The Wife He Forgot to Marry (Winona and Yule) novel Chapter 624

Before Karina could protest, the two guards hauled her down the freight elevator and straight to the building's garbage disposal room.

The stench hit her like a physical blow. The room was piled high with rotting food waste from the cafeteria.

"Hey! What are you—"

One of the guards grabbed the back of her neck and shoved her face directly into an open, festering trash bin.

The overpowering reek of sour milk and rotting vegetables filled her nose and mouth. Karina gagged violently, her stomach heaving as she choked on the noxious air.

Just as her eyes began to roll back in her head, the chief yanked her back by her collar.

"This is just a warning," he growled, his voice echoing in the concrete room. "Next time you decide to play petty thief on my property, I’ll shove your head in a toilet and I won't be so quick to pull you out. Got it?"

Karina was too dizzy and oxygen-deprived to form a coherent sentence. She could only wheeze, her legs trembling.

The guards dragged her out the back exit and tossed her onto the cold pavement of the alleyway.

"Stay away from this building!" they barked before slamming the heavy metal door shut behind them.

It took Karina half an hour to stop hyperventilating.

The sickening stench of rotting garbage clung to her hair, her clothes, her skin. Every time she inhaled, her stomach violently churned.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit someone.

But she was in Riverton, completely alone, without a single bodyguard to protect her. Shaking with rage and humiliation, she forced herself up from the dirty pavement.

She tried to hail a cab, but three different drivers took one whiff of her through the cracked window and sped off. It wasn’t until she practically shoved an extra hundred-dollar bill in a driver's face that he finally agreed to take her home with all the windows rolled down.

The second she burst through her front door, Karina stripped off her ruined clothes and sprinted to the shower. She scrubbed her skin raw, washing her hair three times before practically drowning herself in expensive perfume.

"Karina," Ophelia sighed, her voice smooth and patronizing. "If you keep pulling these childish stunts, Stefan is going to find out. And when he does, he will absolutely side with Winona, and you will be the one who pays the price. If you really want to destroy her, hit her where it hurts. Go after her career. Make sure she’s blacklisted from the pharmaceutical industry forever. Isn't that much more satisfying?"

Karina frowned, staring at the ceiling. "But I don't work with her. How am I supposed to sabotage her job?"

"Use your brain," Ophelia coaxed gently. "Target her colleagues. There’s always someone in the office who feels underappreciated or jealous. Find her enemy, buy them off, and use them to ruin her. It’s incredibly easy."

Realization dawned on Karina's face. A wicked smile spread across her lips. "Thank you, Ophelia. I know exactly what to do."

The next day, Winona’s shift at the lab went flawlessly. It seemed Karina had finally learned her lesson and decided to lay low.

Winona poured all her focus into her experiments, and the project made rapid progress.

But on Thursday morning, as she and Killian walked out of the sterile testing room to log their data, Winona stopped dead in her tracks.

Someone had been on her computer.