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.

I still remembered that night–the dark alley, the group of thugs closing in, their faces twisted with malice. I’d been cornered, desperate, certain I was going

to die in some godforsaken street thousands of miles from home.

And then Claire’s people had appeared. Her security team, cutting through the attackers like avenging angels. They d pulled me out of that hell, gotten me

medical attention, set me up in a safe house until I could get back on my feet.

Claire herself had visited me in the hospital. Held my hand. Told me I’d always have her protection, that she saw potential in me and was willing to invest

in my future

11:05 am T

Chapter 376-

At that time, she was nothing short of a savior to me. A benefactor who’d appeared when I had nothing, offering not just rescue but opportunity–a lifeline

when I was drowning.

The adults in her circle had called compassionate. A woman with a heart of gold who helped those less fortunate. My own scattered family, what was left

of them, had been grateful beyond words.

For years, I’d carried that debt.

Maybe that’s why I’d let things go so far. Why I’d tolerated her schemes, her manipulations, her increasingly unhinged jealousy. Because somewhere deep

down, I’d convinced myself that someone who’d saved a desperate, broken man couldn’t be truly cruel.

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