Always Been Yours (Tessa and Nicholas) novel Chapter 1419

Chapter 1419 A Family Meeting

Edward brought up another matter then. "By the way, I've gathered most of the evidence that you told me to get from abroad."

Nicholas' gaze darkened upon hearing this. "Show it to me."

"Yes." Edward nodded before sending all of the evidence that he had gathered to Nicholas' email. Nicholas glanced through it while questioning Edward. "Did they take any action while you guys were gathering evidence?"

"Yeah. It seems like Master Adam and Master Joseph were trying to destroy some of the files. Fortunately, our men were faster than them, so we managed to acquire the original bills and evidence for their smuggling deeds." Edward explained the situation. "We were lucky enough not to alert them in any way. Otherwise, all of our plans would've been derailed."

Edward sent a cautious glance in Nicholas' direction after he finished speaking. However, Nicholas didn't make any comments and simply scrolled through the evidence on his laptop with a stern look on his face. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees as Nicholas continued to look through the evidence. Edward could sense the change in atmosphere, so he lowered his head and stood in his spot as he awaited instructions from Nicholas.

Nicholas' blood was boiling by the time he finished looking through all the files. "They're a bunch of despicable, greedy people!" he hissed. "What should we do next?" Edward asked in a careful voice.

"Well, since these guys are so fearless, we should announce Kieran's funeral and order a family meeting." Nicholas let out a scoff. His plan was to get rid of all the pests during the family meeting. Edward left after taking orders from Nicholas. Soon enough, the Sawyer Family received the news of a family meeting. Many of the family members were abroad, so the meeting was scheduled for two days to give them notice.

Soon enough, the day of the family meeting arrived. That morning, everyone aside from Joseph and Adam arrived at the Sawyer Residence. Adam had two sons—Zachary Sawyer, who was the eldest child, and Calvin Sawyer. Both of them were married to women from the top ten richest families in the country. Zachary was married to Madeline Werner, while Calvin was married to Lisa Heidegger. Joseph, on the other hand, only had one child—Felix Sawyer. Felix was married to the daughter of a gang leader abroad.

Stefania wanted to prepare Tessa for the situation, so she carefully explained the background of each individual and their dynamics among one another. Then, Stefania got Tessa to greet and host all of their visitors. Tessa understood Stefania's intentions, so she gave the visitors a generous welcome once they arrived. "Greetings, everyone."

The people from Adam and Joseph's families gave Tessa rather judgmental stares when they saw the elegant and gorgeous woman who had shown up to greet them. Madeline, the daughter-in-law of Adam, was the first to speak up. "Are you the woman that Nicholas got married to last year?"

Tessa knitted her brows together when she saw that her visitors weren't polite to her. Despite this, Tessa made sure to keep a smile on her face. Lisa spoke up in a lazy voice before Tessa could respond to Madeline's question. "I heard that you and Nicholas only got married after you were pregnant, and I heard that Nicholas had a few fights with his family because of you. You seem like a pretty impressive woman."

Tessa wiped the smile off her face after hearing their sharp comments. However, they weren't done talking yet. Madeline then turned to look at Stefania with a disapproving expression on her face. "You're the child of a powerful family, Stefania. You, of all people, should know that Nicholas is supposed to get married to someone presentable. This daughter-in-law of yours may claim to be a professional musician, but in other words, she's just an entertainer. Furthermore, she's always appearing in the public eye. She's such an embarrassment to the family." Both Stefania and Tessa were furious to hear Madeline's words.

However, since Tessa was younger than Madeline, Tessa felt like she wasn't in the right position to voice out. Stefania, on the other hand, rebutted Madeline's comment without any hesitation. "We didn't call for a meeting just so that you guys could comment on my daughter-in-law. Why do I need my daughter-in-law to come from a prestigious family? It's clear that women from prestigious families don't always have a good attitude." Stefania was making an indirect remark—she shot Madeline and Lisa a look after finishing her words.

Both Madeline and Lisa felt like they were being exposed when they saw the way Stefania looked at them. They were immediately reminded of the nasty things that they had done throughout the years. The strong aura they had seemed to fade a little as they started to feel rather self-conscious.