My Son and His Wife Assaulted Me on Christmas Eve After I Confronted Her for Stealing My Money…

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Snow was falling heavily outside the windows of my oak villa in Aspen. The fireplace crackled, the three-meter-tall Christmas tree was lavishly decorated with gold ornaments and twinkling lights. The aroma of roast goose and gingerbread filled the air, but the dining room was colder than the blizzard outside.

I, Eleanor Vance, 68, sat at the head of the table. Opposite me sat my only son, Lucas, and his wife, Monica.

Lucas used to be my pride and joy. But since marrying Monica—a former model with a habit of extravagant spending and eyes as sharp as razor blades—he had become a different person. A puppet.

“Mother, this wine is a little tart,” Monica wrinkled her nose, setting her crystal glass down on the table. On her wrist was a brand-new, diamond-encrusted Cartier bracelet. A bracelet I knew for sure Lucas couldn’t afford with his meager manager’s salary.

“Is that so?” I took a sip of water, trying to remain calm. “Perhaps it’s bitter because the money used to buy it was stolen.”

The dry sound of knives and forks clinking against the porcelain plate echoed. Lucas snapped up, his face pale. Monica narrowed her eyes, her polite smile vanishing.

“What did you say, Mother?” Lucas stammered.

I pulled a stack of bank records from under the tablecloth. I tossed them down in front of Monica.

“200,000 dollars,” I said, my voice trembling with suppressed anger. “Withdrawn from your retirement account over the past three months. Under the guise of ‘Medical Expenses.’ You’re not sick, Monica. But your greed is sick.”

Monica picked up the papers, glanced at them, and laughed. A scornful, fearless laugh.

“You’re old, Eleanor,” she said, dropping the honorific. “What do you need the money for? You can’t take it with you when you die, can you? We’re helping you spend it. Lucas needs capital for his business, and I need to maintain my image. We’re your family, after all.”

“Family doesn’t steal from each other,” I snarled. “I’ve already informed my lawyer. Tomorrow morning, I’ll file a complaint for financial fraud. And I’ll amend my will. You won’t get a single penny.”

I stood up, intending to leave the table.

“Sit down!” Monica yelled.

Before I could react, she grabbed a bottle of red wine from the table and threw it at me.

CRASH!

The bottle shattered against the wall, narrowly missing my head. The wine splattered like blood.

“Monica! What are you doing?” Lucas exclaimed in alarm.

“Shut up, you useless fool!” Monica yelled at her husband, then turned to me with a furious glare. “Do you think you can kick us out? Do you think you can send me to jail?”

She lunged at me.

I recoiled, tripped over a chair, and fell onto the hard wooden floor. A sharp pain shot through my hip.

Monica pinned me down. She slapped me hard across the face. Once. Twice. Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth.

“Give me the safe combination!” she screamed, squeezing my neck. “I know you’ve hidden diamonds and bonds in there! Give it to me and I’ll let you live tonight!”

I looked to Lucas, pleading. “Lucas… save me…”

But my son, the one I’d carried and given birth to, just stood there. He trembled, his eyes darting back and forth between me and his wife.

“Mom…” Lucas said, his voice weak. “Just give it to her. Don’t make things difficult for us anymore. We’re deeply in debt.”

My heart shattered. More painful than Monica’s slaps was Lucas’s despicable betrayal.

“No,” I whispered, spitting a mouthful of blood in Monica’s face. “Never.”

Monica was furious. She stood up and delivered a powerful kick to my ribs. I heard the crack of a broken rib. The pain was unbearable.

“Alright,” Monica gasped, smoothing her disheveled hair. “Lucas, get the rope from the garage. Tie her up. We’ll ransack this house. If we don’t find the code, I’ll burn this place down and say it was a short circuit in the Christmas tree. She’s old, accidents are normal.”

Lucas hesitated for a second, then trudged out to the garage. He had chosen a side. And that side wasn’t his mother’s.

Chapter 2: The Locked Room

I was tied tightly to a chair in the study. My mouth was gagged. Blood and tears mingled on my face.

Monica and Lucas ransacked the room. Books and pictures were thrown to the floor. They searched for the safe hidden behind the painting.

“There it is!” Lucas exclaimed as he took down the oil painting. A modern titanium safe was revealed.

“Open it, old woman!” Monica pressed a utility knife to my neck. “What’s the password? Lucas’s birthday, right?”

She tried. Beep. Beep. Beep. Red light indicating an error.

She tried the wedding date. Error.

“Speak up!” She made a shallow cut on my arm. I groaned in pain.

I looked at the wall clock. 10 p.m.

I nodded, signaling I wanted to speak. Monica removed the gag from my mouth.

“4… 8… 2… 1…” I whispered.

Monica gleefully entered the numbers.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The safe wouldn’t open. Instead, a deafening alarm blared from the house’s security system. The lights in the room turned bright red. The storm-proof metal windows automatically slammed shut, sealing off all exits.

“What the hell is this?” Lucas yelled, covering his ears.

“That’s a silent alarm code,” I said, my voice unusually calm despite the aches and pains in my body. “Entering that code into the safe activates the ‘Intrusion Detection’ process.”

“The house has hostages.”

“You tricked me!” Monica lunged at me, intending to stab me.

But I looked her straight in the eyes and smiled—a bloody smile.

“You’ve forgotten one thing,” I said. “Before I retired, who was I?”

Lucas froze. “Mom… Mom was a programmer for the Department of Defense.”

“That’s right,” I nodded. “And this house isn’t an ordinary house. It’s a Smart Fortress.”

“Turn it off! Turn it off immediately!” Monica screamed, running to the door.

But the office door was magnetically locked. She pounded and clawed at it in vain.

“The system has locked down the entire house,” I explained, looking at the two traitors panicking like rats in a cage. “No one can get in, and more importantly, no one can get out.” “The oxygen in this room will be filtered through a separate system, but if you try to break down the door, the halogen fire suppression system will activate and suck out all the oxygen in 30 seconds.”

“Mom, do you want to kill us?” Lucas cried, kneeling on the floor.

“No,” I shook my head. “I’m not a murderer. I’m just holding you back.”

“Holding you back for what?” Monica turned around, her face pale.

“To wait for the guests,” I looked at my watch. “They’ll be here in about… 2 minutes.”

Chapter 3: Uninvited Guests

From the loudspeaker outside, a loud voice boomed, drowning out the alarm:

“POLICE! WE HAVE SURROUNDED THE HOUSE! SUSPECTS ARE REQUESTED TO SURRENDER THEIR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER!”

Monica dropped the knife to the floor. Clang.

“Police? When did you call the police?” “She’s tied up!”

“I didn’t need to call,” I said. “When I entered code 4821, the system automatically sent the highest-level emergency distress signal to Sheriff Aspen and the FBI. It also sent something else.”

“What?”

“All the audio and video data from this dining room and office for the past hour.”

I looked up at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling. In the center of the chandelier, a tiny red dot was blinking.

A 4K security camera.

“Do you think I don’t know you’re stealing money?” I looked at Lucas with pity. “I installed the cameras last week, as soon as I noticed the unusual transactions. I was waiting for a confession, or an apology, tonight.” “But instead, I received punches and a murder plot.”

“The entire act of the two of them: throwing bottles, beating me, planning to burn down the house, threatening to kill me… it was all livestreamed to the police department’s server.”

Monica completely broke down. She sat down on the floor, clutching her head, screaming in despair. Her modeling career, her fame, her glamorous life… it was all over.

Lucas crawled to my feet, his face covered in snot and tears. “Mom… I was wrong… she instigated it… Please testify for me… Tell them I was forced…”

I looked at my cowardly son. The physical pain was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. But a mother’s blind love died the moment he saw his wife kick me in the ribs without intervening.

“Lucas,” I said softly. “You are a 35-year-old man.” No one forced me to stand by and watch my mother being assaulted. I made my choice.

Outside, the sound of doors being violently broken down echoed. The SWAT team was entering.

The security system recognized the police code and automatically unlocked the office door.

Dozens of guns were pointed at Monica and Lucas.

“Lie down!” “Hands behind your head!”

They were handcuffed, their faces pressed to the cold floor – the same floor where, just minutes before, I had lain there, enduring the ordeal.

Medical staff rushed in to administer first aid. As they carried my stretcher past Lucas, who was being led away, he looked up at me, his eyes pleading one last time.

“Mom…”

I turned away. I looked out the window, where the snow still fell, pure, white, and cold.

Chapter End: A Lonely Christmas

Three months later.

I sat in a wheelchair by the fireplace. My ribs had healed, but the scars on my soul would never fade.

Monica was sentenced to 15 years in prison for aggravated assault, unlawful imprisonment, and conspiracy to murder.

Lucas, as an accomplice and for failing to report a crime, received an 8-year sentence.

The mansion was now empty. No more fake laughter, no more lavish parties. Only silence. Me and the silence.

My lawyer, Mr. Henderson, came in.

“Mrs. Vance,” he said. “The asset recovery is complete. We’ve recovered most of the money Monica embezzled. Would you like me to transfer it to a savings account?”

“No,” I shook my head, looking at the dancing flames. “Transfer it all to a charity for elderly people who are victims of abuse.”

“And one more thing,” Mr. Henderson hesitated. “Lucas… he sent a letter from prison. He wants a family photo. He said he misses Christmas.”

I picked up the photo of me, Lucas, and my late husband from the mantelpiece. It was the prettiest memory I ever had.

I threw the photo into the fireplace.

The flames devoured Lucas’s childhood smile, turning it to black ashes.

“Tell him,” I said to the man.

“That family died on Christmas Eve,” said Henderson, his voice calm. “He has no mother. And I… I have no child.”

I turned my wheelchair towards the window overlooking the majestic Aspen Mountains.

I was alone. But for the first time in my life, I felt safe.