---- Chapter 14 Brandon Carlson POV: Leo was efficient. The report arrived in my inbox less than twelve hours later. It was a detailed chronicle of Caryl's deception. Photos of her at bars, laughing, her eyes clear and focused. Bank statements showing large payments to the doctor who had diagnosed her "amnesia" and "blindness." A mechanic's report, buried by my own legal team at the time, indicating that the brake lines on her car had been deliberately tampered with before the crash. The doctor was scheduled to leave the country on a one-way flight that very evening. The pieces clicked into place, forming a picture of monstrous, calculated betrayal. "Bring him to me," | ordered Leo. They brought the doctor to the deserted underground parking garage of my office building. He was a small, sweating man, his eyes darting around nervously. | didn't say a word. | just stood there, my thumb rubbing rhythmically over my sandalwood beads, letting the silence stretch, letting his fear grow. ---- "Mr. Carlson, | don't know anything," he stammered, his voice trembling. "Don't you?" | asked, my voice a soft, deadly whisper. "| never hurt your grandfather!" he blurted out. Interesting. | hadn't even mentioned my grandfather. "| have your wife and daughter's school address," | said conversationally. "They have a lovely home." The man's facade crumbled. He fell to his knees, his body shaking. "Please, don't hurt them! I'll tell you everything!" He confessed it all. Caryl had paid him to fake her medical records. She had threatened him into silence. "But | never touched the old man," he insisted. "I was there, in the hospital room, but | didn't do anything." "What happened?" | demanded. "He was fading," the doctor whispered. "But before he passed ... he spoke. He made me record it." My blood ran cold. "He said... he said, 'Brandon, my boy, don't be a fool. Don't let that girl ruin you. Don't fail Farah. She's a good girl. She deserves a good life." The doctor' s voice cracked. "And then he said... It was Caryl. Caryl pushed me." ---- The world tilted, the concrete floor seeming to drop out from under me. Caryl. She had killed my grandfather. She had framed Farah. She had manipulated me, played me for a fool, and led me to destroy the only person who had ever truly loved me. Every cruel word | had said to Farah, every moment of pain | had inflicted on her, flashed before my eyes. The whipping. The blood test. The asylum. It was all based on a lie. A monstrous, venomous lie. A guttural roar of pure, undiluted rage tore from my throat. | clenched my fists, the sandalwood beads digging into my palm until the string snapped, the polished beads scattering across the grimy concrete like fallen hopes. My phone buzzed. It was Caryl. "Brother," she whimpered into the phone. "Danial is trying to hurt me! Please, come home!" | looked at the phone, my vision blurred with red-hot fury. "I'm coming," | said, my voice a deadly calm. "I'm coming to settle the score."