The Villain's Sister Rewrites the Script

Sixty seconds until that truck turns me into roadkill.

I know the exact count because a line of glowing text just drifted through the air in front of me. [So this is the psycho second male lead's sister? The one who dies early?

Girl's got about a minute before she's parts.] [Brutal. She goes, he snaps, and by the end he's picked a fight with both leads and gets sold overseas to a syndicate compound.

They took their time with him.] I pull my foot back off the asphalt. Wind rips past me. The truck, nothing at all controlling it, shaves my nose and takes out the guardrail.

I turn and run for the alley the chat mentioned. I'm going to go find my sweet, delicate baby brother. Later I'd learn the rest.

The man who killed my parents is the father of the girl this entire book worships as its female lead. He hid the evidence himself. He's still out there, walking around free.

So this time I'm not just going to live through my sixty seconds. I'm going to put his whole family in a courtroom.

Deep in the alley, my baby brother had the future male lead pinned to the ground, hotpink hair blown out around his head, one fist already up. Chapter 1 [HERE IT IS. THE scene.

The one that ends with the MMC shipped overseas to a syndicate compound to rot.] [Not yet though.

First he gets wrecked in this alley by the second male lead, swears he'll claw out of the gutter, and takes the FMC back.] [What do you expect, he's just the second male lead.

Unrelated, but why isn't the sister dead yet? (noonecares edition)] [SHE'S ROLLING UP HER SLEEVES. The flashbacks are hitting.

My sister does that exact move and my first instinct is RUN.] [Literally me. You run slow, you get the smackdown.] Kai had Emmett on his knees.

He patted the kid's cheek like he was checking fruit for bruises. "I'm telling you," Kai said. "You go near Presley again, I'll feed you your own teeth." One of his boys jumped in. "Yeah!

Ask around, man. Boss runs this school. He'll put you in the ground." I swallowed the heat coming up my throat and walked over.

I kept my voice pleasant. "You'll feed him what, exactly? Since when do you cook?" Kai's shoulders came up around his ears.

He turned around and looked at me like the ground had opened. I smacked him upside the head. Three times. It knocked the stupid clean out of his eyes.

His boys did not appreciate that. "Hey! Who the hell are you? Nobody touches Boss! Lady, you want to die?" They started for me.

Two dirty hands, already reaching. "DON'T TOUCH HER." Kai's voice cracked off the brick. Both of them flinched hard enough to trip.

Then one of them started grinning. "Boss, she's kinda hot though. Don't hit her. Can I have her?

Like, keep her?" Kai jumped and cracked him on top of the skull. "Will you shut the hell up? That's my sister. You want to be my brotherinlaw?

Go take a good look at yourself first." The other one leaned in with a grin that needed washing. "Boss has girls everywhere though. Presley this, big sis that.

That's a lot of sisters. Share one. Heh heh." Kai turned around and slapped him across the face. Knocked his eyes back into focus. "Wipe your mouth out before you use it.

That is my sister. My blood. Anybody touches her, I bury them." The two of them stood there with their jaws hanging. Then they got very polite, very fast. "Ma'am. Hi.

Hello, ma'am." "Ma'am, you've got a really elegant, um, energy." "Ma'am, that hit you gave Boss had real power behind it." "Ma'am.

Are you accepting any more brothers?" "We're good, ma'am. We're super wellbehaved. We're Boss's boys." I raised an eyebrow at all three of them. "His boys. Great.

Then all three of you are coming with me." I let that sit. "Right now, though. Kai. Apologize to Emmett." Kai's mouth came open. Nothing came out of it. Chapter 2 [Wait.

Why isn't the sister following the script?

Did she WAKE UP or something? (side eye)] [The way she hits, this kid is never going psycho. (dead inside stare)] [Then how does the MMC ever claw his way up?

How does he end up with Presley? NO. (reaching hands dot gif)] [Sister needs to hurry up and die already. Stop wrecking the MMC's plot.] The chat kept coming.

The longer I stood there, the uglier it got about me specifically. Like I care what a comment section wants. As long as I'm breathing, my brother doesn't turn into anybody's psycho.

If curses worked, there wouldn't be one of them left alive. Kai leaned in close, talking through his teeth. "Sis. Don't do this to me in front of people. I promised Presley.

I told her I'd make him stop bothering her." There it was. The part that mattered. I crouched down in front of Emmett. He hadn't been hit yet.

Just his shirt, torn open at the shoulder. The kid was calm. Way too calm. There was something in his face with teeth in it. Two boys in this alley.

Only one of them looks like a psycho. It isn't my brother. The shirt had been old before it got torn. The chat said he doesn't eat enough.

So probably no money for a new one either. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm apologizing on my brother's behalf. "Our parents died when I was fifteen.

I've been busy keeping the lights on since, and I haven't had time to raise him, so he's grown up stupid enough that he can't tell right from wrong. "You want money, you want conditions.

Name them. "Just don't press charges." Emmett blinked. His eyes were clear. And careful. He was older than my brother. He was also a lot smaller than my brother.

And according to the book, this kid was going to own half the country someday. Might as well put something good in the bank. "You heard him," I said. "Presley asked him to do this.

He can't tell the difference between somebody meaning it and somebody using him, so he came after you. I'm telling you right now, he won't come near you again. Can you let it go?

As a favor to me?" Emmett just looked at me. Measuring. So he'd been running the numbers on people since before he could vote. "Sis! Why are you apologizing to him?

He isn't worth it!" Kai couldn't stand watching me bend. The version of me he knew walked in with her chin up and had never lost a fight to anybody. I cut him a look. "Shut up.

If a kid turns out to be a menace, that's on whoever raised him. That's me. I didn't teach you. You didn't learn to study, you learned to shove people around.

So you don't want school? Then you don't go to school." Kai froze. Then he set his jaw. "Fine! I don't want to go anyway! I hate school!" "Perfect.

Then there's no reason to give you an allowance. And if you're not in school, I'm going to assume you can earn. You're on shift at the diner. Both of your boys too.

What's mine is yours." The two of them: ??? Kai shrugged. "Fine. Whatever." He turned around. "You heard her.

You're coming." Both of them looked like they'd just been handed a subpoena. Our parents died in a crash. The driver ran.

There were no cameras on that stretch of road, so nobody ever found him. What they left us was money. One account.

Mom handed me a bank card on her way out the door that morning and told me the PIN. She said it was for a house in a good school district, so Kai and I could go somewhere decent.

I used it to buy a small storefront instead. I've been serving breakfast out of it ever since. I dropped out at fifteen. I'm twenty now.

A line of chat drifted past, slow and lazy. [Actually, hold on. That crash their parents were in. Was that really an accident? Eh.

Nobody cares about a side character's old debts anyway.] I stared at it until my fingertips went cold.

Chapter 3 Back then, I went to war with every relative who came sniffing after that account. Somebody wanted a cut, I showed up outside their subdivision with a bullhorn.

Then outside where they worked. The ones with something to hide, I went after what they'd buried.

You reach for my money again, I air out your whole ledger in front of everybody you know. After that, nobody so much as looked at our shop. They said I was a menace.

They said anybody who burns that hot doesn't last. I told them if I go, I'm taking them with me. That shut it down. Things got quiet. Kai went to school.

I saw him leave for it every morning. I never once checked whether any of it stuck. I'd never raised a kid before. Nobody told me those were two different jobs.

Then I thought about the ending the chat handed him, and something closed around my ribs. I have worked this hard so my brother and I could have a decent life.

Nobody touches my brother. The nothing little storefront I bought ended up right across from the new magnet school the year after.

Steady traffic, more money, so I'd started thinking about a second location. Today I was supposed to go look at a place one street over.

The chat started up again. [Honestly it's good that Kai's working at the diner. Now he can bring Presley food.

She saves money, buys makeup, gets pretty, goes right back to being Emmett's "close female friend."] [Kai was a punk from day one. You know why he goes psycho later?

Because he has no idea what a felony is. He'd do literally anything for Presley.

Who else was gonna die?] [Thank God Kai does what he's told, or how does Presley ever walk away clean? Which is exactly why the sister needs to stop messing with the storyline!

The author WILL come for her!] The author? Which one? My own parents couldn't tell me what to do. This guy's going to? Mind your own damn business.

I put my hand out to Emmett. "Let me get you up. Walk with us. You should know where the door is.

Kai gives you any more trouble, you come to the diner and tell me, and I'll beat him within an inch of his life." Kai stuck his lip out. I looked at him. He wilted on the spot.

Then he turned to his boys. "See that?

My sister is obsessed with me." One of them muttered, "Boss, how come you and me are not having the same experience right now?" Kai explained it patiently. "You never heard of tough love?

She hits me. She yells at me. What is that if not obsessed with me?" His boys: ... They were definitely not having the same experience. Emmett took my hand.

His palm was cold, and rough in places a kid's hand has no business being rough. He came up off the ground. And then he kept coming.

I had to tilt my head back to keep his face in view. I hadn't clocked how much taller he was. He let go first. "What grade are you in?" My brother was a freshman. "Senior." Flat.

Cool. I rounded on Kai. "Kai! He's a SENIOR! That's crunch time! And you're out here bothering him? Do you have a death wish?

You bother anybody else and you just wait." Kai looked at me like a wet dog and didn't say one word. [Hold up, y'all.

Is this really the same second male lead who stabs people and takes fingers off?] [Okay but has anyone else noticed. He wasn't a psycho at the start.

He was SWEET.] [It only happened because his sister got hit by a truck. Driver ran. No cameras. Then the relatives took the shop.] [And the guy who hit her?

PRESLEY'S DAD.] [And Presley kept "checking on" him after. Let him think she was saving him. Got him hooked on her