No More Pretenses

I reclaimed the three properties and the half-million-dollar trust fund I had put in my daughter’s name. She knelt before me, crying and begging, “Mom, I can’t live without him!” I refused without a moment’s hesitation. She wiped her tears, stood up, and told me she would rather disown me as her mother than give up on marrying that gold digger. The next day, the gold digger himself showed up with a gift, asking to meet with me alone.

01 When I arrived, Ryan was already there. We were in the most exclusive café in the city center. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows lay the bustling financial district, its glittering towers reflected in the glass, and in the pained sincerity of Ryan’s face. His coffee was untouched. A beautifully wrapped gift box sat on the table. I ignored the gift, sat down opposite him, and placed my Birkin bag on the adjacent chair. “Mrs. Heaton, you’re here,” he said, half-standing before settling back down, his smile perfectly calibrated. “Olivia didn’t sleep well last night. I was so worried about her.” His opening line, as always, was that of a devoted, caring boyfriend. I stirred the ice in the glass of water in front of me, not even bothering to order a coffee. The cubes clinked against the glass, a sharp, cold sound. “Get to the point,” I said, my gaze as sharp and dissecting as a scalpel. The smile on his face froze for a second before stretching back into place, though it no longer reached his eyes. He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice as if sharing a great secret. “Mrs. Heaton, you’re a smart woman.” “Olivia loves me. She loves me enough to give up everything, including you.” A sharp pain lanced through my chest. The stirring stopped. He seemed pleased with my reaction, the curve of his lips deepening. He began to list all the “foolish” things my daughter had done for him. She ate the cheapest cafeteria food for two months just to buy him a designer watch. She lent him her car so he could show off to his friends, while she squeezed onto the subway for over an hour every day to get to work. To protect his pathetic ego, she never dared to mention our family’s true financial standing, telling him only that I was a mid-level corporate employee. Each story was a blunt needle, pushing slowly but surely into my heart. The spoon in my glass trembled slightly, but I betrayed nothing on my face. “And?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. Finally, he showed his true colors. “So, give Olivia back the properties and the money.” “After we’re married, you’ll still be her mother. We’ll take care of you, just like before.” He paused, the threat in his eyes now naked and unvarnished. “Otherwise, you might find it very difficult to even see her again.” The café’s heating seemed to fail. A chill crept up from the floor. I stared at him, at the undisguised greed and calculation in his eyes. This was no longer an attempt to persuade me. This was a declaration of war. As if that weren’t enough, he added one more piece of ammunition. “Mrs. Heaton, Olivia is still young, and sometimes she acts on impulse.” “What if, one day, we were to have an… accident? A baby? Surely you wouldn’t want your own grandchild to be born into a family without your blessing.” He was using my daughter’s womb to threaten me. I laughed. A cold, mirthless laugh that felt foreign on my face, making the muscles ache. “Your ambition isn’t worthy of my daughter.” He laughed too, a smug, sickening sound of absolute confidence. “No, Mrs. Heaton, you’re mistaken.” “It’s your daughter who can’t live without my ‘love’.”

02 When I got home, a half-packed suitcase was already in the entryway. My daughter, Olivia, was sitting on the rug, her eyes red and swollen. She looked like a little rabbit abandoned by the world. She shot to her feet the moment she saw me, her eyes filled with a mixture of defiance and hurt. I changed my shoes, walked to the living room sofa, and calmly recounted my entire conversation with Ryan. I didn’t add a single embellishment, didn’t inject any emotion. I was a recording, playing back his every word. I thought that would be enough to make her see him for who he truly was. I was wrong. Her reaction was even more explosive than I had anticipated. “You forced him to do it!” Her voice was shrill, laced with tears, every word an accusation. “He loves me so much! He was just trying to show you how much I love him! He was trying to reassure you! He was doing it for both of us!” For us? By threatening me? Seeing how deeply she had been manipulated, my heart sank, piece by piece, into an icy abyss. “Mom, is money the only thing you see?” “You’ve never believed I could find true love! You measure everything in dollars and cents. You don’t understand what pure love is!” My own marriage had failed years ago precisely because I had trusted a man who was only after my money, a mistake that nearly cost me everything I had built. I thought my past would be a cautionary tale for her. Instead, it became her weapon against me. She saw my caution as an insult to her love. Any explanation now would be pointless, twisted into further proof of my “controlling” nature. I couldn’t say a word. I just watched her. My silence seemed to enrage her further. She zipped the suitcase shut with a violent tug and dragged it to the door. She turned back, tears streaming down her young, stubborn face. “I’m moving in with Ryan.” “We’ll let you know after we get our marriage license.” “You’re going to regret this, Mom! You’ll see how wrong you were today!” The door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the house. It felt like it had shattered the twenty-three years of love between us. I stared at the closed door, a profound sense of powerlessness washing over me for the first time in my life. I was alone in the vast, empty living room. Photos of her, from a babbling toddler to a proud college graduate, lined the walls, each smiling face a mockery of my failure. I had raised an accomplished, kind-hearted daughter. But I had failed to teach her how cruel the world could be. After a long time, I took out my phone and dialed a number. “Mr. Davis, I need you to find me the most reliable private investigator you know.” “I need a full background check on a man named Ryan. His family, his social circles, his past relationships, his finances. Everything. I want to know everything.” I hung up and didn’t turn on the lights. I sat there in the darkness, all night long. Grief washed over me like a tidal wave, but from the ruins of that sorrow, a harder, colder resolve began to grow.

03 The private investigator was efficient. Less than three days later, the first report arrived in my encrypted inbox. Ryan’s hometown was in a dirt-poor, rural county, in a village nestled deep in the mountains. His parents were farmers with antiquated, misogynistic views that were truly appalling. They had bled themselves and their several daughters dry to put their one son, Ryan, through college. He had a younger brother, five years his junior, a high school dropout who loafed around at home, the lazy, spoiled hope of the family. Most of Ryan’s salary since he started working had been funneled back home. He himself lived in a tiny, 300-square-foot studio apartment near his office. I looked at the photos—the crumbling house, the weathered lines on his parents’ faces, the sneer on his bleach-blond brother’s face. This was the “simple, kind-hearted” family he had told Olivia about. At almost the same moment, my “mole” sent me a message. The mole was my distant niece, Sarah, a couple of years older than Olivia. I had introduced them as friends. Sarah’s text read: Aunt Katherine, it’s bad. Ryan brought his whole family to the city! Attached was a photo. Four people were crammed into that tiny apartment. Ryan’s parents sat on the only worn-out sofa, their expressions a mixture of discomfort and scrutiny. His brother was slouched in a chair, legs crossed, engrossed in his phone. And my daughter, Olivia, was in the cramped kitchen, wearing an apron, her back to the camera. She looked so utterly out of place. Sarah’s play-by-play followed. The moment his mom met Olivia, she grabbed her hand and asked when the three properties would be transferred back to her name. She said she and the old man were getting old and needed one to retire in. His brother was getting married soon and needed one for his marital home. The last one, they could live in. Olivia awkwardly explained the properties weren’t in her name right now, and his mom’s face just fell. She started making snide remarks, like ‘City girls are so precious. Not even married yet and already talking back to her mother-in-law.’ I could practically see the scene, see the helpless, cornered look on my daughter’s face. And the brother is even worse! He just flat-out asked Olivia for money to buy the new iPhone, acting like she owed it to him! Ryan just stood there trying to smooth things over, saying things like ‘Don’t make it hard for Olivia,’ but he was giving her these looks, like he was telling her to just play along. In the end, Olivia had no choice. She transferred him a thousand dollars from the two thousand she had left in her account. That two thousand dollars was graduation money I had given her. Aunt Katherine, I was so furious I could have exploded! How can Olivia be so blind?! The last message contained a few audio recordings. I pressed play. It was the sharp, grating voice of Ryan’s mother. “What is this supposed to be? It’s so salty, it’s slop fit for pigs! Olivia, you should just quit your job. A young woman shouldn’t be out in the world like this. Quit, stay home, learn to cook properly, and get your body ready to give our family a healthy grandson!” In the background, I could hear his brother shouting at a video game and Ryan’s half-hearted, “Mom, that’s enough.” I turned off my phone, my fingertips ice-cold. Excellent. The fish were starting to take the bait. I looked out at the inky black sky, my own eyes darker than the night. The show was just beginning.