17

Colton let me use his private plane to help me dodge the hoops of getting from Boston to WA for the meeting in time publicly. Having Jamie and the twins with me helped. I honestly wanted to leave the twins out of it, but when they started digging into what we found on Gil Mendoza, they were just as riled up to take this bastard down as I was.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," I whispered after we landed and were taxiing to meet the car arranged for us.

"What? The flight?" Jamie asked innocently.

I shook my head. "The world. It wasn't supposed to ever get this out of balance. Money and wealth weren't supposed to matter this much and overrule everything else. There wasn't supposed to be this much pain to live before the horrors of the underworld we didn't fix. The world was supposed to give most people more good days than bad. It doesn't anymore."

"You have the chance to change it as you have been, Mom," Mary said gently. "You have for a lot of people, and the ripples are spreading. In under a year. Give it time."

"Time is the one luxury too many people don't have, love," I mumbled. "But today we handle this monster so he doesn't stop the mission."

"I still say we bury him on a mountain," Kary said under her breath.

"I second that," Jamie grumbled, shrugging when I gave him an amused look. "This guy had a lot of dirt in that cabinet, and we're not even a fraction through it. I'm glad we're not holding back and are releasing it to the media."

"Of course. We just want to make sure Costco makes the right choice first," I practically purred.

I wanted to hope that Costco would have given me the chance to defend myself, but the "evidence" Gil had fabricated was pretty damn impressive. All fake, but impressive, and would have scared anyone with a lot of employees to protect.

The car was ready for us and took us right to the address. I used my power so everyone we came across thought we were on the list for the meeting and were expecting us. It would probably get people in trouble later, but they would have the excuse that how would I have known about the meeting if I wasn't invited?

Or when it was about me?

Still, I got to make the Hollywood entrance into the conference room.

"Ahh, we finally get to meet, you lying sack of shit," I greeted Gil with a smirk. I glanced around to everyone else and recognized a few of the execs I'd met before… Including the female I'd met in Boston.

Who looked very upset to be at that meeting.

Well, now shocked, but she had been pissed.

"Lovely to see some of you again, nice to meet others of you," I said with my most winning smile.

"Ms. Baker, I don't know how you got in here, but this is—"

"A meeting about me and to kick Karma Bakery out of Costco," I said easily. "Yes, I know. I also knew to be here." I smirked at Gil. "Do you need three guesses as to how I knew? You're not very well-liked at your company. Probably because you're pathetic garbage and use underhanded tactics like false health department complaints."

"That is an outlandish accusation and—" he seethed.

Kary pulled out a file and set it in front of the guy who was clearly the boss of Costco.

"Those are all of your reports plus proof of payment to those people who supposedly filed them, but we made them go away," I explained. "And while they were paid with a cashier's check, we have the correspondence. Shockinglyenough, they're all relatives of employees. Not anyone obvious like spouses or siblings but cousins and we can connect it."

"You are in a world of hurt legally for having our emails and—" the man next to Gil started to say.

"You really are going to try and take the high ground about legality for bribing people to pretend they filed health department complaints?" Mary mocked. "That's fraud but not as bad of fraud as if they really did because you couldn't make those go away, and that's jail time for you and your client. This is just civil and awarding damages."

Kary pointed to the file she'd put down. "And it's in there that your attorney warned you of that so to do it this way. Also in there are all of our many health inspections because employees from his company were calling in bullshit complaints. We've since handled that madness, and there is a direct contact you can call at the health department who will verify everything."

The female executive I'd talked with before snickered. "I thought it was crap. How could a factory producing so much for us have issues only at your location and not one complaint at any of our stores? On the contrary, people can't stop talking about the quality. The meat buns all come from the same place, and that was one of the complaints."

I smirked at Gil and his attorney when they twitched. "Awww, minions are so stupid. Did you tell them to only complain about the soup since Costco didn't have that? Yeah, you also went after the cakes we offer them as well. So logic should have made this meeting a problem from the start."

"For the record, it did, Ms. Baker," the big boss said firmly. "And I don't like bullies, which Mr. Mendoza always has been. He's always overly pushy and makes it clear he's doing us a favor." His lips twitched when I snorted. "Whereas you have been extremely accommodating, appreciative, open about your limitations, and accepting of feedback."

"I feel the same about Costco," I admitted. "Most wouldn't like the answers I've been giving, but you've been reasonable that I opened my doors not even seven months ago. If I didn't have deep pockets to invest in myself, there was no way to ramp up this fast. And you've made it clear I have the blank check to back it since you will purchase more."

He gave me a confident look. "We will. Mr. Mendoza made it clear that it was him or you. The choice wasn't a hard one. We'd have riots and mobs if we suddenly stopped selling your goods without reason."

"For the record, he was planning to burn you if you made that choice," Jamie interjected, pulling out a folder and handing it to him. "He has media in his pocket ready to let out the fabricated story he told you, but that he warned Costco, and you picked profits over the safety of your customers."

The man looked amused as he took the folder. "He would have found himself in a world of pain. He might be the president of a big company, but I'm the boss of a bigger one with global reach."

"Yes, well, we all know idiots that don't know their place," I purred, smirking at Gil. "I gave you the chance to leave the past alone and move on after you tried to have your daughter be a spy at my factory. I even left your nonsense with Valentine's Day alone because—"

"We will sue you for defamation if you keep on with these outlandish accusations," the attorney snapped.

"We have the proof," Kary drawled. "Want us to release it to the media? They won't care how we got it. They'll care you did it."

A different executive snorted. "And we all knew you did it. Who else would try to sabotage the holiday orders for Valentine's Day besides a petty man like you? It wasn't a leap. We all knew who it was. Our damn PR people were asking if they could reach out to try and help with the situation because it was so obvious."

"It really was," I drawled. "Your employees were coming and apologizing when they did it, clearly having been forced. Some asked for applications and if I was hiring for corporate positions." I nodded when both men were shocked. "How much did you seriously pay for that to backfire?"

"Over a million at least from what I've already calculated," Jamie admitted.

I wasn't the only one who whistled at that.

"Get out, Mr. Mendoza," the big boss declared. "We will finish our contract with you, but we're done after that. I've been tired of your antics for a while, but this is the final nail in the coffin."

"We had more actually," Kary admitted, shrugging when Mary, Jamie, and I shot her amused looks. "What? I want to drop him off the roof he's such a jerk and has done so much to try and mess with us. This isn't enough punishment."

It was clear a bunch of people in the room agreed with us, but that was life.

"Now, does everyone agree there are no valid health concerns of any validity or any problems getting food from Karma Bakery?" I asked, glancing around the room. I smirked at Gil before focusing back on the big boss. "Glad that's settled. Now, while I apologize for hijacking this meeting, it now won't be a waste of time."

Jamie took over and started passing out the presentations. "Since I've been hired on as CEO, the main goal has been expanding to ramp up to meet the demands, and a big part of that is Costco. As you are already aware, we now have factories solely for meat buns, decorations, and cookies including the cookie dough tubs you sell."

"And are insanely popular," the female executive praised. "All the feedback we received was that they were thrilled to have two options, and they hope there will always be. I was hoping to discuss that—I believe you were leaving, Mr. Mendoza."

"You will regret picking her over us," he seethed as he pushed to his feet. "She's some flashy fad and—"

"You're a relic of cheap ingredients and not caring about the health of your consumer," I drawled. "You have so many artificial everything in your products that I'm shocked they're not practically AI at this point. I use quality ingredients and don't charge crazy prices for them because I'm not greedy. Irresponsible business practices need to go the way of the dodo."

"Well said, Ms. Baker," the big boss praised. "Now get the hell out of my office, Mendoza. You said this meeting was vital to the future of Costco. Your axe to grind with a competitor was never vital to us and certainly not for one that we value more than you."

"And can provide what they do but of better quality," I added just to make it hurt. I gave a little wave as he stormed for the door, his attorney scampering after him. "Well, that was fun. Almost worth the flight out here even if I hate flying."

"You definitely have a flair for the dramatics," the big boss praised. "Now, let's see if you're as easy to work with in person as I've heard." He nodded for me to take one of the empty seats.

I did, Kary and Mary joining me as Jamie went over the presentation explaining how we had factories online or coming online for brownies, scones, meringues, cake donuts and donut holes, and pie crusts. They were thrilled to hear it all. There was definitely a market for selling a three-or five-pack of frozen pie crusts at their stores.

And people went wild for the meringues.

All of it even.

"My daughters are very smart and better with trends and fun than I am," I told them. "They had the idea of starting fun in between holidays especially since we'll have such a big gap soon. After Easter, there isn't another one so food focused until Halloween again. Well, dessert-wise. Fourth of July barbeques and whatnot, but you know what I'm saying."

"Yes, but we've tried that before and it didn't turn out well," one of them commented.

"Because you're a big corporation and were clearly trying to sell them more things," I replied honestly. "We're the fun bakery that everyone wants more from. We're going to do it just to try new things and have fun and we'll let Costco join us. We're thinking a festival of pies the weekend after next. And we can go from there. Who can hate a festival of cookies or scones?"

"People will, but some people just hate everything," the big boss agreed. "There are a few things we do want to talk to you about replacing that Mendoza did. Granted we don't want you do to it like he did, especially since we were considering discontinuing a few of the items. But the mini muffins are popular."

I shrugged. "I can get a muffin factory going. Mini in little packages and so many packages in a box?" I waited until he nodded. "Changing flavors? Not always blueberry?"

"Even better," he accepted.

Overall, they loved it. Absolutely loved it. They were excited for the ramp-up and idea of having more. They were willing to redesign stores so they had more of a freezer/fridge section just so we had a whole block of each if we wanted. We weren't trying to overtake their bakery, but there were a few things that they'd seen a decrease in sales of and were thinking of getting rid of.

But not because of us. No, it was in recent years and just the excitement had died or consumers wanted something else. They were watching their weight and being more health-conscious, so the carb-heavy breakfasts were out the door for most.

Whatever the reason, they made it clear it wasn't us, but we could help them recover with more breakfast meat buns and more.

So it was definitely worth the flight out there. We celebrated on the plane and made it clear we were victorious once we arrived home. Everyone was thrilled, and we got ready to make pies, pies, and more pies.

Along with everything else.