The City Held Its Silence byIrel Knx 149

149 Fear 

JASMINE’S POV a 

1 

Seeing him take command of the room without saying much was so impressive. Dare I say–hot even. I mean, yes, we had had meetings with the department managers countless times and they respected Louis. 

However, Louis knew them very well and vice versa. Seeing him interact with people he didn’t know very well yet still getting the same respect very quickly was impressive. 

What’s more, Louis was probably the youngest person in the room and yet proved to be the most mature and responsible. He may be one of the youngest CEO’s but he certainly knew what he was doing. 

“I wanted us to have a civil discussion and for 

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everyone to explain how they felt about the menu. However, we’ll have to make this simpler so we don’t waste time having unproductive screaming matches,” he then continued. 

His words lingered on the word ‘unproductive‘ and the chefs flinched. 

“I have a suggestion that will work for every one. Since we cannot make a decision on which we have 3 test menus instead. Each composed of different selections of what each of you believe are 3 of your best dishes from your respective menus. Each restaurant will be randomly given one of the three menus where they will each be put to the test. We will let the customer decide what’s simple and what’s sophisticated for their palates instead. We will see which dishes perform best out of all the menus and from that make one 

final menu,” he finished off. 

I contemplated what he said for a moment. It sounded like a good solution to draw a 

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conclusion. 

“This ensures every chefs dish has a fair shot. So does anyone disagree with this?” he asked loudly and assertively. His manner of speaking demanded respect. All the chefs looked around at one another for a moment before they looked back at him. 

“No CEO!” they all responded. 

“Good,” Louis said. “Then it’s settled. Let’s begin then. All the menus you presented are well within budget to begin with, my assistant confirmed this. So you don’t have any issues trying to pick which is cheaper than the other. Just put forward your best dishes by circling the three you want on your respective menus.” 

After the reprimanding all the chefs then put forward their suggested dishes by circling three dishes from their menu. Then they forwarded their choices. 

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Once everything was handed in to Louis he once again addressed chefs. “This is good, thank you for your input. Now we will test the three menus and see how the new dishes are received. This just might be a chance to put the recent bad publicity on the restaurant due to Mr Gatwick behind us so we can turn over a new leaf.” 

I thought of Gatwick who was currently facing multiple lawsuits. He had really put the restaurant in a bad light. Louis then concluded the meeting and he and I left the room. I carried the stack of menus with the chefs choices. 

“You handled that discussion well in the meeting,” I said to him as we left the boardroom. 

“I mean I’m the CEO after all if I can’t resolve conflict then why do I have the job,” he cockily said. 

I rolled my eyes. “Can’t even be humble,” I looked at him and shook my head disapprovingly at him. 

< 

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I then made the preparations to have the menus organized and have one handed out to each restaurant respectively so the tests could start a: soon as possible. Louis planned to implement thi idea as early as by the end of the week. 

**** 

I kicked the dummy in the middle of the boxing ring in Louis‘ gym. Tony and I were staying at his home tonight. 

my 

Louis and I agreed that from now on, as we investigate this Diana situation we would be around each other as much as possible for protection. He felt the culprit would be apprehensive if he was around more. So our arrangement was we would switch from my house to his house depending. 

I’m not going to lie I was worried. That nervous feeling of having to look over my shoulder had comer over me again. Like how I felt when Diana 

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came to my house before I asked for Louis help. I felt vulnerable at the thought that some unknown powerful person might be after me and Tony. 

Of course I believed Louis‘ theory that whoever the person was they were being cautious because but the fact remained, eventually they would make a move. The more I thought about it. The more I began to stress. Was Tony safe at school? Should we even be moving around and continuing with life like this? 

“Calm yourself, Jasmine,” I said to myself, panicking won’t help the situation. Panicking won’t protect Tony. 

I then continued punching the dummy putting my fear and anger that I felt into the punches. 

I recalled the moves Coach Freeman had taught me on Sunday as I punched. 

“Those are some angry punches,” a familiar voice commented. I turned look and found Louis 

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approaching the ring. I think you acquired Cosch Freeman’s strength after those lessons as well.” 

“And you also seem like me when I’m stress fighting he commented. 

“I am,” I said. 

“What’s on your mind?” he asked. 

“The Diana situation is still getting to me,” I explained. 

“I understand how you feel,” he said as he came into the ring. 

“Give it a good punch,” he told me. “It should take away some of the stress.” 

I did as he said and went for the punch. 

“Put your hands here,” he said as he came up behind me and pressed his body into mine. “Your arms are too high up you won’t be able to protect your ribs from your opponent.” 

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He then lowered my arms so they were near the midpoint between my head and torso. I doubted Louis had to be that close to me to make the point. 

“Like this?” I asked as I punched the dummy. 

“Yeah, that’s good,” he said as he whispered in my ear still behind me. 

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