Chapter 47 Lucky KaiaÂ
Guns were part of him in a way that went deeper than habit. He’d known them so long they felt like a natural extension of his own body.Â
The boy’s face was completely colorless. His hand came up without any warning, the safety already off, the barrel locked directly onto Thomas.Â
It was a striking face. The smile spreading across it was disturbingly wrong, cold, and twisted with a satisfaction that chilled something fundamental.Â
Thomas’ pupils snapped tight.Â
A gun..Â
The man’s reflexes were fast. He threw himself sideways in one clean motion and covered his daughter with his body.Â
The shot exploded through the air with a force that shook the room, and the recoil punched a numbing jolt straight through Toby’s palm.Â
The first shot missed.Â
The second came immediately. Toby kept his eyes fixed on Thomas the entire time.Â
The bullet tore through the man’s shoulder. His white shirt went red, and the searing pain pushed cold sweat out across Thomas’s skin.Â
Maya was pressed against the wall with both hands locked over her ears. Her body trembled in small, uncontrollable pulses.Â
Still afraid of gunfire?Â
Toby filed that away as a passing thought.Â
Such a fragile nerve.Â
The third shot went for Thomas’ leg.Â
There was nowhere to go this time.Â
Thomas dropped to his knees on the spot, every last bit of his mobility stripped away in an instant.Â
The boy looked down at him, and there was nothing behind his eyes but absolute cold.Â
The fourth shot pressed the barrel directly against Thomas’s forehead.Â
Kaia launched herself up from somewhere Toby hadn’t been tracking, and the shout she let out had no business being that fierce from someone her size.Â
“Don’t you touch my dad!”Â
Toby moved the barrel without any hesitation, and the faint smile came back. “I got too focused on him.Â
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12:47 Sat, May 2Â
Chapter 47 Lucky KataÂ
Totally forgot about you.”Â
The gun shifted toward Kaia with no emotional weight behind it at all.Â
He played the part of the small, vindictive traitor with complete commitment.Â
Kaia had once said something in his defense. It hadn’t earned her much.Â
Maya watched every bit of it with cold, steady eyes.Â
FamshedÂ
Toby had no principled objection to shooting children. Thomas’ total indifference to Maya and Toby’s total indifference to Kaia were exactly the same thing.Â
He pulled the trigger.Â
The mechanism clicked and produced nothing.Â
Toby stared at the weapon in his hand.Â
Three rounds. That was the entire magazine.Â
Maya thought this was honestly about as predictable as anything else in her life.Â
If she were the kind of person the universe used as a punching bag, perfectly calibrated to receive its worst, then Kaia was the opposite.Â
The kind of person who exists quietly rearranges itself around. Not a guaranteed winner, but close enough that the distinction barely mattered. Good things found Kaia.Â
They’d been taken together once, years ago.Â
Maya had been shoved into a corner and left completely alone.Â
Kaia had been looked after because she had a face that made people instinctively want to protect her.Â
Maya had never figured out what that quality actually was.Â
The fact that it worked on kidnappers was the part she found most baffling.Â
The magazine was empty. Maya moved without hesitating. She drove one full-force kick into Thomas’ face, put him flat on the floor with his head ringing, grabbed Toby’s uninjured hand, and pulled.Â
“No rounds, no leverage. Leave him here and let’s go!”Â
She’d gotten a bad feeling the exact moment Toby turned the gun toward Kaia.Â
And there it was.Â
At the worst possible moment, the ammunition ran out.Â
Whatever frustration Toby was carrying didn’t matter anymore. He shifted into something surprisingly composed, telling Maya to stay tight behind him and not fall back.Â
He knew this estate.Â
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Chapter 47 Lucky KaiaÂ
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He’d been a regular here once. Harmony International School had been built with Clark family money and manpower, and every floor of every building had always been his to walk through freely.Â
The pain from his broken arm had burned his patience down to nothing, and the people fleeing past him in the halls got none of his consideration.Â
He was, technically, not a particularly strong person.Â
But he was the kind of person who carried a gun and knew exactly how to make that count.Â
Even empty, the weapon gave him enough weight to make it irrelevant what anyone else thought.Â
Every trace of civility Toby might have once claimed was completely gone. Women, children, the elderly, grown’men, it made no difference. Anyone in his path got one clear message, and it was to move.Â
Maya, wrapped in his particular brand of aggressive dominance, was genuinely safer than she’d been all day. It was a striking contrast to how she’d arrived here, getting shoved around with no one even glancing herÂ
way.Â
An empty gun in the right hand was still an argument nobody wanted to lose.Â
Nobody argues with a weapon. Not really.Â
They cleared the corridors with efficiency that surprised even her.Â
He had clearance to every room. He pulled one open and found it packed with people who’d taken shelter inside.Â
Toby raised the gun at them. His voice carried nothing. “Out.”Â
Whether it was the weapon or the look in his eyes, the kind that communicated a mental state best left untested, everyone inside read the situation and moved out quietly, leaving the room entirely empty.Â
Toby cleared them all with that same flat authority and slammed the door shut behind the last one.Â
Outside, the chaos kept going without any sign of stopping.Â
The room was expensive in every visible detail. A decorative fruit arrangement sat untouched on the table. Maya hadn’t eaten a single thing in more than a day.Â
She felt no hunger. What she felt instead was something close to nausea.Â
Toby stood pale from the pain, muttering under his breath. It was technically profanity, but it came out oddly tame, the way it always did with someone whose education had made full commitment to cursing genuinely difficult.Â
Something about firing every security guard in the building. Something about a collection of absolute fools. Maybe it was the absence of any real feeling of safety. Whatever the reason, once they were inside that room, Toby wrapped his one working arm around Maya and showed absolutely no sign of letting go.Â
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This Time, Ill Be the Villain’s Favorite Daughter