Chapter 22
I didn’t care if he was going to Alaska, Mars, or the mouth of a Kraken. I just couldn’t have him in the apartment anymore. Not when the very scent of his cologne made my murder button twitch. The mere kiss he gave me on the cheek the other day had made me scream internally so loud that I had to bury my head in a wet laundry basket to muffle the sound.
I am Death himself, I thought.
And this man has the nerve to kiss me with breath that smells like expired salted cornflakes and broken dreams?
A few days later, the gods of chaos outdid themselves.
Maya came out of the bathroom looking like she had seen the abyss. I was scared. Not by her but to her pink Peppa pig panties.
“MOMMY,” she hissed like a dying cat. “There’s BLOOD. IN. MY. PANTIES. Am I going to die?”
Aliya gasped. Jaya screamed in unison. I stared at Maya, her hands out like she’d touched something radioactive. I tried to recall the protocol.
Fuck! What should I do now?
Blood?
Panties?
I am Leon Darrow! I don't deal with Peppa pig panties.
Wait.
Did I buy pads? God, what should I do? I don't know anything about periods. How should I know? I'm an assassin-billionaire-boss for fuck’s sake.
Did I have any idea how to explain this without sounding like a biology textbook wrapped in trauma?
What should I do again about tampons?
Damn it! This was way harder than making a bomb.
Thank the heavens Mylene arrived like an angel with chocolate, heating pads, and the calm wisdom of a woman who has birthed twins during a typhoon.
She sat Maya down, patted her head, gave her a warm hug, and said, “Welcome to womanhood, sweetheart. You’re going to cry about cheese, pink potatoes and hate boys for the rest of your life.”
Aliya clapped in excitement. Jaya clapped too, probably because everyone else did.
I sank into the couch and mouthed, help me to Mylene. She winked.
Then the day after, I bought a new car. Not just any car. A white SUV so huge that people mistook me for a diplomatic envoy. The thing purred like a beast, had massage seats, hidden compartments, and AI voice controls that responded to my old code name: Widow.
Ray saw it before he left.
“You renting that?”
“Yep,” I said, flipping pancakes and lying like a boss. “Just for a few days.”
He nodded, then asked if it had seat-warmers.
I said, “Only for people with a soul.”
He didn’t get the joke.
That next night, when the kids were asleep—Maya passed out with a heat pad, Aliya snoring under six blankets, and Jaya holding an empty peanut butter jar like a teddy bear—I went downstairs.
To the garage.
To my war room.
What had once been a dusty room with broken shelves and suspicious spider kingdoms had now become something out of a Jason Bourne wet dream.
The walls were lined with encrypted servers.
A biometric scanner unlocked a hidden floor hatch that led down into a basement that technically didn't exist on any property map.
High-tech military-grade systems were installed wall to wall.
The air inside hummed with electricity and silent vendettas.
Multiple curved monitors glowed with blueprints, maps, and security feeds.
And on the center screen?
Alec’s Mansion.
No. It was one of my mansions.
Thanks to Joe, my ex-mercenary bestie, the entire system was now my playground.
He’d snuck in under the guise of "private security upgrade" and installed a shadow surveillance network routed directly to my laptop.
I could see:
Every room.
Every camera angle.
Every time Alec scratched his overpriced hairline and pink lip gloss.
Even Dorothy feeding the cat like she hadn’t just married my enemy. My brother.
I opened the secure comm line.
“Joe,” I said.
“Widow,” he replied, sipping something that looked suspiciously alcoholic. “You watching your ex-boo make out with a blonde airhead again?”
“Of course not,” I lied, zooming in on Alec as he adjusted his Rolex.
“I’m sending you names,” I continued. “Contact my lawyer. The one in Geneva. The property in Texas and Greece? I want them liquidated. All proceeds rerouted through chain dummy corps, bounced through Prague, Paria, Estonia, and then to the underground account in Cayman under alias WIDOWBLOOD.”
Joe whistled. “Even the CIA can’t trace that web.”
“I know,” I said, tapping a red key that encrypted all visuals. “That’s the point.”
He paused. “You know this isn’t just petty revenge, right? You’re starting to rebuild the whole network.”
“I am,” I said calmly. “And I’m going to do it with three kids, a part-time maid, and a uterus that won’t stop cramping.”
As I stared at the mansion’s glowing outlines, I felt something inside me shift.
This body, once heavy with shame and resentment, now buzzed with quiet power.
I was not just surviving.
I was transforming. The suburban chaos of motherhood had sharpened me.
The betrayal had fueled me.
And now?
The clock was ticking. Alec wouldn’t see the storm coming. Not until it was already too late.