Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 299

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10 Fri, Jul 3

Please Come Back, My Love

Chapter 299

Julian: POV

30

I stood in the doorway, taking in the scene before me in a split second of crystalline clarity. Nancy, her surgically altered face twisted with rage, held a knife to Ethan’s throat.

Blood seeped through his shirt sleeve where she’d already cut him. Elena was bound to a chair across the room, her eyes wide with terror. And Lila–my daughter–lay unconscious on a mattress in the corner.

The warehouse reeked of fear and cleaning chemicals, as if someone had tried to scrub away evidence of previous violence.

Nancy’s head snapped toward me, her grip on the knife shifting as shock and fury warred across her features. In her startled movement,

she shoved Ethan hard against the wall–he hit the concrete with a sickening thud and crumpled to the floor, his head lolling as

consciousness flickered in and out of his eyes.

“You!” Nancy screamed, her voice cracking with hysteria as she whirled toward Elena. “This is all because of you!”

The knife in her hand caught the dying afternoon light as she abandoned Ethan and moved toward her true target–Elena, bound

helplessly to that chair.

Three steps to Elena. Nancy’s grip on the knife–loose but desperate. If I move too fast, she’ll panic. Too slow, and she might hurt Elena just to

watch me suffer.

Behind me, I heard the careful footsteps of Adrian and the other officers spreading out, taking positions. I raised one hand slightly–a

signal to hold, to wait for my move.

“Why are you doing this?” I forced the question out, buying time, calculating distances and angles.

Nancy’s surgically altered face twitched–small, involuntary spasms that revealed the mental fracture beneath.

“You should be asking the Victoria you drove to desperation why she wouldn’t do this.”

“Victoria, how did you-” I started, but she cut me off.

“Disappear? Is that what you’re wondering? Or maybe you’re wondering why I look like Elena now?”

Her free hand touched her face, fingers trembling.

“Do you know what it’s like,” she whispered, her voice cracking, “to look in the mirror every morning and see someone else’s face staring back? To have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to become a ghost?”

Her laugh turned into a sob, then back into laughter–the sound of a mind completely unmoored.

12:10 Fri, Jul 3

Chapter 299

“It’s because I was too pathetic. Always wanting something that

I moved toward Elena carefully, keeping my eyes on Nancy while tracking the face to the

Three steps.

Two.

I reached for the ropes binding Elena’s wrists-

Nancy’s face twisted with sudden rage. “No!” she screamed, lunging forward with the knife raised high, aimed directly at Elena’s heart.

Time slowed to a crawl. I saw the blade descending, saw Elena’s eyes widen in terror, saw the moment that would end everything.

I threw myself between them.

The knife meant for Elena’s chest buried itself deep in my side instead. The steel tore through muscle and scraped against bone, sending

lightning bolts of agony through my entire body,

Nancy’s eyes went wide with shock, her mouth falling open as she stared at the blade protruding from my ribs. For a heartbeat, neither of us moved–her hand still gripping the handle, my body pressed against hers in this grotesque embrace.

Then something in her face shifted. The shock melted away, replaced by something wild and unhinged. She began to laugh–a high,

keening sound that raised the hair on my arms.

“Perfect,” she gasped between hysterical giggles. “This is perfect. If I can’t have you, then no one can.”

“Police! Drop the weapon!”

Shouts exploded behind me as officers charged in. Nancy’s hand clenched around the knife handle on reflex–she was trying to drive it deeper when multiple sets of hands grabbed her arms.

The blade twisted sickeningly in my side as two officers hauled her backward, every movement of the steel sending fresh agony tearing through me as they slammed her down.

She struggled, still laughing, her face twisted with manic glee. “You were supposed to be mine! If I can’t have you, no one will!”

I staggered, my hand instinctively pressing against the wound. Blood seeped between my fingers, warm and thick, and the world tilted

dangerously.

Someone was shouting. “Get the paramedics up here now!”

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