Page 132 of His Forced Bride

My willingness to sacrifice personal happiness for business success.

Even my complicated relationship with authority figures and my deep-seated fear of abandonment.

She'd weaponized my psychology against me.

"This level of planning," I say slowly, "this isn't about money."

"No. It's about revenge."

"Against Batya?"

I lift my eyes to look at him, and I can see how much it is bothering him to show me this, but I'm glad he is.

"Against your father, against me, against anyone who stood in her way. But mostly against you."

The truth hits me with stunning clarity.

My mother doesn't just want my money or my business.

She wants to destroy me completely.

I represent everything she could have been if she'd chosen differently.

And she hates me for it.

"She wants me to fail," I breathe.

"She wants me broken and desperate and dependent on her mercy."

"She wants to prove that you're weak. That without her guidance, you'll crumble under pressure."

But I haven't crumbled.

Despite everything she's thrown at me, I'm still here, still fighting, still refusing to surrender.

And that failure on her part has made her desperate enough to escalate to direct action.

Yuri moves to stand beside my chair, and his voice is tender as he says, "The question now is what we do about it."

I study the wall of evidence, this map of systematic betrayal that spans months of careful planning.

My mother has built a network designed to destroy everything I care about, using my own employees and my own business as weapons against me.

She's stolen from me, lied to me, tried to kill me, and planned to either control me or eliminate me entirely.

The rage that builds in my chest isn't the hot, explosive anger I've felt before.

This is something colder, more focused. More deadly.

And a thought occurs to me that I never want to think, but I can't unthink it once it's perched in my mind.

"Did she kill my father?" I ask him, staring at the image of my mother pinned to the board.

"Kozlov killed your father, Inessa, but there seems to be some indication that she knew it was going to happen.

Perhaps she thought you'd be the one in the car with him, not my Dominic."

Yuri's voice cracks as I look up at him.