Leopold and Matthew had just finished loading the Abernathy family into the van, including Cormac, when the stench inside hit them like a wave, almost driving them back out the door. But seeing Vivienne and the others frozen by the bedside, Leopold steeled himself and stepped inside.
The woman on the bed was a shadow of her former self, her hair tangled and matted like weeds upon the pillow. Her face was streaked with dirt, and it looked like the Abernathys hadn't bothered to clean her in ages. If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Leopold might have mistaken her for a corpse.
Wait a minute!
Those features...
How come she looked a bit like Percival?
Realizing this, Leopold's pupils dilated, his finger pointing shakily at the woman on the bed.
Then he glanced at Percival, whose stony face was unreadable, and noticed the air around him growing colder and heavier. Leopold took a step back, feeling as if his throat had been seized. He couldn't manage to utter a complete sentence.
Finally, it was Vivienne who broke the silence. "Mr. Wolf, let's get her out of here first."
She was genuinely shocked. They had only come to fetch a witness back to Rivenwood, and here they were, stumbling upon the very person Percival had spent years searching for.
Mr. Wolf's aunt, the Ellington heiress-Holly Ellington!
"Gavin Abernathy!"
any trace of light, leaving their car in the darkness, save for the occasional flash of headlights that flickered
seemed to crawl
last, the man spoke. His voice was hoarse, almost eerie in the pitch-black setting, yet Vivienne heaved a sigh of relief as she said, "Mr. Wolf, trust me, I will heal your aunt." Percival's grim expression softened slightly. He shifted, leaning his head against Vivienne's shoulder.
the hatred bubbling up inside him toward
Ellington heiress, she would be placed in an unknown hospital with professional care to at least keep her alive. But the reality was starkly different! In this remote village,
back the covers, even he couldn't suppress the
where that foul stench lingering around the Abernathy property
was Holly's withered body, wounds festering and
moment, Percival felt
the agony he felt for Holly
his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes hiding the
eyes. "Mr. Wolf, the dead do
had seen such a chilling expression on
was formidable, but was
a person Vivienne cared about, they couldn't just hand their life
glanced at the caller ID before saying,
"Hand it over."
passed the
voice, cool yet tinged with anger, came through, "Young Master, there's
Abernathy family done now?" Vivienne didn't need to guess; she
graves. They've taken the ashes and are threatening that if we don't hand over the secret recipe within three days, they'll scatter her parents' ashes to the
as she inhaled
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