REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 88: Chapter 88

Joe pointed. “That’s Benedict Verona. He used to run security for the local docks—until Charles Dandridge, Dorothy’s father, recruited him. He’s muscle with a library card. Smart. Dangerous. Hates gluten.”
“Did you say gluten?”
Joe shrugged. “Everyone’s got a weakness.”
Back inside the gala, Jhing Jhing was doing what she did best: blending chaos with couture.
She danced with a councilman, flirted with a baron’s nephew, and ‘accidentally’ spilled her drink near Dorothy’s handbag to get a closer look.
“You won’t believe this,” she whispered into her mic. “Dorothy has a key fob with the crow-triangle symbol. Same as your letter. This isn’t gossip anymore. It’s war lore.”
Then Dorothy turned—and her eyes swept the room like a radar.
“She knows someone’s watching,” Joe said quietly.
“Let her look,” I replied, leaning forward. “She’s not the only one with secrets anymore.”
The moon rose. The violins swelled. And in the shadows of chandeliers and dirty martinis, Operation Mission Lipstick went from light sleuthing… to full-blown legend.
Breakfast Before the Vault
Before secrets, before the drama, and long before Vault 09 cracked open like a piñata at a mobster’s birthday—there was breakfast.
I stood in my kitchen, flipping pancakes like a woman who hadn’t re-sealed mafia evidence with her daughter’s science fair glue at 2 a.m. The sun was soft through the window, birds chirping like they didn’t know someone just tried to poison our neighborhood through artisanal biscotti. My robe was pink. My soul was tired.
Aliya and Jaya sat at the table drawing on their placemats with washable markers (I hoped). Jaya insisted her dinosaur sketch had diplomatic immunity.
Maya walked in, still half-asleep, her hair in a ponytail high enough to defy gravity and reason. She sniffed the air.
“Why does it smell like guilt and glue sticks?” she muttered.
I turned slowly. “Sweetheart… remember your volcano project glue?”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. But for a noble cause.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Did you use my tri-fold board too?”
I slid a plate of pancakes in front of her. “Eat your feelings, honey.”
Motherhood waits for no mystery.
After hugs, extra syrup, and a quick promise to buy her the glitter glue multipack, I kissed their heads and told them I’d be back soon. Probably. Maybe.
Vault 09 was waiting.
Into Vault 09
Joe met me outside the old government bunker entrance, hidden behind an abandoned berry processing facility that smelled vaguely like childhood and bad decisions. He looked like he hadn’t slept in two days, which, given our recent findings, was almost generous.
“You ready for this?” he asked, tossing me a flashlight and one of those protein bars that taste like moral obligation.
“As ready as a mother with pancake batter on her sleeve and mafia glue guilt in her heart.”
We descended. The path twisted down into the earth like the writers of this reality were getting too poetic. At the door marked 09, Joe punched in a code. Steam hissed. Metal groaned. The lock disengaged with a heavy click.
Inside? Darkness, dust, and a coldness that wasn't just about temperature.
Vault 09 was a chamber of forgotten things. Stacked crates. Sealed drawers. One wall covered in file cabinets labeled Darrow. A flickering light overhead buzzed with anxiety.
“This,” Joe said, “is everything they never wanted you to see.”
I stepped inside.
Because Leon Darrow may have walked away from the mansion, the name, the chaos—but he was back now.
With mom strength, sass, and glue-enhanced vengeance.
The first drawer in Vault 09 hissed like it had a grudge. Joe slid it open with gloves, because, let’s be honest, we’d both seen enough cursed objects to know better. I stood behind him like a fashionable specter in yoga pants and a leather jacket, flashlight ready, hair pulled up in a “Mom’s About to Summon the Truth” bun.
Inside?
A bundle wrapped in crimson velvet. Which is never not ominous.
Joe gently unwrapped it while I hovered dramatically. “If this jumps out and screams in Latin, I’m out,” I said, casually holding my flashlight like a holy relic.
Under the velvet: an obsidian mirror. Oval. Heavy. Too clean. The kind of object that screamed haunted ex-boyfriend energy. My reflection blinked before I did, and Joe muttered something about “post-cognitive resonance.”
“That mirror has the same vibe as Alec’s therapy journals,” I said. “And those were banned from my bookshelf by emotional court order.”
Next to the mirror was a small wax-sealed box. The seal was a snake eating its own tail. Which, great. Ouroboros. Ancient mystical symbol or overpriced tattoo inspiration, depending on your level of student debt.
Joe looked nervous. “You wanna open it?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m gonna. Because that’s who I am now.”
Then came the tape.
A real, honest-to-panic cassette tape. Hand-labeled in smudged Sharpie:
“Alec’s Eternal Darkness Mix – Vol. 1 🖤”
I let out a slow, ancestral sigh.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. “It’s his emo phase. Preserved. In plastic.”
Joe blinked. “This is evidence?”
“No. This is personal trauma.”
I flipped it over. Alec’s handwriting was on the back.
“For the day he finds the truth.”
Cue emotional soundtrack. Cue mid-2000s eyeliner. Cue me pressing play on Joe’s ancient Walkman like I hadn’t just made pancakes for tiny humans four hours earlier.
Track One: “Cry of the Broken Phoenix.”
An Alec original. Scream vocals. A dramatic flute solo. A minor key piano bridge that sounded like he was mourning the fall of Atlantis while sipping black coffee.
Joe was both horrified and deeply moved. “It’s… actually kind of good?”
“It’s terrible,” I said, wiping away a single tear. “And I love it.”
Then the mirror cracked.
Not metaphorically. Physically. A jagged lightning bolt right down the center.
The lights flickered. The temperature dropped. I swear I heard whispering in Hungarian, or maybe bad Latin. Either way, it was cursed.
Joe slammed the drawer shut with the same urgency I apply when hiding a chocolate bar from my children.
We froze.
“Drawer one,” he muttered. “Only forty-six to go.”
I sipped from my emergency iced coffee and adjusted my sass levels to max. “Let’s just hope drawer two doesn’t summon a Victorian ghost who judges my parenting.”
Because this wasn’t just a vault anymore.
It was a mixtape of mysteries, trauma, and cursed aesthetics.
And Leon Darrow? She had glitter glue in her soul and enough sass to face it all.
Bring on drawer two.
We had snacks in the bag and trauma in stereo.
Vault 09 had given us a haunted mirror, Alec’s tragic emo mixtape, and a minor existential breakdown. And just when I thought I could emotionally recover with a protein bar and sarcastic quip—drawer twelve happened.
Let me say this clearly for the record: there is no graceful way to emotionally process your father's empty coffin being stored in a government-grade mystery dungeon next to cursed objects and mixtapes titled “Bleed Eternal, Love Eternal.”
Joe opened it. I stood still. The flashlight trembled in my hand.
There it was. Polished black wood, aged but pristine. A brass plaque read:
“LEONARD DARROW – 1947–1992”