Please Come Back, My Love Chapter 253

Sophia's POV

"Just go," I whispered, too exhausted to summon any more anger. "Please. Just... go."

He didn't leave.

Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone.

"Before I do," Lucas said, his voice carefully controlled, "you need to see something. You need to understand what triggered the attack."

My father stepped forward, his entire body coiled like a spring ready to snap. "She doesn't need to see anything from you." His voice rose to a roar. "I told you to get OUT! Didn't you hear me?!"

But Lucas was already walking back toward us, his movements deliberate and unwavering. My father lunged forward, grabbing Lucas's arm with both hands, trying to physically stop him.

"Don't you dare come near her!" my father shouted, his grip white-knuckled. "I swear to God, if you take one more step—"

Lucas stopped but didn't pull away. He looked my father directly in the eye, his voice steady. "The security team recovered your wife's phone from the scene. It was locked. My team just finished breaking into it." He held up his own phone. "This is what they found inside. What she was watching when the attack started."

My father's hands were still clamped around Lucas's arm, shaking with rage and grief. "You had no right—"

"I had every right to find out what nearly killed her," Lucas said quietly. "And Sophia needs to see this. She needs to understand what we're dealing with."

"Let him go, Dad," I said softly, my voice barely audible.

My father's head whipped toward me. "Mija—"

"Please." I took a step forward. "If there's something that explains what happened to Mom... I need to see it."

For a long moment, my father didn't move. Then, slowly, his hands released Lucas's arm. But he didn't step back. Instead, he positioned himself right beside me, his body still angled protectively between Lucas and me.

Lucas held out his phone toward me, but my father snatched it from his hand first.

"I'll look at it first," my father said through gritted teeth. "If it's something that'll hurt her—"

"It will hurt her," Lucas said bluntly. "But she needs to see it anyway."

My father's face went pale as he looked at the screen. I watched his expression shift from anger to confusion to absolute horror.

"Dios mío," he whispered. His hand started shaking so badly I thought he might drop the phone.

"Dad?" I reached for the phone, but he pulled it away.

"No, mija. You don't need to—"

"Yes, I do." I grabbed his wrist gently but firmly. "Whatever it is, I need to see it."

My father's eyes met mine, filled with a pain so deep it made my chest ache. Finally, reluctantly, he handed me the phone.

The screen showed a paused video—grainy footage of a dark, rain-slicked street, timestamp showing last Tuesday night. A figure that looked like me from behind, walking alone.

My hands were shaking as I pressed play.

The woman moved across the screen, her silhouette unmistakably similar to mine—same height, same hair, same jacket I'd been wearing recently. She was crossing what looked like Queens Boulevard when a dark sedan came speeding around the corner.

The impact was brutal. The woman's body crumpled, thrown several feet by the force of the collision. She lay motionless on the wet pavement as the car sped away, its license plate obscured by the rain and poor lighting.

A news report overlay appeared at the bottom of the screen: [WOMAN KILLED IN QUEENS HIT-AND-RUN, POLICE SEEKING WITNESSES.]

The video ended.

I watched it again. And again.

Each time, the horror grew sharper, more visceral. The woman looked so much like me. The jacket, the hair, even the way she walked—someone had been incredibly careful about the details.

"Who—" My voice cracked. I had to swallow hard before I could continue. "Who would do this? Who would send her this?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Lucas said quietly.

I looked up at him, and something in his expression made my breath catch. He looked haunted. Guilty.

"This is fake," I said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "It has to be. Someone staged this to make it look like I was killed."

"Yes," Lucas said simply. "That's exactly what they wanted your mother to think."

The phone slipped from my fingers. Lucas caught it before it hit the floor.

"Who would be this sick?" I whispered. "Who would want to terrify her into thinking I was dead?"

My father's voice was hard. "Someone who wanted to hurt you through her."

I turned to look at him, saw the terrible understanding dawning in his eyes.

"Claire," I breathed.

The name hung in the air between us like poison.

Lucas didn't react, but I saw something flicker across his face—recognition, maybe, or confirmation of a suspicion he'd already had.

"She hates me," I continued, the words coming faster now. "She thinks I'm trying to steal you from her, and she—" I broke off, pressing a hand to my mouth. "Oh God. She did this. She hired someone to stage my death and sent the video to Mom to punish me."

"We don't know that," Lucas said, but there was no conviction in his voice.

"Who else would it be?" I demanded. "Who else would go to these lengths? Who else would know exactly how to hurt me?"

My father's grip on my shoulders tightened. "If that woman had anything to do with this—"

"I'll handle it," Lucas cut in, his voice like ice.

"Handle it?" I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You've been 'handling' things this whole time, Lucas, and look where it's gotten us. My mother is lying there dying because someone wanted to get to me, and the only reason anyone wants to get to me is because of you."

The words came out harsher than I'd intended, but I couldn't take them back. Didn't want to.

"This is all your fault," I continued, my voice rising. "Everything that's happened—my family losing everything, being forced into this nightmare with you, my mother ending up in that hospital bed—it all goes back to you."

Lucas's face had gone very still. "Sophia—"

"Don't." I held up a hand, stopping him. "Don't try to explain it away. Don't tell me you're protecting me or that you care about me or any of the other lies you've been feeding me. This—" I gestured wildly at my mother's prone form, at the machines keeping her alive, "—this is what your 'protection' looks like."

"You're right."

The quiet agreement caught me off guard. I'd been braced for an argument, for him to defend himself or deflect blame.

"You're right," Lucas repeated. "This is my fault. But jumping to conclusions before we know the truth won't help your mother."

"The truth?" I spat the word like a curse. "The truth is that someone staged my death and sent the video to terrorize my mother. The truth is that Claire is the only person with both motive and means. What other truth do you need?"

"Evidence," Lucas said simply. "Before I destroy someone's life, I need to be certain."

The calm rationality of his response made me want to scream.

"Then go," I said, my voice shaking with barely suppressed fury. "Go find your evidence. Go investigate. Go do whatever it is you do when you're hunting someone. Just get out of my sight."