REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 70: Chapter 70

I called Mylene first.
She picked up on the second ring, voice already breaking.
“Hello? Catherine?!”
“We got them,” I said. “All of them. Safe. A little cold, a little tired… but safe.”
There was a long pause. Then the sound of pure, raw sobbing.
“Oh my God—oh my God, Cathy—thank you… thank you…”
I heard the phone being passed. Jhing Jhing came on next, her voice already trembling with joy and disbelief.
“Is Ivy—”
“She’s sleeping beside MJ right now,” I said softly. “Aliya’s holding her hand.”
More crying. Softer this time. The kind of crying that only happens when the nightmare finally ends.
“We’ll be there in a few hours,” I promised.
“Drive safe,” Jhing Jhing said. “We’ll wait.”
The sun was out when we reached the city. Slush gathered at the curbs. Life moved again—cars, dogs, people wrapped in coats and moving on with their little lives like the world hadn’t almost collapsed in a storm.
Outside the apartment, Mylene and Jhing Jhing were already waiting. Arms outstretched. Eyes swollen from crying, lips trembling from holding it in.
The car hadn’t even stopped when the back door flung open.
“Ivy!”
“MJ!”
“Aliya! Maya!”
It was chaos. Pure, emotional chaos. Mylene dropped to her knees, cradling my daughters like they'd been gone for years. Jhing Jhing wrapped her arms around MJ and Ivy, pressing her face into the girl’s hair as if to memorize the scent. Tears. Kisses. Sobs. All at once. The kind of reunion you only see in warzones or soap operas.
And me?
I just stood there. Watching. Letting it all soak in.
Aliya turned her head and whispered, “Thank you, mommy.”
That one little whisper unraveled me more than the gunshots, the storm, the blood.
That night, after the kids were all asleep in the master bedroom, we gathered in the living room. Me, Mylene, and Jhing.
We were exhausted. But not broken.
Mylene poured hot chocolate into three mismatched mugs. Jhing Jhing added a ridiculous amount of marshmallows. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
We didn’t talk about the cabin.
We didn’t mention Alec. The blood. The bruises. The storm. We knew if we did, someone would cry again—and we were done crying tonight.
So we talked about normal things.
Shoes. The new winter collection from that overpriced boutique near downtown.
Jhing Jhing complained about her favorite highlighter going out of stock.
Mylene ranted about needing new jeans because her butt “got flatter from crying too much.”
We laughed. Hard. The kind of laugh that stings the ribs.
“Tomorrow,” Mylene said, raising her mug, “we go to the salon.”
“And get facials,” Jhing Jhing added. “Our skin has suffered.”
“And coffee,” I smirked, sipping from my chipped pink Batman mug.
They both raised their mugs in agreement.
“No more crying,” Jhing Jhing whispered.
“Not tonight,” Mylene agreed. We hugged—tight, like survivors. Not as victims. But as women who came back from hell with their hearts still beating.
Tomorrow would be hair dye, new shoes, and overpriced lattes.
But tonight? Tonight was peace.
A Month Later
The headline came on a Monday morning. One of those cold, gray ones where even the coffee tastes tired. Mylene was flipping through the news on her tablet, half-reading aloud between bites of burnt toast and smears of peanut butter.
Then she paused.
Her voice dropped.
“Catherine...”
I didn’t look up from tying Maya’s shoelace.
“What?” I asked, casually.
She turned the screen toward me.
"BREAKING: International Fugitive Alec Darrow Found Dead in Prison Cell – Suicide Suspected"
Dead. Alec. Gone. Like a whisper choked in a snowstorm.
I blinked.
“Finally,” Jhing Jhing muttered from the hallway, holding Ivy’s lunch bag.
I didn’t say anything. I finished tying Maya’s shoe, kissed her forehead, and sent the kids out the door with their snacks and scarves and laughter trailing behind them.
Only when the door clicked shut did I let the silence sit.
Mylene and Jhing Jhing watched me carefully.
I poured my coffee. Took a sip. And said flatly, “I’m not sad.”
“No,” Mylene said. “But you’re not happy either.”
“I’m not surprised,” I answered.
Because the truth was—I couldn't kill him back at the cabin. Because part of Catherine wanted him to suffer.
Alec just happened to kill himself before Leon could.
Whether it was guilt, fear, or the crushing weight of finally realizing he had lost everything—his name, his pride, his empire—I would never know.
And I didn’t care to.
The Empire Returns
The world thought Alec had run everything. That he was the kingpin. The puppet master.
They were wrong. He was just the mask. I was the venom.
And when he fell, I didn’t let the empire rot. I took it back.
Silently. Swiftly. And without mercy.
Not as Catherine. Not as Leon.
But as someone new.
Somewhere, beneath the surface of that beautiful, normal life—the school runs, the PTA meetings, the pancake Sundays with Maya, Aliyah, and Jea—the Black Widow still thrived.
She was quieter now. More selective. But no less dangerous.
My name still passed through encrypted servers like a coded prayer to a digital god. A whisper here. A threat there. A deal inked in shadows. A hit called with no fingerprints, no face. A bank collapsed. A country bought. A revolution sparked with a nod.
No one knew it was me.
Just a mother in an apartment with a chaotic kitchen, Barbie limbs in the sink, a calendar full of dentist appointments, and glitter glue in my hair. Just Catherine. The widow. The tired woman with soft eyes and steel in her spine. A ghost in heels. A legend in loungewear.
They called me gone. Said Leon Darrow was dust in the wind, another powerful man erased by time and treachery.
But I didn’t let them forget. I didn’t let me forget.
Because I am still Leon. The kingpin. The tactician. The one who once moved continents like chess pieces and ruled syndicates like empires. And I am still Catherine. The nurturer. The mother. The woman who burns rice and sings lullabies off-key and stitches scraped knees with the same hands that once broke a man’s spine in six places.
But now—I am more.
I am the storm behind the silence. The lullaby laced with cyanide. The smile that ends wars.
I am Black Widow.
And my web? Oh, darling. It stretches farther than they’ll ever see. It winds through boardrooms and bunkers, through penthouses and prisons, through Wall Street tycoons and Eastern warlords. There’s not a continent untouched. Not a name whispered in power circles that hasn’t felt the tremor of mine.
I run operations during school drop-off. I schedule assassinations between playdates. I hide secrets in snack boxes. And I send encrypted kill codes while stirring spaghetti.
The world may look at me and see leggings and tired eyes.
But beneath this cardigan is a Kevlar heart. Behind this mom-bun is a mind that can collapse nations. And underneath the Fisher-Price chaos of my living room is a vault filled with enough blackmail and bitcoins to restart the world—my way.
The underworld calls me the ghost with red lips. The femme phantom of finance. The mother of all mercenaries.
But I like to keep it simple.
Just call me the mom-jean boss of all badasses.
And pray you never step in my web.