Page 174 of Broken Destiny

A photograph attached to the file caught my attention.

It showed a drinking glass—one from my own penthouse.

I recognized the design immediately because I had bought that particular set after Jiya mentioned she liked them when she saw them on the television showScandal. She had stayed at my place after her surgery, trusting me enough to feel safe there, and the realizationthat my mother had taken that glass without her knowledge left a cold, uncomfortable weight in my chest.

I opened the next document, my focus sharpening as the name Carlos Sanchez appeared again, this time accompanied by details about his occupation and employment history.

He had worked for our company.

A slow tension began to build inside me as I continued reading.

The document described an accident at one of our facilities, a mechanical failure that had caused severe injuries while he was on the job.

My eyes moved quickly across the page, searching for the date, and when I found it, my chest tightened.

The accident—and the death that followed—had happened two years before Jiya and I had ever met.

The significance of that timeline sank in heavily.

Carlos Sanchez was not just a name on a report. He was Jiya’s father, and he had died while working for the Evans company, long before our lives had crossed paths.

I read the medical details carefully, noting the severity of the injuries and the urgency of the treatment that had been recommended.

The situation had been critical, and the doctors had advised immediate surgery to prevent his condition from worsening. The cost of that procedure had been substantial, and without it, his prognosis had been bleak.

As I continued reading, another detail caught my attention and made my grip tighten on the edge of the desk.

He had been given a limited window of time to survive without treatment. The report explained that his injuries would eventually lead to fatal complications if intervention did not happen quickly.

My eyes drifted downward to a handwritten note at the bottom of the page.

It was my mother’s handwriting.

The message was brief, direct, and disturbingly final.

She had acknowledged the request for financial assistance andconcluded that no action should be taken because of potential liability risks.

I stared at the note for several seconds, reading the words again as a wave of heat spread through my chest.

Questions began to form in my mind, one after another.

I could not understand why he had reached out to my mother personally, what connection existed between them, or why none of this had ever been mentioned to me before.

I opened the next file and found a copy of an email he had written.

The message was written by a man who understood the seriousness of his situation but still held on to hope. He did not demand anything or make threats. Instead, he asked for assistance with quiet dignity, explaining that he needed medical treatment to survive.

I leaned back slowly in my chair after reading the email.

It was impossible to ignore the humanity in his request, or the desperation that must have driven him to write it.

The next set of notes revealed my mother’s assessment of the situation.

I continued reading until I reached the final document.

It was a death record.

Carlos Sanchez had died from complications related to his injuries.