REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 75: Chapter 75

The Morning After
We descended from the mountain with:
Seven kids, slightly traumatized but mostly just hungry and sticky.
Three exhausted, absolutely iconic moms (us).
One dog with hero complex and a sock in his mouth.
Five captured mercenaries, zip-tied and cussing in four languages.
And a secret that had been buried beneath Wren’s Hilltop for far too long.
The rain had finally stopped. The forest was quiet again. But the air?
It felt different. Something had shifted. Something dark had awoken.
Back at the vans, while the kids scarfed down leftover spaghetti and Jhing Jhing mourned her split eyeliner wing, Aliya and Maya looked at me with wide eyes.
“Mom, you’re not scared of anything anymore,” Maya whispered. “Two years ago you screamed when a chicken chased you. And now… you hit a guy with a pan. From a tree.”
I snorted. “Yeah, well. The chicken was a jerk.”
She giggled, then went serious again. “But like… you’re so cool now. Like...a warrior. Like Wonder Woman but you do snacks.”
I ruffled her hair and grinned. “Being a mom is the same as being a warrior, sweetie. Except the weapons are heavier and the villains are stickier.”
Aftermath in Town: Lattes, Bones & Bombshells
By the time we got back to town, we looked like a muddy circus caravan that had survived a horror movie and a barbecue explosion. My hoodie was crusted in sap and glory, the kids were buzzing from sugar and trauma, and the three of us moms were somehow running on pure adrenaline, spite, and caffeine dreams.
We parked at the local strip mall, next to Mango & Beans Café, the only place in town with decent espresso, cake pops, and an unspoken rule that if you walked in looking like you'd just fought a bear, no one asked questions.
Inside, the kids scattered toward the corner table like ducklings, shoving croissants into their faces and talking over each other about explosions, traps, and how “Mom jumped from a tree like a ninja panther.”
I pretended to read a menu while keeping one eye on the door and the other on the kids.
Joe took the five captured mercs into the next building—a quiet, off-duty government facility with an "under renovation" sign that was definitely not under renovation.
Meanwhile, Jhing Jhing and Mylene were outside the café, pacing dramatically near the parking lot with two CSI guys—yes, actual forensic investigators flown in by one of Joe’s “cop-ish” contacts from the mainland.
And the CSI guys were Irish.
Like “fresh off the boat, bless their plaid hearts” Irish.
One had ginger curls and a leather satchel filled with what he dramatically called “field analysis equipment.” The other wore black gloves, silver-rimmed glasses, and had a serious case of “I’ve seen some things.”
Mylene was trying to describe the bone they’d found—the one buried beneath Wren’s Hilltop—while gesturing like she was auditioning for a telenovela.
“I stepped back, right? Because I thought it was MJ’s dog again—but nooo! My foot hit something hard, and I was like, oh my gosh, it’s a fossil, I’m Indiana Jones now!”
Jhing Jhing cut in, flipping her hair and speaking to the CSI guys like she was mid-interview on Crime Watch Tonight.
“We dug. With a spoon. Don’t ask why. And then we saw it: a femur. Like a whole leg. I said, this isn’t just a bone—this is someone’s secret.”
The Irish guy blinked. “You found a leg bone with a spoon?”
“A silver spoon,” Mylene clarified proudly. “It was decorative.”
The other CSI guy opened a case and started brushing the bone sample with gentle swipes, muttering, “Definitely human. At least fifteen years underground. Female, judging by the shape…”
“Oh my God,” Jhing gasped. “Is this, like…a cold case?”
“Worse,” the older Irish one muttered. “This is buried-on-purpose. Possibly sealed. I’ll need to run a trace and test the surrounding soil—but this wasn’t an accident. Someone wanted her to stay buried.”
Mylene grabbed Jhing’s arm. “We’re in an episode. This is exactly like that time on NCIS when—”
“Ladies,” I called from the café doorway, “you are not main characters in a crime docuseries.”
They ignored me.
Behind them, the CSI van was now cordoned off with yellow tape, and a crime scene tent was being set up. In a coffee shop parking lot. Between a frozen yogurt stand and a pawnshop.
Because why not?
Interrogation Room: Joe’s Way
Back in the not-so-secret “renovation” building, Joe and his team had begun interrogating the mercs. No rough stuff—just precise questions, a couple of truth serum options, and one guy reading legal disclaimers in monotone like a failed stand-up comic.
I stood behind the one-way mirror, sipping my second iced coffee and watching the feeds while kids tried to decorate a scone with rainbow sprinkles behind me.
The mercs were resisting… until Joe rolled in a TV.
He played the footage.
Dorothy.
Warehouse.
Training a dozen recruits.
Weapon racks.
Blueprints.
But it was the last image that made the blood drain from my face.
A blueprint of a castle.
Not just any castle—
The old Darrow Estate.
Our ancestral fortress.
Sealed for decades. Abandoned.
Now? Targeted.
The Break
One of the mercs broke.
A younger guy with twitchy hands and eyes that darted like flies.
“She’s planning to reopen the estate,” he blurted. “She thinks there’s something inside. Something old. Ancient. She said it was her husband’s birthright.”
“What kind of something?” Joe asked.
The merc hesitated. “A vault. Treasure-adjacent. Something Darrow’s family sealed off generations ago. Alec never found it, but she thinks she can. And she thinks—”
“She’ll get it before I do,” I finished coldly. What bothered me the most was why would she think of me as her enemy? I'm just a mother of three now. Did Alex tell her about me? About Catherine’s and Leon’s soul infused in one beautiful, magnificent, plumed, and sexy body?
Okay, I may be exaggerating with the body but I didn't have my clue to why my ex was targeting me…one possible explanation was that she believed I was really Leon. And that Alec told her in the prison about me.
The stupid guy nodded and I stopped thinking about Dorothy.
“She’s planning a move soon. A ceremony. Something about blood and legacy. She’s gathering followers. Soldiers. People who hate the Darrows.”
Joe looked at me. “She wants the throne.”
I exhaled slowly. “Then she’ll have to pry it from my cold, manicured hands.”
Meanwhile… Back in the Café
Aliya was now giving tactical advice to the smallest twin, saying things like “next time, aim the chocolate wrapper at their eyes—distraction is everything.” MJ was sketching the booby trap I made, complete with a fire emoji and a note that said: “Mom’s War Tree.”
Mylene and Jhing Jhing re-entered the café like red-carpet queens post-crime scene. Jhing’s lipstick was perfect again. Mylene’s twins were sticking googly eyes on a muffin.
“CSI said they’ll update us,” Jhing announced. “We might be witnesses now. They also said we were… ‘intense but effective.’”
“That’s one way to say extra,” I muttered, passing them their drinks.
Later That Evening
Joe walked up beside me outside the café, phone to his ear.
He ended the call with a tight nod. “Dorothy’s building a faction. She’s not just after you—she’s rewriting history. Claiming the Darrow bloodline is hers to ‘purify’.”
I snorted. The girl was crazy, was she into a cult nowadays? “Well, she’s gonna need more than stolen mercs and red heels to outmatch me.”
Joe smirked. “I figured you’d say that.”
“So,” he added, “what now?”
I glanced at the sky, the sun low, the wind rising.
The war was no longer coming.
It had begun.
“Go back to the estate,” I said. “You dig up our family history. I find that vault before she does.”
“And the bone?” Joe asked. “The woman buried beneath Wren’s Hilltop?”
My smile faded.
“That’s part of the past too. Someone didn’t want her remembered.”
I looked at my reflection in the café window.