REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

She paused. Her fingers took it before her brain even registered what was happening. She opened it slowly, the way you open a letter bomb or a wedding invite from an ex.
Her mouth dropped open. “Is this… Is this real?”
“As real as your hangover,” I said, sipping my matcha. “You deserve it. We all do.”
Her knees buckled slightly, and she leaned against the door frame, blinking fast. “What the f—Catherine. This is—this is three hundred thousand pounds.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I will give the same to Mylene. Twenty grand each to the babysitters. They handled chaos like they were paid by MI6.”
She stared at me like she was trying to find the hidden camera. “What is this? A prank? A reverse pyramid scheme? Are you dying? Are we dying?”
I smirked. “No. Not yet. I just… felt like sharing.” I've totalled all our winning within two nights and it was almost 1.3 million pounds.
Jhing stepped forward and hugged me so tight I dropped my cup. “You insane bitch,” she whispered. “You’re insane. But you’re my favorite kind of insane.”
We stood there for a minute. Her gratitude wasn’t loud. It was quiet, trembling. It came with soft hiccups and a tightened grip. I could feel it in the way her shoulders shook slightly, like she hadn’t exhaled properly in years.
Next stop: Mylene.
She didn’t scream when I showed up. She just stared at the envelope in her lap like it had appeared from the clouds. Her twins were playing in the living room behind her, giggling over cartoons, unaware that life had just taken a sharp, better turn for their mama.
Her eyes were wet.
“I was going to sell my necklace,” she said softly, still staring at the bills. “The one my mother gave me. Just to pay rent. And now…”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.
Instead, she reached out and grabbed my hand with both of hers. “Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. For everything. For not making me feel small when I was drowning.”
I nodded, words caught somewhere between my throat and pride.
I didn’t tell them about the rest. That the remaining money went to an orphanage just down the road from the casino. That I stood in front of their cracked windows and watched little kids burst into laughter when the volunteers told them they’d have enough money now for beds, food, books, new shoes. That one tiny girl with hair like ink ran up and hugged my knees and called me “Santa with eyeliner.”
That part was just for me.
Because that morning, I felt something different. Something I hadn’t felt in years, maybe lifetimes. It wasn’t adrenaline. It wasn’t vengeance. It wasn’t the quiet satisfaction of a plan going perfectly.
It was happiness.
Raw. Loud. Stupid, sun-kissed happiness that bloomed in my chest and made everything feel brand new. Even in the middle of chaos, surrounded by shrieking children and bad breath and mismatched pajamas, I felt it.
Joy.
Mylene, Jhing Jhing, and I sat later in my living room with mugs of tea and leftover pastries from the babysitters’ breakfast stash. We didn’t talk about Alec. Or the casino. Or what came next.
We just sat. We laughed. We teased each other.
We were no longer just survivors. We were sisters-in-arms. Battle-tested. Lipstick-stained. Broke-then-blessed. I’d shared the spoils of war not because I had to, but because it was right. Because they deserved to win too. Because even assassins need family.
And these women?
These fierce, funny, ridiculous women?
They were mine.
After yet another small breakfast party at my living room, the sun was finally creeping higher now, casting golden bars of light through the sheer curtains, dancing across our cluttered chaos of a living room. Jhing Jhing had her hair up in a pineapple bun, Mylene was curled into a blanket that had once been draped across my couch like a throw, and I—Leon, the reluctant assassin in borrowed flesh—was sitting barefoot on the floor in pink Barbie sweatpants, letting a toddler use my back as a jungle gym.
The money had changed something. Not just bank accounts. Not just bills.
It changed us. It softened something brittle inside all three of us. For years, Catherine, and Jhing Jhing, they’d fought. Fought for food, fought for rent, fought for time, for peace, for themselves. And now, for the first time, they were breathing differently. It wasn’t desperation. It wasn’t survival mode. It was something else. I felt it too. I felt the ease in my mind. I felt how grateful Catherine was. To the new her.
“I’m gonna buy an air fryer and a new washing machine that talks,” Jhing Jhing said dreamily, flipping through her phone. “And a knock knock fridge. A fancy one. The one with twelve presets. I don’t even know what a preset is, but I want it.”
Mylene laughed, her head leaning against my shoulder. “I’m going to buy a day off. Just one whole day. I’m going to rent a hotel room and sleep without a baby crawling up my nose.”
I looked between the two of them. “You both dream so small.”
“Oh please,” Jhing Jhing snorted. “What would you do, Mrs. Secret Millions? Build a bat cave?”
“Already did,” I muttered under my breath, then smirked when they stared.