Villain’s Favorite 126

 

Chapter 126 Cold Milk 

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The other boys shuffled out in a pack, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, muttering under their breath. Things like, “Textbook antisocial or what…” and “Brain like a trap, shame she doesn’t put it toward blowing up the chem lab…” Their voices faded down the hallway, swallowed by the echo of retreating footsteps. 

Phoebe let out a soft, involuntary “wow”. 

“You’re really smart. 

“I kind of… admire you.” 

Her voice came out warm and syrupy, her eyes round and bright. 

Maya’s expression went flat, the easy looseness draining from her face in an instant. “Don’t,” she said, and the word landed like a door slamming shut. “Please don’t admire me.” 

She had a low tolerance for people who felt… off. 

And Phoebe was clearly not right in the head. 

“Why not?” Phoebe asked, her usual timidness creeping back in, though her eyes stayed wet and wide. “I never did anything to you. You even gave me a roll once. Remember?” 

“Then admire him.” 

Maya grabbed her brother by the arm with the decisiveness of someone passing off a live grenade and shoved him forward. 

Phoebe’s small face crumpled. 

If Maya didn’t know better, she’d have sworn she saw actual disgust flicker across those soft features. 

“Him?” she said, eyeing Alfred. “He just looks like a bottomless pit.” 

Maya blinked. For a rare moment, she looked genuinely thrown. 

So this was how her brilliant older brother came across to other people? Someone who… ate a lot? 

Alfred, the target of the assessment, didn’t even bother to look up. 

As unresponsive as ever. 

School let out in the afternoon. 

Wendy reached for the children’s backpacks out of habit, but Maya insisted on carrying her own. “Mom,” she said, adjusting the strap on her shoulder, “can I stay at Toby’s place for a few days?” 

Wendy hesitated. The boy they’d encountered earlier still lingered at the edge of her thoughts. She pressed her lips together briefly before answering. “Too late today for that, sweetheart. Tomorrow, all right? There’s something I need to talk to you about tonight.” 

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finished 

“Okay.” 

Why tonight? 

What couldn’t be said now? 

Maya felt the faint prickle of curiosity. Still, she asked nothing. 

For Wendy, however, the conversation ahead felt anything but simple. 

The boy’s sudden appearance had unsettled something she had managed to keep buried for years. 

It forced her to confront a truth she had delayed for far too long. Maya deserved to know who her biological parent’s were. 

Keeping it hidden wasn’t a long-term solution. 

Wendy knew that better than most. No child grew up without wondering. 

Even those raised happily by adoptive parents, even those who never learned the truth until adulthood… They often found themselves wondering once they learned it. What kind of people had brought them into the world? 

And for a child from the orphanage system, that hunger ran deeper. 

It gnawed at the bone. 

Wendy leaned her forehead against the back of the sofa and stayed there. She remained in the same position until Maya had gone off to her room to do homework. And still she hadn’t figured out how to begin. 

There was something unnerving about stepping into a conversation she couldn’t fully control. 

She stood outside Maya’s door, a glass of milk in hand, pacing in hesitant loops. 

“Mom,” came her son’s voice from behind, light and unhurried, “what exactly has you circling Maya’s door like that?” 

He paused, then added, “At this rate, you’ve basically run a marathon.” 

From the moment they got home until now, Wendy had been walking back and forth. Alfred had grown bored enough to count her steps, and, in the process, discovered a new level of respect for her stamina. 

Wendy frowned. “I’m nervous. Am I not allowed to hesitate?” 

Alfred didn’t look convinced. “You’ve never been nervous about killing someone.” 

“That is completely different.” 

He still wore that same blank, uncomprehending expression, as if human nuance were an abstract concept he had no interest in learning. Wendy exhaled, then said flatly, “Fine. Let me ask you something. 

“If Maya stabbed you out of nowhere, what would you think?” 

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Alfred answered without pause. “That she’s grown up.” 

There was, if anything, a trace of approval in the thought. 

“And if Toby stabbed you?” 

“He deserves to die.” 

For doing that to me. 

Wendy went quiet for two full seconds, then smiled despite herself. “Exactly. You react differently when it’s someone who matters. That’s normal. You’ll understand when you’re older.” 

Alfred considered this. “I think I already do.” 

“Good.” She reached up and flicked his forehead lightly. “Now be a dear and keep quiet, darling.” 

She needed a little more time to wrestle with this. 

But Alfred had no intention of watching her wear a trench into the hallway floor. 

He stepped past her and knocked. 

Two sharp sound cleanly raps against the door. 

Inside, Maya set down her pen and hurried over, pulling the door open. 

“Mom!” 

Her voice came bright and quick. 

Wendy still held the milk. Her spine stiffened for just a fraction of a second, and then she smoothed it over with practiced grace, reaching out to brush Maya’s hair from her forehead. “Good evening, sweetie. 

“I brought you…” She lifted the glass. Felt the coolness of it against her palm. The milk had gone cold an hour ago. She smiled. “Cold milk.” 

Cold milk… 

Maya’s brow furrowed briefly, just long enough to register the strangeness of it, and then she shrugged, accepting. “Thank you, Mom.” 

Wendy stepped into the room at last, setting the glass down on the desk. 

All right. 

She took a slow breath. 

How do you even begin something like this? 

She wanted to pace again. She crushed the impulse. Raked her brain for an opening, a wedge, anything. Finally, she found what she convinced herself was a good place to start. “Honey, a while back, your father got bored and started digging through some old récords. Wealthy families, that sort of thing. And as it 

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Chapter 126 Cold Milk 

happens, he stumbled across something…” 

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This Time Ill Be the Villain’s Favonte Daughter