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!"
save for the occasional flash of headlights that flickered before Vivienne's
to crawl
sigh of relief as she said, "Mr. Wolf, trust me, I will heal your aunt." Percival's grim
the hatred bubbling up inside
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,
had pulled back the covers, even he
understood where that foul stench lingering
soiled and stained blanket was Holly's withered
Percival felt a murderous
the agony he felt for Holly and the hatred for the Abernathys
allowed himself to bury his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes
through the thin fabric, Vivienne swallowed hard, her hand gently caressing his hair as a chill flashed in her eyes. "Mr. Wolf, the
recall the last time he had seen such a chilling expression on
ancient warrior lineage was
hurt a person Vivienne cared about, they couldn't just hand their life over to the
glanced at the caller ID
"Hand it over."
passed the phone
tinged with
didn't need to guess; she
They've taken the ashes and are threatening that if we don't hand over the secret recipe within three
she inhaled deeply. "How
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