The following day, Vivienne was still curled up in Percival's arms, sleeping like a log.
Trending topics about her were skyrocketing, with a mix of comments from fans and possibly paid trolls sprawling below the headlines.
[Hawthorn Family Heiress Rampage]
[Vivienne Bullying]
A uniform wave of negative press.
[Who is this Vivienne? Never heard of her. How dare she mess with our sweet Ramona?]
[Poor Ramona, what is her team doing? They set her up with this no-name brand, and she gets harassed at the party!]
[Hawthorn family perfume? Our Ramona was doing them a favor representing them, and this is how they repay her!]
Vivienne was jolted awake by the insistent ringing of her phone.
Willa's voice came through, and Vivienne muffled by sleep, "What's up, Aunt Willa?"
"Vivienne, come to the hospital. Someone broke in last night."
Vivienne and Percival rushed to the hospital in record time. In the ward, Willa was already seated by Karen's bedside waiting for them.
Vivienne, usually composed, looked unusually serious. Without waiting for Willa to speak, she asked, "What happened?"
Percival followed closely behind her. "What's that in your hand?"
He had remained calm, the first to notice the syringe Willa was holding. In the shaft of morning sunlight, the clear liquid in the white syringe shimmered with a warm glow.
Willa didn't answer right away but glanced at Karen, who looked as peaceful as if she were merely asleep. "I can tell their target was specific. They weren't trying to kill your mother; they wanted her to test some drug."
"Testing drugs?" Vivienne's gaze finally fixed on the potion in the syringe, "But why involve my mother?"
Willa shook her head and handed the syringe to Vivienne, her ignorance evident.
Considering the skill of the attacker from the night before, she asked, "Vivienne, how much do you know about the ancient warrior lineage?"
At that, Vivienne paused, "Apart from the Perez and Martinez families, there's the Littleton and Abernathy families."
As she listed the few families she had some knowledge of, she turned to Percival, "Mr. Wolf, what do you know?"
Percival's eyes darkened as he shook his head slowly. "I only knew of the ancient warrior lineage through the Abernathy family, nothing more than you've mentioned."
These families had centuries-old legacies, many secrets unknown even to insiders like Vance.
The surface-level information was scant; without these individuals revealing themselves, they might as well be any ordinary person.
Vivienne understood that Willa wouldn't bring this up without reason. She inspected the syringe in her hand and then said, "Aunt Willa, are you suggesting that the attack on my mother is related to the ancient warrior lineage?"
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Million-Dollar Heart