The Million-Dollar Heart by Rebecca Ryan

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-nbrand, 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 cthrough, and Vivienne muffled by sleep, "What's up, Aunt Willa?" "Vivienne, cto 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 sdrug." "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 sknowledge 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?" "Exactly," Willa nodded. “I've spent years tracking down the F-Poison, but I've also learned a lot about the ancient warrior lineage." "Let's not waste ton the lesser-known families. At the pinnacle of their sphere, there are five major families!" Of course, including the Sheldons would make it six.

Each family's martial skills and abilities differed.

Besides the Perez, Martinez, and Abernathy families, there remained the Grimshaw and Boyd families! "I don't know if any of them are in cahoots with F-Poison," Willa continued, pulling out a humanoid figure from under the bed, "but whoever uses androids like this is GTO. They're likely tied up in all this somehow." Thomas and Leopold, following Vivienne and Percival, nearly jumped out of their skins at Willa's nonchalant reveal.

Leopold thought to himself, 'Scared the daylights out of me. Vivienne's aunt is as fierce as she is does she really think she can just whip out something like this without warning?' Thomas had to agree.

Willa was tough as nails! Anna remained unfazed by the android, although she did distance herself from the two men, scrutinizing the hole in its head.

"Hold on," Vivienne suddenly crouched down, "Is this Huxley Boyd?" Meanwhile, in a secluded upstairs room of an upscale room.

Arthur sat at the head of the table, his aura of authority making everyone else sweat bullets. Despite their innocence, they couldn't shake a feeling of guilt under his gaze.

Arthur's slender, finely jointed fingers tapped on the documents before him, the sound like the tolling of a death knell.

"After checking for so long, are these all you got?" The man closest to Arthur nearly buried his head in his chest as he said, "War God, this is all we've found on the Brooks family. We've turned the Brooks family upside down, including their servants from that year; we haven't found the person you're looking for." Arthur was far from content with the conclusion. "Are you tellingthat a person just vanished into thin air from the Brooks estate?” he questioned with a mixture of incredulity and irritation in his voice.

The man seated across from him shifted uncomfortably in his chair before hesitantly speaking up, "Well, it's not exactly that. It's just that there's no one named Winnie associated with the Brooks family. We've checked - the main family, the servants, even the guests who've passed through. No one by that nexists."

Arthur's brow furrowed deeply, a storm brewing on his face. He should have known better than to delegate this. He should have have looked into it thooked himself, but his duties had been pressing at the time, leaving him noBooks Chapters Are Daily Updated Join & Stay Updated for All Books Updates... room to investigate.

He sat motionless in his chair, fingers tapping slowly on the desktop, the atmosphere heavy with tension.

The man opposite Arthur swallowed hard, breaking the silence. "War God, we might not have found anyone named Winnie, but... I did cacross someone named Karen." Arthur's tapping fingers paused, and he arched an eyebrow, signaling for the man to continue.

"Karen was Scott's fiancée. They were set to marry, but she vanished the day before the wedding. She later married a Dorian from the Hawthorn family and had a daughter. Rumor E has it that she was already pregnant with this daughter when she left Scott. Karen passed away, somehow cback to life, and was spotted at Vanguard Agency not long ago. And then, she just disappeared without a trace.” The man paused, then seemed to remember an important detail. "Oh, and Karen's daughter? Her nis Vivienne Hawthorn." X