REVENGE, DIAPER and SNACKS - Chapter 92: Chapter 92

Meanwhile, Jhing Jhing was leaning into her role with dangerous delight.
“I’ve always wanted to be a mafia wife,” she gushed, letting her accent slide a little thicker. “The drama, the jewels, the mysterious locked rooms. The coded texts and forbidden lovers. Ugh, it’s all so... Instagrammable.”
“You’re joking, right?” muttered the one who looked like an overcooked accountant.
“Oh no, baby,” she purred, looping her arm through his like a python with French tips. “I dream in offshore accounts.”
Mylene cackled. “She has a Pinterest board called 'Mob Wives, But Make It Luxe.' I think she even has a dress picked out for court appearances.”
They laughed, but it was the kind of laughter that sweated. Because Jhing Jhing was asking too many questions with too much sparkle in her eye. And no one likes a beautiful woman who listens well.
Back in the suite kitchen, I was prepping the next phase.
Joe, wearing a shirt so hideous it might’ve been illegal in three states, was unrolling the evening’s “game” plan. He laid out the blueprints of the suite, tracking where the targets were clustered. He showed the tiny bug we’d retrieved from one of Dorothy’s champagne glasses earlier that week. He marked a red X next to the suite Dorothy had been slipping in and out of.
“We got fifteen minutes before they sober up enough to realize they’re not here for shrimp cocktails and gossip,” he said.
I sipped my rosé and fixed my lipstick. “Then we better give them a night to remember.”
“Or forget entirely.”
“Preferably both.”
Joe passed me a new earpiece and a purse that, to the untrained eye, looked like a designer knockoff. But inside?
A micro-recorder disguised as a mascara wand
Lip gloss that tripled as a stun-gel
Pepper spray hidden in a perfume atomizer labeled Desire
And a tiny photo of my kids because, hello, balance
The party was just getting started.
And beneath the fruity cocktails and sunset selfies?
So was the hunt.
The party swayed like a flamingo on too many daiquiris.
Outside, the stars twinkled like they were judging us. Inside, the room was lit in soft gold and red—too warm for crime, too cozy for betrayal. But that’s how we planned it. People confess more under fairy lights.
Jhing Jhing was still hanging on the arm of Accountant Mafia Man™, cooing about silk sheets and how she "just wanted to find a man who could launder both her money and her soul." She had ditched the sunglasses, but not the attitude, and I had to admire the way she maneuvered the conversation like she was trying to secure both a confession and a Birkin bag.
Mylene had moved into bartender mode. She was topping off glasses with the ease of a woman who once broke up with a lawyer by sending him a cheese platter labeled “YOU’RE THE FETA PASTA OF MISTAKES.” Her pours were generous. Her questions, even more so.
“So,” she said sweetly, leaning on the counter in a lime green wrap dress, “how do you gentlemen know Dorothy? She’s such a… delicate little thing. Reminds me of a spider made out of Chanel.”
One of them, buzzed enough to believe he was charming, leaned in. “Business. Mostly. Her dad set up all kinds of deals before he retired. She just handles the leftovers.”
“Like a heiress of organized leftovers?”
“Something like that.”
He laughed. Mylene laughed louder. The bug in his shirt pocket laughed straight into Joe’s earpiece.
Joe, crouched behind a side table fiddling with his tablet like a tech gremlin in a beachwear catalog, mouthed to me: “Got it.”
We now had confirmation that Dorothy wasn’t just arm candy in overpriced sunglasses. She was the mop for her father’s bloody legacy. And she’d been seen earlier—leaving their suite with her bodyguard and a silver briefcase, heading out the back toward the underground garage.
Exactly where we didn’t want her to be.
Time for Phase Two.
I clinked my glass. “To lottery wins, lucky nights, and absolutely zero federal surveillance in this room.”
Cheers. Laughter.
Fake, fake, faker.
Joe nodded. The lights dimmed ever so slightly. A cue for our backup team—two agents disguised as mariachi band members hired last-minute for “ambience”—to start the music and subtly scan the phones left charging near the stereo.
Mylene floated over to me, lips curled into a victorious smirk. “I think that one over there just admitted they did something shady with a vineyard in Tuscany.”
“He’s been crying over the wine like it was his firstborn,” I muttered. “If he sneezes again, I’m charging him with emotional fraud.”
Then Jhing Jhing swanned over, all hips and suspicion, and whispered: “So... one of them said something about ‘the girl in the woods’ and ‘digging too close to the old line.’ Could be nothing. Or could be something.”
I stiffened. The girl in the woods.
My sister.
The body in the mountain.
Dorothy’s father had known. And maybe—just maybe—he told more people than he should’ve. Which meant our party guests weren’t just decorative thugs with bad shirts. They were pieces of a larger, older, nastier game.
I looked at Joe. He was still watching the audio levels spike like a Christmas tree. “How long do we keep them here?”
Joe shrugged. “Until they start talking in full paragraphs.”
Just then, one of the men slumped back on the couch with his third glass of pineapple rum and muttered, “It was never about treasure, was it? Just secrets. Dead ones.”
Mylene shot me a look. Jhing Jhing froze mid-sip.
I leaned over and whispered into my lip-gloss mic: “Ladies, we’re not fishing anymore. We’re hunting.”
The night was far from over. And the real fun was just beginning.
The party had passed the polite phase.
Now we were in the sweaty, dangerous, truth-or-die portion of the evening.
Mylene had turned off the soft jazz and replaced it with an interrogation playlist she called “Volume 7: Red Lipstick and Regret.” Jhing Jhing adjusted her heels, unzipped the side of her slinky dress just enough to reveal the blade holstered to her thigh, and gave me the nod.
“Time for Catherine,” she whispered.
Time for me.
I stood from the velvet armchair like I was ascending a throne made of sass and unpaid emotional labor. I slipped off my party shoes (they were starting to pinch), picked up the bottle of overpriced imported wine like a holy relic, and marched to the middle of the suite where our five suspected mafia men now sat—drunk, giggly, and very, very sloppy.
Joe and two of his elite team had quietly locked the doors. No one in. No one out. Nannies and kids were next door watching Bluey. We were safe.
And I was tired.
Tired of secrets. Tired of lies. Tired of re-sealing mafia evidence with glitter glue.
So I smiled.
The kind of smile that usually precedes an arrest or an award.