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.
seemed to
said, "Mr. Wolf, trust me, I will heal your aunt." Percival's grim expression softened slightly. He shifted, leaning his head against Vivienne's
control the hatred bubbling up inside him toward 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
moment Percival had pulled back the covers, even
that foul stench lingering around the Abernathy
blanket was Holly's withered body, wounds festering and crawling
Percival felt
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 with
his head deeper into Vivienne's stomach, his
in her eyes. "Mr. Wolf, the dead do not deserve our hatred." Matthew glanced up through the rear-view mirror at
recall the last time he had seen such
lineage was
Vivienne cared about, they couldn't just
he glanced at the caller ID before saying, "Vivienne,
"Hand it over."
passed the
voice, cool yet tinged with anger, came through, "Young Master,
done now?" Vivienne didn't need to
graves. They've taken the ashes and are
on the phone tightened as she
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