[...] Gracie would also love you if she didn't get shot
What are you talking about ? She leaved the dinning room on her own legs, like anyone else did at the end of this update...
More seriously...
I hate you for this cliffhanger. Even knowing that she'll survive, the way you introduced it, throwing it in slow motion in the middle of a none sense dinning scene (but so important since it introduce the change in feelings), it's what make it so emotionally impactful. Proving once again, as if it was needed, that you really master your writing.
I would have preferred something else, and I'm clearly not the only one, but yeah, were there another way to make MC grow up ? He past his life just trying to survive, fighting when facing injustice, but in fact mostly avoiding to fight. And he would have continued like that until he found a way to get rid of the contract, whatever who he really is and how important he is.
It was questions that didn't mattered for him, the only thing he wanted was to not be bothered. Would he have found a way, he would have just disappeared and leaved the others deal with their issues without his help. It was their issues, not his, it was them who seen him as important/significant, not him. Even helping Luna in her revenge journey was about him still being a child. What happened to her is an injustice, and like it happened to a friend he can't let it pass unpunished, be he had no plan to continue that way once Luna avenged.
But now it's different. Not because it's Gracie that was hit, but because she was hit. And it's where the craziness of the dinner was important. He realized that the poor child, that even his own mother tried to kill, wasn't alone anymore. He just realized that he now have a family that fully accept him, not as a friend, or employee/soldato, but as a full time member. He finally found what he missed, probably without knowing it, all his life, and the following instant someone threatened to take a part of this away from him.
It's not anymore about him surviving, while fighting injustice time to time and doing what he's told to. No, it's now about him protecting what he care for... The DeLuca already had mama bear Cordia, and crazy Luna. They now also have angry tiger MC...
