Chapter 10
She blinked. “A car?”
“Yes. Yours.”
Silence.
“Really?” Then she laughed so hard, she nearly choked on her own morning breath. “Oh ho ho! What happened, you planning to elope with a milkman?”
Maya stepped forward. “Mommy said we’re going on an adventure.”
“I did,” I nodded solemnly.
Aliya added, “She also said something about ‘revenge’ and ‘Swiss accounts’ but I dunno what that means.”
Jhing-Jhing paused. “Ahhh… sleep deprivation. I remember those days. Okay, fine. You can borrow Tito Eddie’s van. But return it, ha? We use that for Sunday karaoke.”
The van smelled like dried shark and old wet clothes. I sat in the driver’s seat, straining against the wheel, while Aliya used a jump rope to tie her stuffed duck to the headrest.
Maya acted like my GPS.
“We turn left, right? Then past the big cow statue?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Does the cow have sunglasses?”
“Yup! That one!”
Baby Jaya shrieked and began slapping her feet on the dashboard.
It took us three hours.
Three hours of nonstop screaming, vomiting (Aliya again), diaper explosions, and me seriously questioning if revenge was still worth it.
But the moment I saw the mountain road curve toward that familiar treeline, something inside me stirred.
Hope. Rage. A flicker of something I hadn’t felt since I died. Purpose.
It looked exactly as I remembered—small, gray, with vines creeping up the sides like nature was trying to reclaim it. The lock was rusted, but I had buried a key under a fake rock beside the door.
Aliya stepped on it and screamed, “MOM THERE’S A SPIDER UNDER THE ROCK—Can I pet it? I froze.
“No, hell no!” We stepped inside.
“Mom, is this our cabin?” Maya asked and looked around the dust covered excuse of a cabin.
“It is now.”
Aliya groaned, “Did we steal it?”
“Of course not.”
“Ah! It's not exciting anymore.”
Dust and time had done their worst, but the cabin still stood solid. The couch was torn, the fireplace was filled with twigs, and the floorboards creaked like a horror movie waiting to start.
I moved to the fireplace, crouched down, and pulled a loose brick from behind the andiron.
There it was.
A metal lockbox, perfectly intact.
My hands shook. This was it. The old me. The true me. I opened it.
Inside were:
The black passport, pristine.
A Glock 19, wrapped in a cloth.
Two burner phones, both still working.
Three ATM cards marked with international bank names.
Envelopes fat with money—clean, untouched, free.
And at the bottom, my watch—the biometric key to my Swiss vault.
I grinned like a madman. Leon Darrow wasn’t gone. He was just biding his time.
“Mommy,” Maya whispered behind me, eyes wide, “Are we… secret agents?”
“Yes,” I said.
Aliya whooped. “Can I be a dragon spy?!”
Jaya farted in response.
I clutched the gun, the watch, and the passport. The world thought I was dead.
But now? Now I had kids, chaos, and cold hard cash.
But let the war begin.
We were halfway down the winding road back to town when the golden arches appeared in the distance like a heavenly sign from above.
McDonald’s.
Now, I’ve eaten caviar flown in from the coast of Spain. I’ve dined at Michelin-starred restaurants where the waiter uses tweezers to place a single parsley leaf on your duck confit.
But this?
This was war food. And I was a soldier—tired, broke, and mentally unhinged. I pulled into the drive-thru with the intensity of a fugitive making a drug deal.
“Welcome to McDonald’s, can I take your order?”
“Yes. Everything.”
“Pardon?”
“I want the greasiest, juiciest, cheapest, most cholesterol-packed feast you’ve got. Nuggets, burgers, fries, sundaes. I don’t care. Throw in Happy Meals. Four of them. I want the toys.”
The van smelled like victory and heartburn.
I handed a nugget to Maya, who promptly threw it back at me and screamed, “TOO HOT!”
Aliya licked her sundae like a wild animal while Jaya examined every toy for “magical properties.”
The silence that followed as they all stuffed their faces was the most peace I’d had in days.
I chewed into a Big Mac, sauce dripping down my borrowed unicorn-print hoodie, and I swear to all the gods of vengeance—
“This is the most disgusting, amazing, chemically satisfying thing I’ve ever tasted.”
I even ordered takeout for Jhing-Jhing and her girls. A thank-you for the van. And for not reporting me to child services.
We arrived back at the apartment looking like we’d just looted a food truck. The kids crashed onto the couch, fries in their hair, ketchup on their cheeks, and Happy Meal toys in their socks. I dumped the bags of food onto the kitchen table and began distributing things like a war general handing out rations.
That’s when Aliya pointed at the black case I carried in from the van.
“What’s that, Mommy?”
I froze mid-nugget.
Maya peeked over her sister’s shoulder.
“It looks like one of those briefcases spies carry in movies. Is that a toy?”
“Is it a nerf gun?” Aliya squealed, reaching for the handle.
I blocked her with a reflex I didn’t even know Catherine’s body had. “No touching.”