Page 130 of His Forced Bride

She'd perverted everything I'd worked to build.

It was like she gave birth to me only to use me as a tool.

"How?"

The question emerges as barely more than breath.

Yuri clicks to another screen, this one showing personnel files.

I recognize most of the faces—employees I'd hired, trusted, promoted.

But now I see them differently, marked with red annotations that indicate their true loyalties.

"She's been placing people inside your organization for over a year," he explains.

"Accountants who could access your financial systems. Floor managers who could sabotage production. Security guards who could provide information about your routines and vulnerabilities."

Each face is a dagger to my heart.

Marina, my head seamstress, who'd praised my designs while secretly reporting my every move.

Liam, the warehouse supervisor who'd seemed so devastated by the fire—fire he'd helped orchestrate.

Even sweet old Galina from accounting, who'd brought me tea and motherly advice while systematically stealing from my company.

They were all in on it, all connected to her.

"They all knew," I say, my voice hollow.

"They all lied to me."

"They were paid to lie to you. Very well paid."

He brings up bank records showing payments to my employees, monthly deposits that dwarf their legitimate salaries.

"Your mother understood that loyalty has a price, and she was willing to pay it."

I study the evidence spread before me, each piece more damning than the last.

The systematic corruption of my business wasn't a recent development—it had been happening for months, maybe years.

While I'd been focused on designs and growth, my mother had been hollowing out my empire from within.

And Batya knew nothing about it.

But the financial betrayal is nothing compared to what comes next.

Yuri pulls up communication intercepts—phone calls, text messages, encrypted emails that his people had somehow accessed.

The conversations are between my mother and various criminals, but it's the timestamps that make my blood run cold.

"This call was made three hours before the warehouse fire," he says, playing an audio file.

My mother's crisp, businesslike voice fills the room as she speaks to someone I don't recognize.

"The shipment arrives tonight. Make sure the building is empty before you light it up. I don't need dead bodies complicating things."

"What about the girl's inventory?" the man asks.