Chapter 52
The golden dagger flew past Bruno, almost nicking his ear in the process. When he realized what had happened, he was so terrified he almost wet himself!
The dagger had a folded strip of paper attached to it. Bruno waited for a moment to be sure that no more weapons would come flying at him before he slowly detached the strip of paper and unfolded it.
Written in a small, elegant script was a message.
“Daddy dearest, why do you and Mom insist on mistreating my son? He’s your grandchild after all, and he’s just a little boy still. How can you treat him like that? I can’t understand it at all, so I have no choice but to return and sort this matter out with the two of you.”
When Bruno read this, his brow knitted tightly together. This had to be a malicious prank. However, when he saw that the signature was Madeline’s, he was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat!
Madeline? How could this be? She had been dead for ages; how could she possibly come back from the grave after so many years?
The thought of it made Bruno’s scalp prickled, and he felt an icy hand clutch at his heart.
“Kingsley! Kingsley!”
“I’m here, Mr. Bruno sir, what’s the matter?” Kingsley, the Grant family’s butler, came hurrying over. He noticed that his master’s face was as white as a sheet as if something had frightened him badly and hastily moved to support him.
“It’s Madeline! She’s come back!”
“Sir, do you mean Ms. Madeline? She died five years ago, though, didn’t she?” Kingsley was puzzled and assumed that Bruno had become confused in a moment of senility. Patiently, he corrected his master, attempting to help him upstairs so he could lie down and rest.
At this moment, something shattered the wall of the villa. Glass and tiles went flying everywhere.
Bruno scarcely had time to take in what was happening before the grappling hook that had been hurled through the wall tightened. In an instant, the entire wall was ripped out of the Grant residence.
Bruno could only stare in stunned disbelief.
The house was being demolished!
He and Kingsley had originally been standing in the living room, but now that one wall of the house was gone, they were both visible from the outside.
Bruno involuntarily took a step forward to try and discover the perpetrator of this outrage, but his path was immediately blocked by a fiery arrow.
The flames licked hungrily at the parquet flooring, which immediately blazed up.
Bruno was so terrified his legs turned to jelly. “Run for it, Kingsley! Someone’s trying to kill me!” He grabbed Kingsley’s wrist and fled for the back door.
They had barely scrambled out when the entire villa collapsed with a thunderous crash, and fire swallowed everything up.
Bruno stared wide-eyed at the raging inferno, and his legs gave way. He collapsed limply to sit on the ground. Despair engulfed him in a massive wave. He had lost everything! His home was gone, just like that, destroyed by the fire!
Who was responsible for this outrage? Who on earth was so eager to drive him into his grave? Could it be that Madeline had actually returned? She was dead, though!
Bruno’s mind was spinning. Gradually, however, despair and hopelessness overcame his terror.
At that very moment, Madeline was alive and well, sitting atop the roof of her car with a crossbow in her hands.
Gazing with satisfaction at the blazing inferno, she hopped down and got into the car.
“Mission accomplished! Let’s go and celebrate.” The simple act of taking revenge had made her feel much better, even though she had let Bruno off this time. The darkness in her heart had lightened considerably as well.
“Yes, Ms. Madeline! As you wish!”
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