Page 62 of Conquered Obstacles

“What he’s trying to say,” I agreed, gesturing to the group.

“We got a bit panicked when we couldn’t reach you and Colton couldn’t either and he told us what’s up,” Mary explained.

“I went with to return Hera to Zeus,” I told them, basically explaining why my cell phone was out of range.

“I beg you to please be kind,” Jacob muttered. “My head is already going to explode from the conspiracy going on here, and I can’t take all of that when I’m just really on board it’s all real.”

Fair enough. “Okay, then come inside and tell me what fire we’re putting out next.”

“We still get pie, right?” Poseidon asked Hades quietly as I let them into my mansion. The twins had keys but probably didn’t want to let them inside without my permission.

“Yes, Brother,” I chuckled and made dozens of options appear that I had been thinking about, making sure there were labels of what fruit were in them.

“Excellent. I need fuel to tackle whatever is coming next.”

Fair enough.

I had everything ready to serve everyone, but the four of them were too nervous to even have dessert. That worried me.

“Gil Mendoza is making a move and it’s a big one, too big,” Colton worried.

I simply blinked at him. “Who?”

“The president of the bakery food company in most supermarkets,” Kary reminded me, trying to hide her amusement that I’d forgotten the name of such a threat.

“Right, right. Okay, so he’s trying to come at me again. What is it this time? Fucking with our distributors? A boycott?”

Hades snorted. “Good luck with that.” He gestured to his pie. “This is divine, and I do not use that word lightly.”

“No, he’s got a meeting with the higher-ups of Costco tomorrow to basically say choose between you and him, and he’s going loaded with bogus health department complaints that you’ve been supposedly burying,” Colton said.

“And I got wind of it too because a human friend I have has a sister who works for that company,” Jacob added. “Apparently, corporate is like pre-celebrating that you’re done for and he can stop being a raging asshole.”

“Oh, this will be fun,” I purred, smirking at Hades and Poseidon. “I do always love the bold idiots.”

“They are a favorite to punish,” Hades agreed.

I smiled at the twins. “Can you draw up some sort of idea for the festival of pies you came up with?” I gestured to the pies I had. “Pictures and options we were thinking of, please.” I waited until they nodded before looking at Colton. “I assume you got this all because of your magic?”

“Yes,” he hedged, waiting to get yelled at.

“Good, and he’s already in Washington probably?” I checked.

He nodded. “I thought you’d be furious that I didn’t know about all of this sooner. I have listening devices at his house, but not in his office, and he only now said something because of his flight.”

“You have a very successful company to keep up with,” I forgave. “You do all of this extra even when I’ve told you to stop so no, I’m not going to yell at you.” I bounced my head around. “I’m actually going to ask you to get it in his office where we’re going. You will know how to find this on his computer, right?”

“Probably?” His eyes went wide as he realized what I meant. “We can’t just—”

“No one will see us,” I chuckled darkly. “We need to let Jamie know we’re going into battle tomorrow. He should handle this too as the CFO.”

“Right, but you act like you’ll just waltz right into the meeting that’s—” Jacob started to say.

“She will because she’s Mom,” Mary told him, patting him on the back. “Keep up, kid, you’ll get used to us.”

“It’s fun being on the winning side that’s also the good side,” Kary promised him.

“And we have the better food,” I added with a shit-eating grin. “Ready to go to battle, darlings?”

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