chapter 100
Lucas's POV:
I stood frozen in the courtroom doorway, watching as the officers closed in on Vivienne.
Her face was now contorted with panic, mascara running in dark rivers down her cheeks.
"Lucas!" She reached for me desperately, her perfectly manicured nails catching the harsh fluorescent light. "Please, you have to help me! This is all a misunderstanding!"
My chest felt hollow, as if someone had carved out everything inside and left only an echoing void.
An hour ago, I'd been racing here after receiving those damned files from Sebastian. My hands had shaken on the steering wheel as I'd pushed the Bentley past every speed limit, desperate to confront her, to hear her deny it all.
But now, seeing her like this—trapped, terrified, guilty—I knew the truth before she even spoke it.
The officers had stopped at my request, giving us a moment. Professional courtesy, perhaps, or maybe they recognized the Ashton name still carried some weight.
Vivienne stumbled toward me, her white dress—chosen to project innocence, no doubt—now wrinkled and stained with her tears.
I pulled out my cigarettes with trembling fingers, needing something to steady myself.
The smoke curled up between us, and for a moment, I could pretend this was just another ordinary day. That the woman I'd planned to marry hadn't been accused of murder.
"I have known all," I said, my voice coming out rougher than gravel.
Her face went pale beneath the ruined makeup. "Don't listen to them, Lucas! They're trying to turn you against me. You have to believe me!"
I studied her face—the face I'd traced in darkness, memorized through touch when my eyes couldn't see. How many times had I believed her? How many times had I taken her word over evidence, over instinct, over the doubts that whispered in the back of my mind?
"How many more times do you need me to believe you, Vivienne?" My voice was steady now, cold. "I've done nothing but believe you since the day I could see again."
She reached for my hands, but I pulled them back. "Lucas—"
"The maid you bribed already confessed. She told the investigators everything about what you did to Henry."
Vivienne's legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees, clutching at my trousers like a drowning woman grasping for driftwood. "Lucas, please, you don't understand! Everything I did, I did for us! My feelings for you are real!"
"Your feelings?" I laughed, but it came out bitter and broken. "You killed an old man who practically raised me."
"You said you loved me!" she sobbed, her voice breaking. "When your sight returned, you looked at me and said those words! But Henry... Henry was going to destroy everything we had!"
Her tears fell harder as the words tumbled out. "He wouldn't stop. He kept insisting he had to tell you the truth—that it wasn't me who cared for you during those dark months when you couldn't see. It was Elena. "
My blood turned to ice. Sebastian's files had only contained evidence of her guilt in Henry's death. This—this was new.
"What did you say?"
Vivienne froze, apparently realizing her mistake. "You don't know?"
I grabbed her arms, my fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks. "Know what? What are you talking about?"
"You're hurting me," she gasped, trying to pull away.
But I couldn't care less about her pain.
"Tell me!" I shook her, my voice rising. "What don't I know?"
She looked up at me then, studying my face with an expression I'd never seen before. And then she laughed—a strange, bitter sound that sent chills down my spine.
"It was Elena," she whispered finally, defeat coloring every word. "She was the one who stayed with you those months. I only came at the very end, after your sight started returning."
I shoved her away from me so hard she stumbled backward, barely catching herself against the wall. My vision blurred red at the edges as rage consumed every rational thought.
"You dare lie to me?" My voice came out as a roar, my eyes burning with fury. "You dare—"
"Look at you," she said, still laughing in that unsettling way. "See? This is exactly what I knew would happen. Everything changes once the truth comes out. "
Her eyes met mine, defiant even through her tears. "But I don't regret it. Not a single thing."
I stood there, frozen, as the truth crashed over me in waves. Elena.
The woman I'd dismissed as Sebastian's toy, the one I'd treated with such cold disdain, even accused of murder—she had been the one who'd held my hand through endless dark nights. She'd fed me when I couldn't see the spoon, read to me when the world was nothing but shadows, stayed by my side when I was at my most vulnerable and pathetic.
Elena. Not Vivienne.
Red flooded my vision.
My hands moved before conscious thought caught up, wrapping around Vivienne's throat. Her eyes bulged in shock as I squeezed, all the rage and betrayal and loss channeling through my fingers.
"You stole her from me," I snarled, barely recognizing my own voice. "You killed Henry because he would have told me the truth. You let me like an idiot—"
"Mr. Ashton!"
Strong hands pulled me back. The officers finally intervened. Vivienne gasped for air, her hand flying to her throat where red marks were already blooming.
"You're insane!" she croaked.
They hauled her to her feet, cuffing her wrists behind her back. But her eyes stayed on mine, wild and accusatory.
"I loved you!" she screamed as they dragged her away. "I gave up everything for you! And this is how you repay me?"
I stood there long after she was gone, my hands still shaking. The cigarette had burned down to the filter, singing my fingers, but I barely felt it.
Elena.
It had always been Elena.
And I'd lost her before I'd even known she was mine to lose.