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!"
that flickered before Vivienne's eyes. Percival, with lips pressed together and
seemed to
Wolf, trust me, I will heal your aunt." Percival's grim
the hatred bubbling up inside him toward Gavin and the entire Abernathy
that even if Gavin didn't care for his aunt, out of respect for her status as the 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, there were only a few,
covers, even he couldn't suppress the rising bile in
that foul stench
was Holly's withered body, wounds festering
that moment, Percival felt
still useful. But the agony he felt for Holly
bury his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes hiding the torrent of
as a chill flashed in her eyes. "Mr. Wolf, the dead do not deserve our hatred." Matthew glanced up through the rear-view mirror at
had seen such a chilling expression
was formidable, but was Vivienne
they couldn't just hand
phone rang then, and he glanced at the caller
"Hand it over."
the
with anger, came through, "Young Master, there's been
done now?" Vivienne didn't need to guess; she knew Gavin
ashes and are threatening that if we don't hand over the
the phone tightened as she inhaled deeply.
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