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!"
devoured any trace of light, leaving their car in the darkness, save for the occasional flash of headlights that flickered before Vivienne's eyes. Percival, with lips pressed together and eyes
seemed to crawl
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
bubbling up inside him
would be placed in an unknown hospital with
the covers, even he couldn't suppress the rising
understood where that foul stench lingering around the Abernathy property
was Holly's withered body, wounds festering and
Percival felt a
those people were still useful. But the agony he felt for Holly and the hatred for the Abernathys set his heart
allowed himself to bury his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his clenched eyes
hair as a chill flashed in her eyes. "Mr.
last time he had seen such
warrior lineage was formidable, but was Vivienne
they couldn't just hand their life
and he glanced at the caller ID before
"Hand it over."
the phone to
yet tinged with anger, came through, "Young
now?" Vivienne didn't need to guess; she knew Gavin must have stirred up
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
she
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