Page 13 of Conquered Obstacles

I found out Hades had ancient vampires visit every “elite” warlock family and made it clear that their plans for me were done. That the madness of making any god a pet or even “elevating” themselves was over. They were now a simple coven just as any other witches and warlocks, and Nicole was their leader.

Or they died.

Those were their options, and if they wanted to argue about that, they could speak with Hades… In the underworld.

So they would be dead.

Meaning there was no arguing.

I laughed. I laughed and laughed at how amazing my brother was even when he was a shit. Really, he was. Poseidon loved it too, and I think we shocked Hades when we congratulated him for handling it perfectly instead of chastising him or changing something.

Not at all.

Nicole was shocked and had some choice words about it, but when she spoke with Hades that it had to be her after how those bastards treated her like a whore, she accepted. She made it clear that later she planned to hand it over to Colton since he was the strongest and would keep them in line, but Hades said he would revisit the topic depending on how things went.

I didn’t blame him and told Nicole I felt the same but to let me know if there were problems or if we needed to liquefy anyone. She wasn’t sure if we were kidding or not.

We weren’t. I was over the crazy and cults.

Really over them. We made that clear when a group planned to get around the decree by moving and starting over and a shop somewhere else. Hades’s minions informed him and we made an example of them and liquefied them, letting everyone know they’d gotten themselves in that mess.

I was pretty sure they now believed us and that they were being watched.

That group was stupid because who would they have rallied around without even their demigod like before? It had been a ridiculously stupid plan, but it was ludicrous without him.

Fools.

Two ancient vampires were guarding Nicole and her estate at all times for now at Hades’s order along with his minions watching over her. I doubt Colton liked that, but people were stupid and I wanted her protected.

Idiots tried to fill the void of stupid in the wrong way a lot of times.

We were trying to prevent that and something worse happening to that family.

The New Jersey factory was all set up, renovations done with the storage and auto ingredients system all handled. Training on everything was mostly done—at least everyone on something, and now they could all cross-train and get comfortable on other machines. They have everything to start and could get regular shipments of everything they would need.

Amazon would no longer be picking up to keep things confidential. They had too many contract drivers who had no loyalty and loved to post too much to social media. Of course, they could get in huge trouble if they did… But once the cat was out of the bag, we couldn’t put it back in. Sueing them after the fact wouldn’t do much when the damage was already done.

Though everyone knew it would probably come out eventually. We wouldn’t publicize it, and it would just be supes there, but they knew the risks.

However, we were going to do the best we could to keep things quiet. Which meant some of the vampires were going to drive plain trucks and deliver to Amazon’s warehouse. They knew things would be coming and just to be grateful, accept the deliveries, and not to start trouble unless they wanted us to not use them anymore.

Which was a real threat now that we were ramping up production and they wanted to sell in other countries. We were fine with that if they wanted to ship it to their distribution centers in Europe and convert prices.

The vampires from Boston who had been working on the sprinkles and decorations overnight were going to be there for the first week and making sure the handoff went well. I filled the entire factory full of the last of the St. Patrick’s Day blend we would put on the market, and then they would start right into the Easter and spring ones.

Plus, everything the bakeries that ordered directly from us wanted.

And they wanted a lot. Hopefully, we could get ramped up fast, but if not, they would have to wait. We would do the best we could, and they knew we were adding more.

We were already sending out frozen basic cakes and cupcakes now to a handful of large bakeries with multiple locations that signed contracts. They were ironclad and detailed… As Justina always was. They acknowledged they were Karma Bakery cakes, wouldn’t let them go stale, and we had them listed on our website as using our cakes.

Among a few other things.

So a lot was moving fast and we were growing. Jamie was making deals and getting things going better than I could ever have imagined. My four managers were handling more and more, and we were adding employees left and right.

A hundred more people started at the factory in Boston from a shelter in NYC that all had been vetted and were working out well. Things were really going perfectly.

The training handoff from Robin to the other culinary school teachers was flawless, and so many at the factory were doing really well and loving it.

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