Never Judge

Cedric sat calmly at his office desk, it had been two days since Adolfo moved to the CEO's floor and the investigation into the tapes. His mother and her friends were still on vacation, and today was golf day for the fathers at Nationalia, while Ayanna had once more whisked away his wife for some wedding planning. This meant that Emilio was once again under his care.

Cedric couldn't cancel any more meetings so he had decided to ask Mae to arrange for all his meetings to be held at the private room at Nouveau. This odd change in venue left a lot of employees confused, what was going on at the CEO's floor that required all of his meetings to be moved to the restaurant.

As much as Cedric wanted to spend time with his son, he still had a job to do. Thousands of people depended on him actually working in order to keep the company running like a well oiled machine.

"Emilio." Cedric said as he crouched down, next to his son. Emilio was in a play pen placed behind Dave's and Mae's desks. It was hidden from view in case someone went up to the CEO's floor in need of something. Cedric couldn't leave his son inside of the office, he was worried that if an emergency happened no one would notice.

"Daddy?" Emilio asked as he looked at his father with his bright and curious eyes.

"I'll leave you with uncle Dave and uncle Adolfo. I need to go to a few meetings." Cedric told his son. He was hoping Emilio would understand what he was trying to say. He was sure that Emilio picked up on things quite quickly and he understood many big words quite well.

"Okay daddy. Have fun." Emilio said with a bright smile.

Cedric nodded and gave his son a kiss before finally heading down with Mae in tow.

When they got to the private room, the research and development team eagerly greeted him and Mae. They had just gotten word that Adolfo, one of their own teammates, and caught the eye of the CEO's former assistants and was somehow promoted to a more important role in the company. Some were nervous, they hadn't exactly treated Adolfo well while he was in their team, while others were trying to grab the opportunity to be like Adolfo and possibly work on an important project directly under the CEO.

"Before we begin the meeting there are some things I would like to address." Cedric said as she took a seat at the head of the table. His tone was cold and threatening, the employees of the research department were all suddenly nervous.

"Recently, the skills and potential of one of your co-workers caught my team's attention." Cedric said as he looked the employees in the eyes, many averted their gaze, while others would look back, but their eyes were filled with either curiosity or fear. "I find it disappointing that we had witnessed some of his co-workers bullying him. I don't know if any of you were aware of it but, Mr. Luna does not have a simple background."

"Sir?" The head of the research department couldn't help but ask.

"You should be aware of General Jaime Luna, and his father the retired General Armando Luna?" Cedric asked the research head.

"Yes sir. We've worked with them multiple times." The research department head said with a nod as his eyes suddenly went wide, as he realized what Cedric was trying to imply. He then turned to the employees to explain. "Most of our military contracts and funding goes through them. They are a very old and very powerful military family, they rarely interact outside of the military or the government, as a matter of fact, according to rumors they think quite lowly of business families. As a result they rarely interact outside the government."

"Yes, the Luna family is even more secretive than my own." Cedric said with a nod. "You all know my sister, as for them, if you are outside of the government or the military you won't know anything about their family. The interesting thing about them is that they are quite unforgiving." Cedric said in a cold tone.

"And some of you have managed to offend them." The research department head said with a sigh.

"Adolfo Luna is the eldest son of the said family and he was hired here against his family's wishes." Cedric said sternly as he spotted the man that had been bullying Adolfo. The man had turned pale, his companions also looked quite worried. It seemed they too had bullied Adolfo. "They will be out for blood when they find out. Adolfo is low profile, but no one steps on a Luna."

Cedric watched as many employees began to look worried. It seemed more people had bullied Adolfo than he had expected.

"Investigate the matter." Cedric told the research department head. "If they confess, give the appropriate punishment, if they don't fire them." Cedric said coldly as he stood up and left the room. That was his only purpose for calling this meeting. He would have a few minutes to himself then he would have to go back down again for another set of discussions with other teams and departments within his company.

When he finally made it back up to the CEO's floor he walked over to his son and brought him back into his office. He hugged the little boy, Cedric honestly didn't like acting cold and harsh, but he had to. Hugging Emilio reminded him of his humanity and how he was not that cold person that he would transform into in public.

"Daddy, are you alright?" Emilio asked as he placed a small hand on his father's cheek.

"Yes, little one, I'm fine." Cedric said with a smile.

Before he could even place Emilio back down on the ground Dave entered the office without knocking.

"Sir, I have news." Dave said in a frantic tone.

"What is it?" Cedric asked as he watched Emilio run back to his toys.

"There was movement at the house. The woman is back." Dave said as he tried to catch a reaction from Cedric.