyone's attention.
The chatter died down and all heads turned in the direction of Niklaus, fixing their gaze on him. Niklaus naturally had an imposing aura hence it was surprising they became attentive.
"A-hem," He first cleared his throat before resuming his speech, "I want to first of all thank every member of the family who made it here tonight and the rest who couldn't make it, I totally understand," He hinted at Judy and Emily who were swallowed up with official duties at Lincolnshire.
"The past weeks have been a really trying one. Some of us were faced with situations beyond our control and made certain decisions that didn't turn out well...."
Pedro was the most affected by that speech. In just a few weeks, his marriage was put in jeopardy and he lost his child. Even Isabella, who didn't like the idea of another woman in his life, finally accepted his child, and just when he thought it was going to be okay, everything came crashing down.
He was denied the opportunity to know his son and that pained Pedro the most. He knew Natasha brought what happened to her on herself but she didn't deserve to die. At least not with his baby.?The child deserved to live at least, but Deborah had taken away that choice when she had her men shoot Natasha.
All of this wouldn't have happened if he had come clean with Isabella. Yes, she would be mad but perhaps, he would have been able to change Natasha's fate. Sadly, he couldn't change the hands of time backward, else he would have corrected his mistake.
Since that day, Pedro has been haunted with memories of that day in his dreams, but thanks to Isabella, he didn't fall into depression. That incident changed Isabella or perhaps, it was just the fact that she was becoming a mother. Isabella was a lot kinder than usual, although her hot temper was still there.
Niklaus went on, "And some of us were visited by the ghosts of our pasts…" He remembered the fact that he lost his daughter before he could even get to know her.
Deborah might have made bad choices but she was still his daughter and perhaps, if he had been a lot more responsible in his younger years, she wouldn't have been born into this world nor would his daughter have turned out this way.
Although Reina had told him that it wasn't his fault and he couldn't have known that Deborah was born in the first place because her mother made no effort to let him know, Niklaus knew it was his carelessness and he would continue to bear that guilt forever.