REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 49: Chapter 49

The ground beneath my feet—it remembered me. Like it had been waiting. Like every root under the soil whispered, You came back.
I walked slowly, step by step, toward the bench I once collapsed beside. That old wooden thing with its chipped green paint and loose screws. It hadn’t changed. But I had.
I sat down, heart heavy and stomach tight. The last time I was here… I died.
No, not Leon.
Catherine. She died for a moment. Her lungs collapsed. Her heart betrayed her. Her panic rose like a tsunami. And it was me—Leon—who saved her. With my hands. With my breath. With that stubborn urge to keep her alive because something inside her—inside us—refused to die.
My fingers brushed the edge of the bench.
Suddenly, it was like I could see it again. The way the sky spun as her head hit the pavement. The way her—my—chest stopped rising. The kids screaming. The way my body knelt beside her, commanding her lungs to obey.
And then—his eyes.
My eyes.
Leon Darrow’s eyes looking down at her… at me.
It wasn’t a dream. Not anymore. I could feel it like a scar pressed into memory. That day, I hadn’t just saved a woman—I’d unknowingly saved myself. My future. My second chance.
A pair of joggers passed by, muttering to each other about calories and yoga.
A dog barked in the distance.
Children screamed with joy.
But my heart beat loud in my ears. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Then something odd caught my attention.
A boy with curly hair stumbled near the sandbox. His mom, distracted on her phone, didn’t see it.
Before I realized what I was doing, I was already moving.
I reached out, caught him mid-fall just before he cracked his head on the wooden frame. His mom gasped and rushed over with shaky thanks, but I barely registered her words.
Instead, I stared at the boy.
He looked up at me with wide, confused eyes. “Are you an angel?” he asked.
I blinked. “No,” I muttered. “Not even close.”
Later that day, I sat on the balcony back at the apartment, coffee growing cold in my hand.
Jaya was brushing her doll’s hair. Aliya was face-deep in peanut butter crackers and hotdog. Maya snored on the couch with a blanket over her face.
I couldn’t shake it.
That park. That bench. That day.
I had saved Catherine, yes.
But what if that was only part of the plan?
What if fate—or karma or whatever the hell was running this circus—had been weaving something deeper?
I didn’t just fall into Catherine’s body after death. I was tied to her. I’d touched her life before my end. I gave her breath—and now, she was the one giving me life again.
And in this second chance, I had more than revenge to live for.
I had them. The kids. This strange, chaotic, loud little family who looked at me with eyes full of trust and sticky fingers full of joy.
So yeah. I’ll return to the park.
I’ll return to the underworld. I’ll return to hell itself if I have to. Because I wasn’t just a mother now. I was Leon Darrow. And I protect what’s mine.
The next day, the rain didn’t fall that morning—it hovered.
Sky ashy gray, thick with a quiet that made the city feel like it was holding its breath. Not a single leaf stirred. Not even the usual chatter of schoolkids down the hall could break the stillness that slithered through the atmosphere like static.
It was the kind of weather that made you look over your shoulder twice.
And I did.
For the third time this week. Because I wasn’t paranoid. I was trained.
I knew what surveillance felt like—its heavy stare, the way it clung to the back of your neck like a ghost with a grudge. There was a pattern in the silences between footsteps. A hesitation at corners. A shiver between blinking lights at intersections.
They were here. Alec’s men. The bastard was watching me.
I smirked as I pulled my coat tighter and helped Jaya with her scarf. We were going to the small grocery store two blocks down, the one beside the secondhand bookstore and the broken newsstand that sold more gum than newspapers. Aliya and Maya were with the neighbor’s kid, distracted by video games and snacks, which gave me time.
Time to confirm what I already knew.
Eyes on me.
At the alley near the end of our building, a car idled.
Black. Tinted windows. The kind of lazy park that meant “we’re pretending we belong here.”
Please.
Amateurs.
One of them smoked. Bad habit. Worse for surveillance. I didn’t look at them directly, but I made sure the polished edge of my apartment’s glass door reflected enough. Man in a cap. Man in a hoodie. No real muscle, but wired the way street dogs are—always hungry, always waiting for a signal.
I felt it deep in my bones. I grinned.
Perfect. This is exactly what I wanted. Let the bastard spiral. Let him lose sleep. Let Alec dig until he rips through the walls of his own sanity.