Broken Destiny (The Broken Trilogy #3)

Prologue

Day or night… I don’t even know when she disappeared. She did not just leave, she erased herself without any explanation… without any trace… without a goodbye.

One day she had been in my arms, breathing the same air, finally free from the fear of Jeremy.

Days later, she was gone as though she had never existed at all.

The silence she’d left behind had been louder than any scream, echoing through every corner of my life until it became the only sound I could hear.

And she’d taken the money.

That betrayal had carved itself into my chest like a brand.

I had replayed the moment a thousand times, searching for signs I had missed, warnings I had ignored, lies hidden behind her soft smile and warm eyes.

Each memory felt like broken glass lodged beneath my skin, cutting deeper every time I touched it.

How long had she been planning it?

That question had haunted me for years.

I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of my office, staring out at the city below while rain streaked down the glass in thin, relentless lines. Vancouver glittered in the distance. The skyline that once symbolized power and success had become nothing more than a reminder of everything I had lost.

My jaw clenched as I lifted the tumbler of whisky in my hand. I had never been a man who hid behind alcohol, but lately the burn of it had become familiar, almost necessary. It dulled the acute edges of the memories and softened the constant pressure in my chest.

Not enough to forget.

Never enough to forgive.

A knock sounded at the door behind me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Come in,” I said.

Taylor stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him.

His expression was serious, the kind that told me immediately this was not a routine update.

Years of living together had taught me how to read the smallest shift in his posture, the subtle tightening around his eyes that signalled something important.

“We got another lead,” he said.

My grip tightened around the glass.

“Where?”

“Montreal,” he replied. “A woman matching her description checked into a private clinic three weeks ago using a false name.”

My pulse kicked hard against my ribs. The familiar surge of adrenaline rushed through my veins, flooding my body.

I turned slowly to face him.

After all these years, the possibility of finding her still had the power to shake me.

I hated that.

“Did they confirm it was her?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Taylor said. “Security footage is being reviewed. We’re waiting on the results.”

Waiting.

I had spent years waiting.

Years chasing shadows across cities, following rumors that dissolved into nothing, paying investigators to dig through records that led to dead ends.

Each failure had hardened me, layer by layer, until the man I used to be felt like a stranger wearing my face.

The patience I once carried had been replaced by something icier, forged in the fire of betrayal.

I set the glass down on the desk. “Book the jet.”

Taylor did not move. “Sir—”

“Book it,” I repeated, my tone leaving no room for argument.

He studied me, then gave a short nod. “Yes, sir.”

When the door closed behind him, the silence returned. I dragged a hand across my face, and exhaled slowly as the weight of the past settled on my shoulders once again.

Montreal.

Another lead.

Another possibility.

Another chance to finally confront the woman who had destroyed me.

My gaze drifted to the locked drawer in my desk.

I opened the drawer and pulled out the photograph.

She was smiling in the picture, her dark hair falling loosely around her shoulders, her eyes bright with a warmth that had once felt like home.

I remembered the exact moment that photo had been taken—Lucas laughing beside her, sunlight pouring through the window, the air filled with a sense of peace I had been too blind to appreciate at the time.

The memory twisted inside me like a knife.

I picked up the photograph, my fingers tightening around the frame as conflicting emotions surged through me—anger, longing, disbelief, and something worse buried beneath it all.

Love.

I hated that word.

I hated what it still did to me.

Because despite everything she had done—despite the lies, the disappearance, the money—some stubborn part of my heart wouldn’t let her go. That weakness felt like a wound that never healed, a crack in my armour that no amount of time or anger had been able to seal.

I had spent years searching for her… not for closure or forgiveness, but for answers, for justice, for revenge.

Nyah had betrayed me, and she had taken my trust and turned it into a weapon. She would finally answer for what she’d done. I would look into her eyes and demand the truth she had denied me for so long.

What if she had not betrayed me…

My chest constricted at the thought, uncertainty flickering briefly through the cracks in my resolve before I crushed it down.

No.

I had seen the video with my own eyes.

She had taken the money… vanished… chosen to leave.

That was the truth I had built my life around, the foundation beneath every decision I had made since the day she disappeared.

Doubt was a luxury I could not afford.

I placed the photograph back in the drawer and locked it.

The hunt was not over.

If anything, it had become the only thing keeping me moving forward.

And this time, when I found her, there would be no running or hiding or escaping.

Because the man she had left behind was gone. What remained now was a whirlwind of turmoil she had created, and sooner or later, she would have to stand in the middle of it.