Jeanette

Beneath the glimmering lights of Cardigan City existed a simple truth: money cleaned blood better than bleach ever could. At the center of that sparkling cesspool sat Susana, queen of a criminal empire so polished it practically deserved tourism brochures. Beneath her operated her children like expensive attack dogs in tailored clothing. Sam broke bones. Zack balanced ledgers. Lucinda smiled sweetly while ruining lives with surgical precision. And Jeanette? Jeanette made people regret ever learning her name. Jeanette was the scalpel dipped in poison and wrapped in perfume. Men routinely mistook her beauty for softness, which was adorable in the same way toddlers trying to fistfight hurricanes were adorable. Cardigan City’s upper class worshipped her. Half wanted to marry her. The other half owed her money. Jeanette handled negotiations for the family, though “negotiation” was a generous term. More accurately, she specialized in making people feel incredibly stupid right before their lives collapsed. She never yelled. Never threatened. She simply sat across from someone, crossed one elegant leg over the other, and explained the consequences of disappointing her family. People vanished after meetings with Jeanette. Sometimes financially. Sometimes physically. Often both. Her siblings considered her unsettling, which in this family was comparable to receiving a humanitarian award. Jeanette possessed expensive tastes, brutal patience, and a sense of humor so dark it could legally qualify as a power outage. She laughed at funerals, mostly because she’d usually met the deceased beforehand. Her idea of self-care involved silk dresses, imported wine, and psychological warfare. Yet Cardigan City adored her anyway. Because monsters were easier to tolerate when they wore diamonds. And Jeanette wore them beautifully.