Page 21 of Conquered Obstacles

She seemed about to blast me again when several people in line voiced their agreement with me. She grabbed her kids and left, but several other groups came in later and acted the same. It was like we were the new place that wasn’t busy in the café, but only had a line and it was a good place for moms to let their kids go bananas.

No. Just no. That was a headache for us and a liability later.

And they left a mess in my pretty, freshly reopened café.

So I posted that the bakery would be pickup orders only for Sundays and Mondays going forward and tastings would be after normal closing time Friday nights. That I apologized for any inconvenience, but given the demand to increase available items, it was what was best for my employees and to meet the demands of customers.

Also, that I had been considering closing Mondays as well so I didn’t break my staff, but this was the only other solution I could come up with. If there was a problem with our app, people could still come in to order, but there would be no café service on those days and takeout only basically.

I also changed the signs with my power so now it was posted that way.

Done and done.

And I headed home with my vehicle to pick up groceries so I could have a nice meal with my family… But totally forgot that Isiah and Colton were still at my house.

Why were they still there?

The twins shot me a look that obviously it was for the chance to spend time with me. My brothers seemed amused but were clearly going to leave it alone.

I introduced Chen and Dion to everyone. “I apologize for everything being so last-minute. Thank you for coming. We decided to make this a weekly family thing at one in the morning. So I picked up what we needed to grill, and let’s just relax, okay?”

“Sounds great, Aunt,” Dion quickly said, understanding there was some tension he didn’t understand.

“You don’t have a grill, Mom,” Mary chuckled, pulling out her tablet. “I’ll find something for the space.

“Thank you, love. There’s more in my SUV. I bought a lot.”

“On it,” Kary and Jamie said together.

I smiled. This was exactly what I wanted. Nice and relaxing after a rough night… Even if they teased me for basically buying only meat.

I could make the rest with my power, and I did. The meat always tasted weird when it was done with my magic.

6

People in our orbit and our nice customers seemed to be as tired of the bullshit we put up with as much as we were. There had been some pushback and petty people who yelled at us about shutting down the café Sundays and Mondays and a landslide of people who defended us.

I was shocked to see how many called out those people saying they were probably the reason we had done it and the assholes who let their kids use a damn bakery as a jungle gym. There were tons of comments like that and blasting those who gave us shit praising us that I was a responsible owner who protected her people and there should be more bosses like me.

How lovely to be defended like that. Seriously. It helped a lot.

And made me a bit bold.

I sent piles of treats to the asshole who had sent his daughter to be a spy at the factory. He was some big shot at a bakery chain in grocery stores and had paid people to mess with our Valentine’s Day orders. To everyone else, it was a bunch of St. Patrick’s Day treats and desserts wishing their company luck and leaving the bad blood of the past behind us.

What he would read was a mocking note asking if he planned to do it again for Easter because my bottom line loved it. That I hoped he enjoyed wasting his money in such a fruitless endeavor and to always be such a fool because I could handle whatever he threw at me.

Oh, and he had a tiny, shriveled, ineffective penis. Men always hated being told that, and I wanted to bruise his ego as best as possible.

But really, I wanted him to seem crazy. Only he would see it because of my power, so as he ranted and raved about the message goading him, others would see a kind message saying I hoped we moved forwards into a brighter future where both our companies thrived.

I was tired of letting too much go. I had too many people to protect, and I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I did in the past. If I learned nothing else from the dream I’d had, I was going to learn that.

It must have worked though because Colton said he was ranting and raving to people that I had threatened him and sounded insane to his people. Several had commented that he had lost his mind because people still loved me, and I came out clean no matter what he threw at me. He had laughed for a good ten minutes after I told him what I’d done.

And the man hadn’t messed with our St. Patrick’s Day orders. We’d been ready and had more than double ready for the pickups, but no funny business had happened.

We sold all the extras, people learning they could get something extra and others asking if they could get anything when they left the movies… But no one demanding they lost their order confirmations.

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