REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 53: Chapter 53

Jhing Jhing added, “Ha! I have an idea…or two—”
“What is it?” I swore I could read her bearing inside juggling like a tornado of rotten milk of badness.
Then she leaned in closer to my ear, “Leave a trail. Just a tiny breadcrumb. Something from Leon’s life. A book only Leon loved. A cigar stub in his purse. Something small. Let him question everything. Make him crazy.”
Note to self: Do not, I repeat, do not mess with this woman. She is a filipina warrior incarnate.
Mylene rolled her eyes, “And how do you suggest we do that? We don't even know that Leon guy.”
Ha! “Easy…We have the internet, silly.” Jhing Jhing grumbled with the same confidence of Mr. Trump when he said, ‘I will make America proud again.’ Proud my ass.
“Ohhh, I like it.” Mylene tapped her well manicured fingers. “Let him unravel on his own. Make him dig.”
“Make him paranoid?” I said with glee. “Make him think Leon never died.”
…cliche
We sat there, sipping lattes like witches in mom jeans, plotting emotional destruction while seven kids smeared frosting on each other’s foreheads.
And I? I laughed. Because chaos was mine.
Alec thought he was playing chess. He didn’t know I was writing the damn rulebook using a little pony pen that was bitten by chaos and regrets.
Alec’s Office — Early Evening
The room was dim, sterile, and tense—like a funeral parlor with a dress code. The heavy scent of cologne fought with the bitter smell of coffee and expensive stress.
Alec sat behind his desk, sleeves rolled up, tie askew, staring down a new report like it had personally insulted his ancestors.
“Sir,” Mick said, clearing his throat. “We had another visual on Catherine today.”
Alec’s eyes flicked up. “Where.”
“Drop-off at her kid’s school. She yelled at a crossing guard.”
“Normal,” Alec said dryly.
“Then she gave another mom a protein bar from the Russian black market.”
“…Also still normal.”
“And then—” Mick hesitated.
Alec arched a brow. “Spit it out.”
“She… lit a cigar.”
Silence.
Utter silence.
Not a pin could drop—it would’ve shattered the tension like a bomb.
Alec stood. Slowly. Eyes narrowed. “She what?”
“Lit a cigar, sir.”
Alec’s hands curled into fists. “What kind of cigar.”
Mick pulled out a blurry photo. “Vintage Arturo Fuente, limited run, Havana-scented wrap. Leon’s favorite.”
Alec stared at the image. A grainy snapshot of Catherine—her curls tied in a messy bun, oversized sunglasses sliding down her nose, one hip cocked as she waved goodbye to a school bus—with a burning cigar between two dainty fingers like she was James Bond’s personal chef.
“Jesus,” Alec whispered.
She even had the damn angle right.
He sank into his chair.
It hit him—like a brick of déjà vu.
Leon. Standing outside their private high school dorm, leaning on a wall like he was the cover of a mafia-themed teen magazine. Cigar between two fingers. Charcoal suit. Girls flocking like pigeons to breadcrumbs.
Alec had once tried to smoke that same cigar, just to look cool. He nearly died coughing while Leon laughed for five straight minutes and patted his back like a benevolent jackass.
And now? That exact brand. That exact lean.
On Catherine.
His brain short-circuited.
What the fuck is happening?
Meanwhile, in a messy apartment lit by weak sunlight, Catherine (a.k.a. Leon in mom mode) was wiping frosting off Aliya’s shirt with one hand and mixing boxed red brownies with the other.
I absolutely meant to light that cigar in front of the school pickup line.
It was an art. Ha! I did it slowly, dramatically, between yelling at Jaya to stop licking the gate and Maya to stop asking random parents if they had Wi-Fi and free pink donuts.
I'd felt the watcher across the street. Alec's man. Always in sunglasses. Always pretending to fix a bike that didn’t exist.
I made eye contact, took a long drag of the cigar, and winked.
Not flirtatiously. Menacingly. Then coughed once, because let’s be honest—it’d been a while.
Back in his office, Alec had the footage playing on loop. His jaw clenched tighter with each playback.
“Why the hell would she smoke that cigar?”
“She said, and I quote,” Mick added helpfully, “‘A gift from a dead man. Strong as hell, but sweet and spicy at the end.’ Then she patted a pink-lunchbox shaped like a dinosaur and left.”
Alec’s eye twitched. That was a Leon line.
Fuck! Word for word. He used to say it at poker tables. At parties. After executions.
Alec’s heart pounded in his chest like a war drum. Catherine had no access to Leon’s past. No connection. Except…That damn park footage. That one random act of CPR. Leon saved her once. Could it be?
No. It’s not possible.
Is it?
Later that night, Alec sat alone in his penthouse office. Rain tapped on the tall windows like tiny fingers. He stared at a single file: Catherine’s profile. Beside it, Leon’s—now marked deceased.
Same birthdate? No. Same style? Unlikely. Same presence?
His fingers trembled.
Then his phone buzzed. A picture. Blurry. The side of Catherine’s face today at the café.
She was laughing. Wildly. With Jhing Jhing. With Mylene. The three of them chaotic and vibrant, surrounded by kids eating brownies like they were going extinct.
But her laugh… It was his. It was like Leon.
Alec shut the screen off and pressed his palm to his face.
“I buried you,” he whispered.
And yet here you are.
In lipstick and green leopard-print leggings.
A ghost with a sippy cup and a vengeance.
Imposible…