Page 180 of Broken Destiny

I ran my hands through my hair, shaking my head.

“So this was about protecting the company?”

“It was about protecting everything your father and I built. The company could have collapsed under the scrutiny and been dragged through the mud,” she cried. “Thousands of employees depended on that company surviving. I had to think about the bigger picture.”

“And what about the man who worked for us?” Dad asked quietly. “Did he not matter too?”

My mother covered her face briefly before lowering her hands again.

“I made a decision I thought was necessary, Randall.”

Silence settled heavily over the room.

Then she looked at me again.

“When Jiya entered your life, I investigated her because something felt wrong immediately,” she whispered. “She was an orphan, a single mother, and came from a completely different world than ours. You had been raised a certain way, Caleb. You came from a family constantly under public scrutiny, and she… she brought chaos everywhere she went.”

Her breathing turned uneven.

“Then there was Tatiana. She understood our life. She understood our world, our expectations, our social circles. Everything with her felt stable… appropriate.”

My stomach twisted violently.

“You didn’t want someone I loved,” I said quietly, the realization hollowing out my chest. “You cared whether the woman beside me fit the image you wanted.”

Anger surged so violently through me that I had to grip the edge of the table to steady myself.

“And that justified ruining her life?”

“No,” she cried. “But then I discovered who her father was.”

The room went still.

Even my father froze.

My mother’s breathing became uneven as fresh tears slid down her cheeks.

“Everything from that case came rushing back,” she whispered. “The pressure. The fear. The threats from the lawyers. The possibility of losing everything. When I discovered she was his daughter, I panicked.”

My father stared at her, his mouth slackening.

“Ny—” He stopped abruptly, shaking his head as though correcting himself. “Jiya had nothing to do with what happened,” he growled.

My mother lowered her eyes.

“And yet you treated her as though his circumstance somehow made her dangerous.”

A cold chill crawled over my skin.

“Were you always this prejudiced?” I asked quietly, “Or did it start after you learned who her father was?”

She flinched visibly.

“I thought I was protecting you,” she whispered again.

I shook my head slowly.

“You didn’t protect me, Mum.” My voice cracked despite my effort to steady it. “You ruined and destroyed me.”