Love Beyond the Mask by Adelaide Sinclair

Chapter 5
The silence was deafening.
Preston looked up. The casket was to his left, draped with flowers.
Suddenly, from the adorned casket emerged something bloody.
“What’s that? It’s a hand!”
“But wasn’t Whitney’s body never found?”
A chilling terror swept through the room!
Just then, a person, bloodied and mangled, clambered out of the casket, wailing ghostly, “Daddy, it hurts so much! Am I dead?”
Preston, frozen, looked up in horror, his soul seemingly fleeing as he crashed to the ground!
The gruesome corpse crawled out of the casket, approaching Yvonne, “Yvonne, it hurts. My sister crushed my palm. Sis, you let
the kidnapper beat me so badly!”
“Ah!” Yvonne and Monica screamed, tumbling to the floor.
Their faces were ashen.
Monica, clutching her head, wailed, “Mom, wasn’t she supposed to be trapped in hell, never to return? Why has the ghost come
for us? Oh, don’t come for me, please!”

Her words revealed a crucial piece of information.
Whitney, with a cold sneer, slowly stood up.
The pale–faced crowd, some lifting their eyes, saw Whitney moving freely, asked, “Ms. Valentine, you’re not dead, are you?”
“Yeah!” Whitney walked over, stepping on Monica’s hand with a chilling smirk, “Strange, my family acted as if I were dead,
pressing me into hell.”
This revelation shocked everyone.
Whitney’s eyes turned a piercing red as she sneered. “Was it that by burying me, my company would be easier to swallow whole,
my will easier to forge? My fortune willingly left to Monica? Dad, have you forgotten how just ten days ago Monica and Simon
paid off kidnappers to abduct me to the wilderness, to kill me off for good?”
“My God, the story’s different. Wasn’t she killed by a lover?”
“What, she’s implying the Valentine family conspired to kill her...”
Preston stared at Whitney, convincing himself she was real, alive!
He reacted quickly, rushing to embrace Whitney. “Whitney, you’re alive! Thank goodness!”
“Daddy, how could I bear to die?” Whitney, with a spectral gaze, turned to Simon. “Before the wedding, my fiancé and my
stepsister had an affair; she got pregnant, and for their child, they left me for dead. Such a debt of gratitude, how could I ever
forget!”
Monica and Simon turned ghostly white.

The room erupted into whispers, and journalists who had somehow infiltrated the scene raised their cameras.
Preston signaled his security to clear the room!
“What’s gotten into you, child, speaking such nonsense?” Yvonne reacted quicker, rushing to cover Whitney’s mouth and
squeezing crocodile tears. “Are you angry with me and Daddy? Sorry! We thought you were dead.
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