Page 168 of Broken Destiny

A tingling sensation crept up the back of my neck, raising the tiny hairs along my skin.

I rubbed my chin slowly, staring at the photograph.

What was a picture of her letter doing in my mother’s office?

My stomach twisted as I started reading.

Caleb,

I am sorry for all the hurt and pain that I have caused your family and you. It was never my intention.

However, the pain of seeing Caroline and you together again has hurt me more than words can ever express. I thought it was just a one-night thing, but I guess I was wrong. I guess the two of you make more sense than you and I ever did.

Since you have moved on with your life, I am going to do the same. I’ll be moving away from Vancouver, but will be keeping a piece of youwith me, always.

Goodbye!

Nyah

I froze.

It was not the same letter I’d had in my wallet.

The handwriting was the same, but the words were different—completely different.

I stared at the photograph in my hand, my thoughts racing, colliding.

Whose letter was this then? Why was this in my mother’s office?

Caroline and you… piece of you…

Needing to find out more, I looked around my mother’s desk.

My stomach quivered with every passing second.

There were only a few things on top of her desk. That would make it easy to go through quickly.

I opened the folders on her desk and looked through the pages, my pulse intensifying with every discovery. The sound of my own breathing filled the quiet room.

The first one was bank statements.

Nothing of importance or suspicion there.

The second folder contained papers about the house staff with their profiles.

The third folder was about my wedding—a list of caterers, floral arrangements, invitations, and emails between Tatiana and my mother.

I rubbed the back of my neck, the skin damp with sweat.

My mother had been acting strangely ever since I told her about meeting and working with Jiya. I remembered how jumpy and fidgety she had become. The night of my cocktail party, when she told Jiya to leave, I saw how irritable she became when she described their interaction. She had been muttering under her breath and scratching her hand compulsively.

At the time, I had dismissed it as stress.

Now, it felt like guilt.

My mother was hiding something. But what was it?

I opened the drawers one by one in her desk, my movements growing more frantic with every second that passed.