Accidentally deleted my Work folder in iCloud. Now I think they're gone forever.

Last night, while I was freeing up some space in my iCloud storage. I accidentally deleted my entire Work folder (which consists of sub-folders since 2015) and worse, I emptied my trash because I assumed that the same and more updated Work folder is saved in the Local Documents in the Finder...but they weren't. I also erased the Work folder in the Local Documents to my horror. I contacted Apple support thrice, and they recommended me to recover my files via iCloud.com in the Advanced options > Recover files. Unfortunately, I only retrieved my files from college which I remember deleting a week ago and none from last night. I called Apple support once again and the Senior Advisor escalated my case to their Engineering team to look into the matter. I also searched for 3rd party recovery software, but to no avail. Is it safe to assume that they're gone forever? 😢