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
seemed to
me, I will heal your aunt." Percival's grim expression softened slightly. He shifted, leaning his head against Vivienne's shoulder. "Vivienne, I do trust
control the hatred bubbling up inside him toward Gavin and the entire
Ellington heiress, she would be placed in an unknown hospital with professional care to
had pulled back the covers, even he couldn't suppress the
now understood where that foul stench lingering around the Abernathy
Holly's withered body, wounds festering and crawling
moment, Percival felt a
of his sanity reminded him that those people were still useful. But the agony he felt for Holly
Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes
in her eyes. "Mr. Wolf, the dead do not deserve our hatred." Matthew glanced up
he had seen such a chilling expression on Vivienne's
warrior lineage was formidable, but was Vivienne
cared about, they couldn't just hand their life over
phone rang then, and he glanced at
"Hand it over."
the phone to
yet tinged with anger, came
didn't need to guess; she knew Gavin must have stirred up more
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
on the phone tightened as she
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