Villain’s Favorite 211

Chapter 211 Playing Games 

Fuushed 

Toby and George left one after the other. 

The three kids were still on the sofa, deep in their game. Alfred and Lawrence had developed a genuinely impressive rhythm together, and Maya had quietly abandoned any hope of contributing meaningfully to the team. 

Instead, she’d turned her attention to her gifts, examining them one by one with quiet contentment. 

Wendy finished tidying the living room and let her gaze settle on Maya. 

She had always been sharply observant. 

She’d noticed it earlier, when Maya brought Lawrence in from the cold and poked her head into the kitchen. The tip of her nose had been pink, and her lashes had been just slightly damp. 

Wendy hadn’t said anything at the time. 

It would’ve killed the mood, and the birthday had to come first. 

“Maya, did you have a good time today?” 

Raymond was watching her too. 

Maya caught both of their gazes and blinked, then let her eyes curve into a quiet smile. “Yeah.” 

“But you were crying earlier.” 

Wendy took her hand and steered her gently away from the sofa and the two absorbed boys, guiding her toward the bedroom and lowering her voice. “What happened? Will you talk to me?” 

Maya didn’t resist. She let herself be led into her parents’ room without argument. 

“You’ve always been such a sensible, good kid,” Wendy began, still finding her footing with the words. 

“But I’ve been wanting to say this for a while. You’re allowed to lean on us, you know. 

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’ll always be on your side.” 

Everyone got tangled up in their feelings sometimes, stuck and unable to move forward. 

Wendy wanted her daughter to be happier, and for that, she was fiercely determined to clear every obstacle out of Maya’s path. 

Wendy had barely crossed the threshold when Raymond followed her in. 

The two of them had apparently decided together that tonight was the night for a real conversation. 

Maya held her breath for a second, then caught herself being tense and deliberately let it go. 

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Chapter 211 Playing Games 

Wendy sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside her. 

She genuinely wanted to talk to her daughter. 

But about what, exactly? 

Ask her what she was thinking? Try to coax out the things she kept tucked away, the things she never said aloud? 

Wendy didn’t know how to ask. 

She wanted to take whatever was hurting her and make it disappear. 

Old wounds didn’t fade on their own. Wendy still remembered, with perfect clarity, every person from her past who had wronged her. She’d carried those grudges all the way into the present. 

Forgive and forget was a lovely thing to say. In reality, she would’ve cheerfully throttled every one of them. 

And whatever Maya had been through, it was almost certainly worse than anything Wendy had ever faced. 

Maya looked at her mother hovering there, visibly struggling to begin, and couldn’t help the quiet amusement that surfaced. “Mom. Just ask what you want to ask.” 

Wendy always treated her like she was made of something delicate. 

She wasn’t. 

People had a way of softening the memory of their own worst moments. 

In her past life, Maya hadn’t been gentle with Kaia. Not even close. She’d said ugly, cutting things that made Kaia cry, and even now the memory of those words had a harsh edge to it. 

She’d despised Kaia. 

But she’d hated Thomas more. 

In that life, no matter the setting, she’d always been the one who didn’t belong. 

She was like a stone dropped into a room full of glass, jarring against everything, welcome nowhere. 

“Foil character” might as well have been printed on her forehead. 

Maya had always skirted around her past, not wanting to get too close to it. 

Partly because she was afraid her parents would ask questions she couldn’t answer, and partly because her own behavior back then made her uncomfortable to think about. 

Wendy blinked. 

Just ask what I want to ask? 

Her daughter had cut straight to the point, and somehow that made Wendy hesitate more than she’d expected. She started laying groundwork instead. 

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Chapter 211 Playing Games 

“Maya. I’ve always thought you were such a wonderful kid…” 

“I’m not a wonderful kid.” Maya cut her off. “Mom. I’m a very bad child.” 

A girl barely seven years old announcing with full sincerity that she was terrible sent Wendy straight past rational thought. She covered her face with both hands and bit down on her lip. 

She fought the urge to shriek with all the self-control she had. 

Bad? 

Raymond found this newly interesting. He settled back against the headboard with the composed ease of someone about to be entertained. “What did you do, terrorize the neighbors? Steal someone’s lunch? Give us the full report, kid. I’m listening.” 

His tone was so blatantly amused it was practically theatrical. 

Maya shot him a deeply unimpressed look. 

Then she twisted her fingers into her skirt and let it all spill out in one breath. “I ruined someone’s dress on purpose. I said really mean things to people. And I used people to get what I wanted.” 

Silence. 

Wendy lowered her hands from her face. 

Her expression shifted into something that could only be described as the particular tenderness reserved for endangered species. “That’s it?” 

That’s it? 

Raymond went quiet too. 

Several full seconds passed. 

Then he let out a long, floating sound of theatrical astonishment, his face barely moving, wearing the precise expression of someone performing shock for an audience. 

“I’m absolutely beside myself,” he said, in the same tone one might use to read a grocery list aloud. 

Maya stared at him. 

His delivery had minimal destructive power and maximum withering effect. 

Raymond sat up straighter and looked at her. “Is that everything?” 

“Of course not.” 

Maya took a breath and reorganized herself. “Let me tell you a story,” she said, quietly. 

It was the kind of story that was written as fiction and read as a confession. 

She settled onto the edge of the bed. Wendy pulled her into her arms without missing a beat, and Maya let herself be held. She’d wanted to tell someone for a long time. She rearranged the words in her head and 

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Chapter 211 Playing Games 

started with the most classic of openings. “So, I have this friend… 

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10:13 Tue, May 12