This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel Chapter 320

Chapter 320 Silence

Maya walked out without looking back, her steps deliberate and unhesitating.

Finished

The door hung wide open behind her. The office settled back into a silence that felt too large for the room.

“Not even a little gratitude?” Ernest muttered, a quiet thread of dissatisfaction running through it.

He genuinely liked her. Quite a bit, actually.

It was not in any complicated way.

8

Ernest had simply never met someone who moved through the world at her particular angle before, all forward momentum and zero apology, the kind of person who left a mark whether they meant to or not.

Outside Ernest’s office, Maya pulled out her phone and found a long string of missed video calls from Edric, stacked one right after the other.

3

She called him back.

The moment the call connected, she dropped into full damage control. “I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose,” she said quickly. “Something came up.”

11

She pressed both palms together in a sincere, earnest plea. “I should be home by tomorrow. Please don’t tell Mom and Dad.”

Edric’s mouth curved just slightly. His gaze settled on her hair immediately and didn’t move, his voice staying perfectly level. “Maya,” he said, “when are you planning to change that color back?”

“I just got it done,” Maya said, steering away from the subject entirely. “I haven’t even shown Mom and Dad yet. Why would I change it?”

She’d been looking forward to strolling through the Clark family home and watching her grandfather’s face.

“You’re showing it to our parents,” Edric said, repeating the word slowly, like he was turning it over in his mouth. “You really do love giving people surprises, don’t you, little sister?”

A quiet breath left him, soft and unhurried. “Then I’ll give you a surprise tomorrow too, Maya.”

“Sure,” Maya said, only half paying attention. “Is it a present?”

Edric smiled. “A big one,” he said.

That actually sounded worth looking forward to.

They wrapped up without much more than that. Maya tossed her phone onto the bed and moved through the room with quick, practiced hands, pulling things together Jacket, charger, the small blade she never went anywhere without.

4 shift

enter

12:32 pm PPP.

Chapter 320 Silence

Finished

The system surfaced then, quietly and without announcement, its voice carrying a mechanical hesitation she hadn’t heard from it in a long time.

“You’re not going to help him?”

“No,” Maya said simply.

“He won’t actually die anyway. He’s the main character. He doesn’t need me.”

She had a decent enough read on Ernest by now.

When the time came to face him from across the line that divided them, she’d handle it then.

And if things went truly sideways, she still had the option to reset.

The system went quiet.

Maya drifted toward sleep that night with a vague, drowsy curiosity still tugging at the edges of her thoughts.

What exactly is Edric’s big surprise going to be?

Alfred had been quietly furious ever since Maya kicked him from the party and blocked him on every platform without a word of explanation.

They stayed connected now only through a single video sharing app, their daily streak the only real thread still running between them.

Real conversation barely happened anymore.

Maya had her own world and her own rhythm, and somewhere along the way they’d drifted from the easy closeness that used to come without effort.

But discovering she’d been meeting internet friends in person without saying anything to him pushed his frustration past the point he was willing to sit with quietly.

He called Edric.

The line connected, and Alfred skipped every pleasantry without hesitation. “Maya met her online friend in person,” he said, flat and direct. “Did you know?”

“She met an online friend in person?” That particular detail caught Edric off guard. He’d only known Maya was inside the Imperial Order.

The smile on his face deepened into something slow and satisfied. “I’m going to bring her back tomorrow,” he told his brother, entirely unbothered. “Maya’s at the Imperial Order’s base. You want in?”

“Yes,” Alfred said, and he didn’t even ask for the details.

He’d been meaning to have a proper conversation with Chance anyway.

12:32 pm Ppp.

Chapter 328 4lence

The two of them arrived at a complete understanding in under ten seconds.

0:00

After the call ended. Edric leaned his head into one hand, and something warm and quietly wicked moved behind his eyes, the particular brand of amusement that didn’t entirely belong on a grown man’s face.

The idea still forming in his mind stretched into something considerably better.

It was not just him bringing her back; it was all of them. Every brother, arriving one after another, each one a new wall closing in around her.

She’d dodge the first and find the second waiting. Then the third. Then the fourth.

The look on her face when she realized there was nowhere left to run would genuinely be something.

He’d probably get hit for engineering the whole thing. Maya was not the kind of person who accepted an ambush with grace.

That was perfectly fine. Edric had inherited the exact same streak from their father, the one that made both of them enthusiastic participants in their own consequences.

He dialed again.

Toby’s voice came through a moment later, unhurried and faintly suspicious. “What is it, Edric?”

“Something’s happening tomorrow,” Edric said, keeping his voice warm and entirely reasonable. “Thought you might want to be involved.”

“What kind of something?”

“There’s business that need handling over at the Imperial Order.”

The voice on the other end came out slow and thoroughly unimpressed. “And why exactly would I volunteer for that? The government’s already moving to dismantle that whole organization. What would we even be doing there, throwing a party?”

“Maya’s there,” Edric said, patient and unhurried. “She also got a new hairstyle.” He let the last part land with a particular lightness, the kind that barely qualified as neutral. “I think you’d find it very interesting.”

He wasn’t only after their reaction to Maya’s hair.

He wanted to watch his sister’s face the precise moment she looked up and found herself surrounded on all sides by brothers she hadn’t invited and couldn’t outrun.

What’s so appealing about being out there on her own anyway? What does running around on contracts actually offer that coming home doesn’t?

Edric had genuinely never understood it.

But he was about to make sure Maya understood, very clearly, that disappearing without a word came with its own specific and unavoidable set of consequences.

12.32 pm Ppp

This Time. Be the Villain’s Favorite Daughter