Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 376

Chapter 376

Lucas’s POV

The investigation results came through exactly twenty–six hours after I’d set Victor Ashford on the trail.

I was in my office, staring at quarterly projections I couldn’t focus on, when the encrypted email arrived. The subject line was stark: [Evidence Confirmed – Vanderbilt, Claire.]

My hands went still on the keyboard.

I’d known. Some part of me had known from the moment Bob described Rosa Cruz’s collapse. The timing, the precision, and the cruelty of using a fabricated death video.

I opened the attachment.

The technical breakdown was damning. The deepfake video had been commissioned through a Long Island editing suite–cash payment, burner contact info, the whole nine yards.

Victor’s team had traced the MMS origin to a blocked number that pinged off a cell tower three blocks from Claire’s Tribeca penthouse. The timestamp matched her calendar gap between a morning yoga class and an afternoon charity luncheon.

But the real smoking gun was buried in the financial forensics.

The editing suite’s owner had been sloppy, depositing the cash payment the same day. Cross–referenced with Claire’s private accounts–the ones she thought were hidden behind shell companies and offshore trusts–showed a withdrawal of the exact amount, within hours of the transaction.

Victor had even included surveillance footage from the building across from the editing suite. Grainy, but unmistakable: Claire Vanderbilt, wearing oversized sunglasses and a headscarf, entering at 2:47 PM on the day the video was created.

I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking under my weight.

The evidence was irrefutable. Claire had orchestrated the entire thing–the fake video, the anonymous delivery to Rosa Cruz’s phone, the calculated timing to maximize psychological damage.

But even staring at the proof, I couldn’t reconcile it with the woman I thought I knew.

Claire was manipulative, yes. Jealous, possessive, willing to play dirty to get what she wanted. I’d never been blind to those qualities. But this–deliberately triggering a potentially fatal medical episode in an innocent woman–this crossed a line I hadn’t believed she was capable of crossing.

My mind drifted back to seven years ago. When my family went bankrupt. When I was forced to leave everything behind, fleeing to a foreign city with nothing but the clothes on my back.

She’s still the girl who brought me home, some irrational part of me whispered. She made a terrible mistake, but she didn’t mean for it to go this far.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Adrian.

“Sir?”

“I need you to arrange something.” My voice came out colder than I’d intended. “Quietly.”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“There’s a property in Westchester. The old Ashford estate we use for executive retreats. I want it secured–minimal staff, no access except through me. And

I want Claire Vanderbilt brought there within the hour.”