This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Kitchen Table
Hank and Fern decide at midnight that she's theirs and turn the job down, but the client has posted it to anyone; Mabel overhears and decides Dad owes money to bad men, then sees a man watching their windows.
Hank looked at the photo for a long time.
Then he got up, filled the kettle, and put it on the stove.
He came back and looked at the photo again.
It hadn't changed.
"Fern."
He didn't raise his voice. He never did.
Fern came down the stairs in her robe a moment later, because she always heard him.
"Is she asleep?" Hank asked.
"Out cold. She ate two plates of lasagna and asked if she could wash the dishes." Fern smiled. "I said no. She washed them anyway."
Hank turned the photo around on the table.
Fern's smile stayed exactly where it was.
Everything else in her face went cold.
She sat down. She picked up the photo by the corner and read the typed line.
"This came through the broker?"
"This morning. I was going to turn it down."
"You were always going to turn it down. We don't do children."
"I know."
"So why is she sleeping in Linus's old crib bed, Hank?"
He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes.
"I hadn't opened the envelope yet. She asked me to be her dad."
Fern stared at him.
"She picked you?"
"She said I looked ordinary."
Fern put her hand over her mouth.
Her shoulders started to shake.
"Don't," Hank said.
"Ordinary," Fern wheezed. "Thirty years in the business, and a five-year-old took one look at you and thought, there's a safe man."
"It's been a long day."
Fern wiped her eyes.
Then she put the photo face down on the table and laid her hand flat on top of it.
"She's ours."
"Yes."
"Then this job is dead." Fern picked up her phone. "I'll call the broker now."
The call took less than a minute.
Hank watched her face while she listened.
When she hung up, she set the phone down very gently.
Fern only did things gently when she wanted to break them.
"He's sorry, but the client didn't want to wait for us. It went out to the open list this afternoon."
"Anyone can take it."
"Anyone who's hungry enough." Fern's voice was soft. "Four hundred thousand dollars for a five-year-old in a children's home. Somebody will be hungry enough."
Hank put his glasses back on.
"Get the boys on the phone."
Upstairs, Mabel was not asleep.
Sixteen years of sleeping in a house where people talked about her had taught her to wake up the moment the voices downstairs changed.
She crept to the top of the stairs in her borrowed pajamas and sat on the top step.
Linus was already sitting there.
He didn't say anything. He just moved over to make room.
Downstairs, Fern had put the phone on speaker in the middle of the table.
"Is everybody on?" Fern asked.
"I'm in the middle of a surgery," said a tired man's voice. "This better be important."
"You're in the break room eating a sandwich. I can hear the wrapper," said a younger, cheerful voice.
"I'm on patrol," the cheerful voice went on. "So whatever this is, it has to be legal, or I didn't hear it."
"Is it about the barn?" said a teenage boy. "Because that was mostly an accident."
"Shush," said an old man's rumble. "Your mother's talking."
Mabel pressed her face to the banister.
A doctor. A police officer. The sick brother and Grandpa.
They were all awake at midnight because Mom called.
"Your father brought home a daughter today," Fern said.
There was a silence on the line.
Then everyone talked at once.
"Finally."
"Is she cute?"
"Did he kidnap her? Mom, you told him to kidnap one."
"I didn't kidnap her," Hank said. "She adopted me."
"What's her name?" asked the old man.
"Mabel," said Fern. "She's five. She says she's very smart and won't cause any trouble."
"So she's a liar," said the teenager happily. "Great. I love her."
Fern waited until they were done.
Then her voice dropped.
"There's money involved. Somebody wants to hurt her."
The line went very quiet.
Mabel's hands went cold on the banister.
She didn't hear the next part properly.
The blood was rushing in her ears too loudly.
Money. Somebody wanted money.
Her new dad had come home tired. Her new mom had called everyone at midnight. They were poor. Of course they were poor. They rode the bus.
Somebody was coming for money, and they had said they'd hurt the little girl.
In her first life, Mabel had heard the Ainsworth driver talk about men like that, men who lent money and broke fingers.
She'd been in this family for nine hours, and she was already the reason they were in trouble.
Downstairs, Hank's voice came out flat and quiet.
"If anybody touches her, I'll bury them."
The old man grunted. "That's my boy."
"I'll pull the street cameras around the home," said the cop. "Legally."
"I'll find out who paid," said the teenager. "Not legally."
"I'm in on Sunday," said the doctor. "Somebody save me some lasagna."
Mabel crawled back to her bed and lay staring at the ceiling.
Dad owed money to bad men.
Fine.
She had lived through worse men than that.
She would be useful. She would be so useful they'd never regret taking her.
Linus came in a minute later and sat on the end of her bed.
"You're scared," he said. It wasn't a question.
"I'm not scared. I'm planning."
He thought about that. "Okay."
Mabel got up to get a glass of water and went to the window instead.
The street below was empty and orange under the lamps.
Except for one doorway across the street.
A man stood in it with his collar up, smoking.
He wasn't looking at the street.
He was looking straight up at her window.
← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend