“Gustavo, we understand. You have a family to support. If you need to accept their offer…”
“It’s not just that,” he interrupted. “Carlos looked for me yesterday. When I asked him why the sudden interest in my products, he confessed that Leonardo had sought it. He suggested a society to, how did he say it?, to take you down once and for all.”
My blood has frozen.
“Leonardo is orchestrating a boycott of our suppliers.”
Gustavo nodded.
“And the customers too. It is offering commissions for anyone who changes providers. Carlos did not want to participate initially, but the pressure is increasing.”
“Why are you telling us this?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because it’s not right,” he replied simply. “I don’t know what happened between you and that boy, but I’ve known you two for 10 years. They are honest people and he is playing dirty.”
After Gustavo refused Sweet Dreams’ offer, despite our incentive to accept it, Julia and I sat dazed.
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“He wants to destroy us completely,” I murmured.
“Because of the wounded pride,” Julia, her bitter voice, completed. “And to think I almost married him.”
“We need to tell Elena this,” I decided. “This is economic harassment. There must be something we can do legally.”
Elena listened carefully to our story by taking notes.
“Is this serious?” He nodded. “But we need concrete evidence. The word of a provider may not be enough.”
“What if we got more providers willing to testify?” I suggested. “Gustavo must not be the only one Leonardo addressed.”
“That would help,” Elena nodded. “But it would be even better if we had something written, engraved, irrefutable proof of the attempt at economic sabotage.”
It was Julia who had the idea. His eyes, previously extinguished by sadness, now shone with determination.
“What if we pretended that one of our suppliers accepted the proposal? We could record the conversation when Leonardo gives specific instructions.”
Elena considered for a moment, then smiled.
“That might work, but we need to be extremely careful. It has to seem natural, without any induction, and we need to ensure that it is legal in our state.”
The plan began to take shape. Gustavo agreed to participate by agreeing to accept Leonardo’s proposal. Elena prepared everything to ensure that the recording was legal and admissible in court.
Meanwhile, we continue to face the financial consequences of the smear campaign. We had to mortgage the house to keep the pastries running. I spent nights awake, doing calculations, trying to find ways to cut expenses without sacrificing quality.
One night I found Julia crying in the empty baking kitchen, looking at the almost empty shelves.
“Are you making it, right?” he sobbed when I sat next to him. “It’s going to destroy us.”
“No, daughter,” I answered holding her hands. “He can hurt us, make us bleed, but he’s not going to destroy us.”
“How are you so sure?”
I looked at their hands in mine, hands that they had learned to knead, mix and create from so small. Hands that contained the same force as mine.
“Because people like Leonardo can only destroy,” I explained. “But we, Julia, know how to build. And rebuilding always demands more strength and courage than knocking down.”
She hugged me tight and we stayed that way for a long time.
The next morning we’d start executing our plan. The trap was ready to be activated. Gustavo was the perfect lure. As a supplier of organic fruits for various establishments in the city, your change of supplier to Sweet Dreams would be a significant blow to our operation. Leonardo would take the hook.
Elena carefully guided Gustavo about what he could or could not say so as not to characterize a legal trap. He would use a justice-approved tape recorder hidden in his shirt pocket. The meeting would be in a public cafe where witnesses could confirm the meeting.
“Remember,” Elena instructed Gustavo the morning of the meeting. “You just have to let him talk. Don’t induce, don’t suggest, just listen and confirm.”
The plan was simple. Gustavo would tell Leonardo that he was considering Sweet Dreams’ offer of exclusivity, but he wanted to better understand the terms. Specifically, I wanted to know why Charles had mentioned Leonardo as part of the agreement.
Julia and I spent the day at the pastry pretending normalcy while our stomachs twisted with anxiety. Elena stayed with us, her phone always on hand waiting for news.
At 15:37, Gustavo called.
“It’s done,” he said. His trembling voice of emotion. “I have everything recorded. Not only did he admit to orchestrating a boycott, but he also said things, well, they’ll hear.”
An hour later, Gustavo, Elena, Julia and I gathered in the lawyer’s office to listen to the recording. The quality was excellent, every word clearly audible.
“So, Mr. Medeiros, Carlos mentioned that you are behind this Sweet Dreams offer,” Gustavo began in the recording.
“Carlos talks too much,” Leonardo replied. His arrogant voice, easily recognizable. “But I’m funding part of its expansion in exchange for some strategic cooperations, such as taking suppliers from Julia’s Sabores pastry.”
A cold laugh sounded in the recording.
“Exactly. That pastry must disappear, and with it the arrogance of those two.”
“Can I ask why that interest in destroying them?”
“It’s personal. Regina Almeida humiliated me, manipulated my fiancée against me. No one does that to me and he goes unpunished. No one.”
“I understand. And what happens after the pastries close? Suppliers like me will continue to have exclusive contracts with Sweet Dreams.”
A pause.
“Then, probably not. Carlos has no capital to keep them all in the long run. This is just a means to an end.”
“What would it be?”
“Destroy Regina Almeida. Sure. Make that sow pay for getting in my way. And the daughter, that idiot, believed every lie I told her. ‘You are beautiful, Julia. You’re special, Julia,'” he imitated a mellish voice.
Then he laughed cruelly.
“So desperate for attention that she believed any crumbs that threw her.”
Julia’s stomach made an audible sound of disgust when she heard those words. I held his hand tightly.
“But the most pathetic thing,” Leonardo continued, “is how he pretended not to see that he was just interested in money. Who would be interested in a fat cry like her if it weren’t for the money?”
After that, the conversation continued for a few more minutes with Leonardo detailing how he planned to use other suppliers and customers to completely isolate us.
When the recording was over, the silence in the office was heavy. Julia had tears in her eyes, but not with sadness, but with sheer anger.
“Do we have enough?” I asked Elena.
She nodded, a slow smile spreading down her face.
“More than enough. This proves not only malicious economic interference, but also completely denies the narrative it has been building in the media and in court.”
“What do we do now?”
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