For the first time that day, Jang looked like a child waiting to be recognized.

Eleanor whispered, “Lian.”

Jang covered her mouth.

Tears filled Eleanor’s eyes, but she turned toward her son.

“You found her six years ago. And you never told me.”

“I was protecting you.”

“No,” Eleanor said. “You were using her.”

The auditor opened his laptop.

What followed destroyed ten years of lies.

The signatures bearing my name had been generated using a cloned credential issued through the president’s technology office.

My login had been copied during a security migration four years earlier.

Every fraudulent approval originated from devices controlled by Shiaoza’s executive suite.

The vendors connected to Jang were not hers. They had been created using identity documents she had given Shiaoza when he helped her “regularize payroll and family records.”

Without knowing it, she had become the paper owner of shell companies.

If the fraud surfaced, she would take the fall.

If investigators dug deeper, I would follow.

I looked at my husband.

“You brought your own sister here to frame her.”

His mask finally cracked.

“You don’t understand what it takes to keep this company alive.”

“Forty-one million dollars?”

“It wasn’t stolen.”

The auditor replied, “We traced eleven million to private investment accounts, seven million to real estate, and six million to political access consultants. The rest moved through layered accounts.”

“Investments for the company,” he snapped.

“In your name.”

Silence.

Jang sprang to her feet.

“You told me those companies were for tax reporting.”

“You wanted a life here,” Shiaoza said coldly. “I gave you one.”

“You gave me a prison sentence waiting to happen.”

“You had nothing before me.”

Jang flinched.

Eleanor closed her eyes.

I had hated Jang that morning. Part of me still did.

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