194 First Attack

With a broad smile on her face, Liz got into the limousine that was waiting in front of the Chrysler building for her.

As soon as she took a seat and closed the door, she said, "It was Larry. And he had pictures of you two on the tarmac, when you came to receive us."

Hearing this, Keren, who was sitting on the other side frowned deeply, while Luke sat back and folded his hands with a very frustrated expression on his face.

"Damn that Larry. I didn't think that he would be this cautious. Well, at least now we know who the enemy is. Did you happen to catch any clues about what they're planning?"

Shaking her head, Liz replied, "No. By the time I got there, they had just covered the reasons behind you choosing Luke to invest in. The security was already on their way, so I had no chance to wait and try to listen to something more useful."

Shrugging, Keren said, "That's fine. We've at least accomplished our primary objective. What do you think, Luke?"

After a few moments during which Liz and Keren waited for him, Luke threw both of his hands in the air and said, "I just think that this has gotten a lot more complicated. Wasn't this supposed to be just a normal trial? Why are they being so serious? Don't they have multiple restaurants all over the world?"

This made Keren chuckle, but Liz was the one who answered.

"That's because you have one of the world's most renowned business builders on your team. She doesn't gloat too much about it, but according to the report I've read, she is known to have magic fingers: whatever she touches, she turns to gold."

"That's clearly exaggerated. I just happen to have succeeded a lot."

Luke looked at Keren with surprise, never expecting that she was someone so capable and famous.

"Don't look at me like that. You might make me shy. And when I'm shy, I lose control of the things I do…"

Saying this in a sultry voice, Keren reached her hand towards Luke and grasped his, which made him freeze and blush slightly before looking to the side and changing the subject, making Keren and Liz both chuckle.

"Err… So what are we supposed to do now? What's our strategy? And what if even more leaks occur?"

Sitting back, Liz frowned and said, "I honestly don't know. I suspect that it's someone in the higher echelons of the company, and I've already messaged Will regarding it. He's taking it very seriously, but he'll need time. Time which we don't have, especially because they have our business plan."

This made Keren nod and frown too, before saying, "Yeah, this is definitely tricky. And if the leak happened last night, they must already have put something in motion to stop us. Let's go to the diner first. We should probably shore up the security there, as we definitely cannot discount the possibility that they might try to come and make trouble at the original store."

After saying this, Keren instructed the chauffeur to take them to Luke's Diner, while the three of them started discussing about which plans they could keep and which they would have to discard knowing that their competitors knew about them.

For example, one of the plans that Keren had drawn up involved sending a critic to one of the high-profile restaurants and making them compare the food there with Luke's.

It was a simple plan, but the real brilliance would lay in the execution.

Keren had planned for it to be in a TV show for maximum exposure, and the positive areas of Luke's diner would be highlighted effectively, which would definitely have increased fame a lot.

However, they would definitely not be able to use this plan now, as the high-profile restaurant would be on guard against any critic who entered their doors.

Also, they would refuse to even have their restaurant shown in the TV show, which they would normally not have done if they hadn't known that they were being targeted in this way.

Just like this, many of Keren's innovative ideas had gone to waste, but there was nothing they could do about it now.

As the car came to a stop, the three decided to take their conversation inside.

Yet, the moment they stepped out, they could tell that something was really wrong.

Luke usually hired two people to keep the diner running when he was absent, and these two were currently standing at the door with their hands folded in front of them.

Standing opposite them were two individuals who were wearing grey coats, and they were filling in some sort of form which they handed to the two before walking away.

On their way, they glanced at Liz and the rest, and Liz noticed that a smile had come on the face of one of those men as soon as he saw them.

Puzzled, she walked up to the two employees along with the others before taking the form that had just been handed to them.

"Mr. Luke… We're really sorry! We don't know how this happened! We had just opened the place, and they came in!"

Unable to understand, Luke looked at Liz, who had an ashen expression on her face after reading the document.

With her eyebrows furrowed, she handed the document to Luke while Keren peaked over his shoulder to read it to.

It was an official report by the health commission, and it said that Luke's Diner was being closed down because rats had been found inside.

Liz had been coming here practically since she could ever remember, and she knew that Luke always kept it as clean as those commercial kitchens.

Clearly, that Larry had made this happen, in order to tarnish Luke's name even before the diner chain came into reality.

Compressing her lips into a thin line, she couldn't help but commend that round man for the quick manner in which he had acted.

However, this also made her look all the more forward to seeing his face when all of his plans crashed and burned.