Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 373

Please Come Back, My Love

Chapter 373

“Mr. Reynolds is on his way. He says he’s arranging immediate transport to the hospital.

‘I don’t want his transport!” I tried to wrench my arm free. “I want to see my mother! Don’t you understand? She’s in critical condition!”

“The car is being prepared now, Miss Cruz. Five minutes.”

Five minutes felt like an eternity, but I forced myself to stop struggling. sank onto the bottom step of the staircase instead, wrapping my arms around myself.

Mom. Please be okay. Please.

The rice to New York–Presbyterian Hospital passed in a blur of traffic and silence. I sat in the back of Lucas’s SUV, staring out the window without seeing anything, my cracked phone clutched in both hands like a lifeline.

When we pulled up to a side entrance–private, away from the media circus I could see gathering at the main doors–I was out of the car before it had fully stopped.

“Miss Cruz, wait-”

I didn’t wait. I ran.

The hospital corridors were a maze of white walls and fluorescent lights, the smell of disinfectant sharp in my nose. A nurse tried to stop me at the ICU entrance, but I pushed past her.

Room 347. That’s what the news article said. ICU, Room 347.

I found it at the end of a long hallway, the door partially open,

And froze.

Through the gap, I could see my mother’s still form on the bed, tubes and wires connecting her to machines that beeped and hummed with mechanical

indifference. Her face was pale, almost gray, and so terrifyingly still that for one horrible moment I thought I was too late.

Then I saw the slight rise and fall of her chest, and something in me unclenched just enough to let me breathe again.

I stepped forward, my hand reaching for the door-

haggard in a way I’d never seen before.

“I knew it,” he said hoarsely. “I knew that news was a lie. I knew it in my bones–you couldn’t be dead, you couldn’t be-”

“Dead?” The word came out strangled. “Dad, what are you talking about?”

But before he could answer, I heard footsteps in the hallway behind me. Heavy, purposeful footsteps that I recognized even before I turned around.

Lucas stood in the doorway, his expression carefully controlled but his jaw clenched tight. He looked like he’d been running–his usually immaculate

appearance slightly disheveled, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Our eyes met, and something passed between us. Something dark and terrible that made my stomach drop.

My father’s entire body went rigid. He stepped in front of me, positioning himself between Lucas and me like a human shield.

“You,” my father said, his voice low and dangerous. “Get out.”