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!"
flash of headlights that flickered before Vivienne's eyes. Percival, with lips pressed together and eyes as cold as ice, stared into the abyss beyond the
to crawl
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. "Vivienne,
inside him toward Gavin
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
covers, even he couldn't suppress the rising
that foul stench lingering around the Abernathy
soiled and stained blanket was Holly's withered body, wounds
Percival felt
last shred of his sanity reminded him that those people were still useful. But the agony he felt for Holly and the hatred for the Abernathys set his heart ablaze
his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes hiding
flashed in her eyes. "Mr. Wolf, the dead do
he had seen such a chilling expression on
lineage was formidable, but was
hurt a person Vivienne cared about, they couldn't just hand their life over to the Grim Reaper without
glanced at the caller
"Hand it over."
the phone
yet tinged with anger, came through, "Young Master, there's been
didn't need to
had people dig up Mrs. Littleton's parents' 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 deeply. "How is
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