Chapter 23
It began on a Wednesday.
The kind of Wednesday that smells like betrayal and stale espresso.
Alec woke to the sound of his phone exploding with notifications. Messages. Missed calls. Emails flagged in red. His assistant was screaming through the intercom in five languages, trying to explain the unexplainable.
“Sir, the Texas ranch is gone. We tried to access it yesterday and—”
“Gone?” he barked, shoving away his silk sheets. “What do you mean gone?!”
“It’s sold. Entirely liquidated. And the Greece villa too. The sale went through three ghost lawyers in thirty-six hours and was routed through—well, sir, no one can trace it.”
Alec rubbed his eyes, tension digging into his temples. “What about the Tokyo shipment?”
“Missing,” she whispered. “Yakuza are furious.”
He was panicking.
He was on his feet in minutes, pacing through his high-rise office barefoot, teeth gritted.
“Where the hell is Leon’s drive?” he hissed.
That’s when the rumors began.
First, it was a whisper.
Then a blog post.
Then a full-blown news segment.
"ALLEGATIONS SWIRL: Alec Darrow Involved in Brother Leon's Death?"
Images of Alec and Leo appeared on-screen — all smiles, all lies.
"Sources close to the Darrow family reveal deep tension between the two brothers shortly before Leon's untimely passing..."
Dorothy stood at the kitchen island, sipping her oat milk smoothie like none of this concerned her.
She blinked at him. “Are you seriously yelling at the TV?”
Alec turned, red-faced and drenched in sweat.
“This is your fault!” he barked. “You and your ‘stay out of business’ attitude!”
She scoffed, placed her smoothie down, and crossed her arms. “My fault? I didn’t ask to marry a man who trades guns and hides money in fake churches!”
He grabbed her wrist too tightly.
Dorothy gasped. “Let go of me.”
He did — too quickly, almost as if he didn’t recognize himself. She stumbled back, cradling her hand. Her eyes narrowed. This was not the man she thought she married. Or maybe it was, and she was just now seeing it.
“You’re falling apart,” she muttered.
Meanwhile, in the Kitchen of Chaos
I stood in my kitchen, still in mismatched yellow-green socks, one eyebrow pencil applied and the other forgotten. My hair was in a pineapple bun. Maya was arguing with Aliya about glitter slime and Roblox, Jaya was pretending to be a dinosaur with a ladle, and in the middle of all that—
I was laughing.
Laughing so hard I nearly fell off the counter stool.
Why?
Because on my tablet, the news played louder and louder.
“Alec Darrow implicated in potential financial fraud, Japanese underworld retaliation pending—”
I picked up a single stalk of broccoli, bit into it like it was a victory drumstick, and chewed slowly. With class.
No chocolate. Not anymore. I was on a diet.
Lost twenty-five pounds and counting.
I could run now.
Lift groceries without weeping.
Even survive leg day.
More importantly, I could still destroy men in the dark with a whispered word.
The Underground Effect
Joe Smith had done his job well.
He didn't just sell the properties — he stirred the pot.
The Tokyo shipment was deliberately rerouted to a dock owned by Alec’s rival. The Yakuza viewed it as a territorial insult.
Internal documents, edited with pristine precision, revealed inconsistencies in Alec’s communication with Leon months before his death.
The trail led nowhere. But the damage?
Everywhere.
One of Alec’s trusted men, Viktor — once Leon’s bodyguard — disappeared with half a million in gold bonds and leaked photos of Alec and a military-grade supplier in Argentina.
Whispers turned into flames. Flames turned into headlines.
Back in My World
Aliya spilled cereal on the new leather car seats. I didn't care. I am happy. I smiled. A victorious smile.
Maya couldn’t find her favorite rainbow Taylor Swift hoodie. I didn't care where it was or why she was screaming at her tablet.
Jaya refused to wear pants and watched cocomelon lane for hours.
The maid almost quit because she found a stuffed dead raccoon in the laundry pile.
“Mom,” Maya asked while I chopped cucumbers with surgical precision, “why are you so happy this week?”
I smiled. “Because justice is like broccoli.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Underrated,” I said, stabbing a cherry tomato. “And when done right, it makes people cry.”
I tucked Jaya under one arm, wiped Aliya’s sticky hands, and handed Maya a heating pad for her cramps.
Then I returned to my secret laptop, hidden inside the cereal cabinet behind three fake boxes of cereals.
The screen showed a high-res feed of Alec, screaming into his phone, sweating bullets, Dorothy crying in the corner.
Joe messaged:
[JOE] The seeds are in. The Yakuza want blood. Dorothy’s parents hired a lawyer. Alec's assistant just sold a photo of him passed out drunk to TMZ. Enjoy the popcorn.
[ME] I’m on broccoli.
Outside, the world turned.
Kids screamed. The rice cooker and the oven beeped.
The scent of garlic and Korean spicy ramen filled the air. And in the shadows of a suburban kitchen…
An empire fell. Piece by piece. To the woman no one saw coming.