When my daughter pushed me against the kitchen wall and said, “You’ll go to a nursing home… or be enslaved. It’s your choice,” I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg. I just looked at her and realized something terrible: for the first time in thirty years, Alexis no longer saw me as her mother. She saw me as a problem to be gotten rid of.

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Chapter 1: Choices in the Kitchen

The kitchen of the large log cabin was bathed in the gray light of a late November afternoon. Outside, the bare branches of the Catskill Mountains clawed at the windowpanes like bony fingers.

I, Eleanor Vance, 65, stood leaning against the cold granite kitchen island. Opposite me was Alexis, my only daughter, whom I had raised single-handedly, sent to private school, and covered up all her misdeeds for the past thirty years.

But the woman before me was not the smiling blonde girl she once was. She was a cornered beast, her eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and perhaps drugs.

Alexis lunged at me, pushing me forcefully against the kitchen wall with both hands. The impact sent the spice rack rattling.

“Did you hear me, Mother?” Alexis hissed, her breath reeking of cheap liquor. “You’ll go to a nursing home… or be enslaved. The choice is yours.”

I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg. I just looked at her and realized something terrible: for the first time in thirty years, Alexis no longer saw me as her mother. She saw me as a problem to be eliminated. An asset to be liquidated.

“A slave?” I asked, my voice so calm it made Alexis flinch. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb!” Alexis yelled, her hands trembling as she pulled out a crumpled file. “I owe someone money. A lot of money. They said if I don’t pay, I’ll die. But they gave me another option. They need someone… skilled. A housekeeper, or a maid who’s never allowed to leave the master’s house. A kind of debt settlement.”

She looked at me, her eyes a mixture of pleading and cruelty.

“Mom, you’re old. You know how to cook and clean. You can do it. Or you sign a power of attorney for all the property and accept a place in the state’s worst nursing home so I can sell this house. I need $500,000 tonight.”

I looked at my daughter. She was planning to sell her own mother to loan sharks or human traffickers to save her own miserable life.

“Who do you owe money to?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter!” Alexis yelled. “His name is Sal. He’s on his way here. He’ll be here in 10 minutes to ‘inspect’ you or take the house papers. You choose!”

Sal. ​​The name sounded so ordinary. But in this area, ordinary names are often associated with nameless graves in the woods.

I sighed, adjusting my sweater.

“Alright, Alexis,” I said. “Open the door. Let him in.”

“Mom… you agreed?” Alexis was surprised, then immediately breathed a sigh of relief, a sickening smile appearing on her lips. “You did the right thing. You’ve lived long enough anyway. What harm is there in sacrificing a little for me?”

She didn’t know that I disagreed out of fear. I agreed because I wanted to meet the person who dared to put a price on my life.

Chapter 2: The Uninvited Guest

Ten minutes later, the sound of tires grinding on gravel echoed in the yard. A black SUV with tinted windows screeched to a halt in front of the door.

Alexis ran to open the door, cowering.

A large man in a leather jacket, bald and tattooed, stepped inside. He was followed by two equally menacing henchmen.

“Where’s the merchandise?” the bald man – Sal – asked in a deep voice.

“Here,” Alexis pointed to me, standing in the kitchen. “She’s healthy. She knows how to cook, she knows how to be quiet. She… agreed to go with you guys to pay off my debt.”

Sal walked into the kitchen. He looked me up and down as if assessing an old horse.

“This old woman?” Sal sneered. “She looks frail. I thought you said your mother was still in her prime?”

“She’s very resilient!” Alexis quickly boasted. “She gardens every day. She…”

“Shut up,” Sal snapped. He moved closer to me. “Hey old woman, do you know where you’re going? You’ll never see the sun again. You’ll be serving those who don’t like rejection.”

I looked straight into Sal’s eyes. My eyes, which people usually praised as gentle, were now as cold as ice.

“Salvatore ‘Sal’ Moretti,” I said. “Born in 1980. Served five years in Rikers for intentional assault. Currently running a soccer betting and loan sharking operation in Sullivan County. And most importantly… he still hasn’t paid off his $50,000 debt to the Russian gang from last year.”

The room fell silent.

Sal’s smile vanished. He took a step back, his hand reaching into his jacket where a gun was waiting.

“Who are you?” he snarled. “How do you know me?”

Alexis panicked. “Mom! What are you doing? Do you want to die?”

“I asked who you are!” Sal pulled out the gun and pointed it directly at my head.

I didn’t blink. I slowly reached into my apron pocket.

“Don’t shoot!” Alexis yelled, not to protect me, but to avoid damaging the “goods.”

What I pulled out wasn’t a weapon. It was an old pair of gold-rimmed glasses. I put them on.

“Look closely, Sal,” I said. “It’s been 20 years. Maybe I’ve gotten old, but I think you still remember the person who approved the money laundering payments for your old boss—Don Falcone.”

Sal narrowed his eyes. He scrutinized my face. Then he looked at the glasses. A horrifying memory flooded his mind.

His face turned from red to deathly pale. His hand gripping the gun began to tremble.

“Ms… Ms. Vance?” He stammered. “Ms… ‘The Auditor’?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “That’s me.”

Chapter 3: The Ghost of the Underworld

Alexis froze. “The Auditor? What the hell are you talking about? You’re a retired teacher!”

“That’s a cover, you idiot,” Sal turned and slapped Alexis hard across the face, sending her tumbling to the floor. “Your mother isn’t a teacher. She’s a legend. She was the only one who knew all the dirty money flows on the East Coast in the 90s. They say she died in the 2004 warehouse fire.”

Sal turned to look at me, fear evident in her eyes. In the underworld, the person holding the books is more dangerous than the person holding the gun.

“I thought you were dead,” Sal lowered his gun.

“I’ve retired,” I said, walking over to pour myself a glass of water. “I want to live peacefully and raise my children. But my daughter… she’s bringing trash home.”

I took a sip, then slammed the glass down on the table.

“Sal, are you trying to enslave me?”

“No! No!” Sal frantically waved his hands, sweat pouring down his forehead. “It’s just a misunderstanding! This girl… she tricked me! She said you were just a senile old woman!”

“How much does she owe you?”

“Three… three hundred thousand. Including interest.”

I looked at Alexis, who was sobbing on the floor, clutching her cheek. She looked at me as if I were an alien. Her gentle, meek mother had vanished, replaced by a monster that commanded respect from the underworld.

“Mom…” Alexis whispered.

“Shut up,” I said coldly. “Sal, I have a proposal.”

“Just say it, Mrs. Vance.”

“You write off his debt.”

“But… that’s the organization’s money…” Sal stammered.

“I know you’re hiding the organization’s slush funds in a phantom account in the Cayman Islands. The account number starts with 8842…” I read out a series of numbers.

Sal’s eyes widened. “How could you…”

“I still keep track of the money flow, Sal. As a hobby in my old age. If I send this information to your current boss, how long do you think you’ll live?”

Sal collapsed to his knees. He understood that his life was in the hands of this 65-year-old woman.

“I understand. Write off the debt. Pretend nothing ever happened. I’ll leave immediately.”

“Wait,” I said. “One more thing.”

I pointed at Alexis.

“Take her away.”

Chapter 4: The Price of Betrayal

The room fell silent again. Alexis stopped crying, looked up at me, her eyes wide with horror.

“Mother?”

“Mrs. Vance?” Sal was also surprised. “You want me to…”

“I don’t want you to kill her,” I said, my voice devoid of emotion. “But I don’t want to see her face again. You said you needed someone to work to pay off your debt, right? She owes you $300,000. Let her work for you. Dishwashing, cleaning, bookkeeping… I don’t care. She’ll go with you. Right now.”

“Mother! You can’t do that!” Alexis screamed, lunging to cling to my legs. “I’m your daughter! You just saved me! You’re the boss, you have money, you can pay me!”

I bent down, prying Alexis’s hands from my legs. My hands, which had once stroked her head, bandaged her wounds, were now cold and hard.

“I saved you from death, Alexis. But I won’t save you from life.”

I looked him straight in the eyes.

“Just now, when you pushed me against the wall, you said, ‘Mom will go to a nursing home… or be enslaved.’ You were ready to betray me, the one who gave birth to you, just to save yourself. You don’t see me as your mother. You see me as a scapegoat.”

“Mom, I was wrong! I was high! I didn’t mean to!”

“No, darling,” I shook my head. “Drugs only reveal true nature. I’ve been raising a venomous snake. And now, I’m sending it back to the forest.”

I stood up straight, turning to Sal.

“Take her away. And if she comes back here, or if I hear she’s dead… I’ll email your boss.”

Sal nodded frantically. He signaled to his henchmen. Two burly men dragged Alexis to her feet. She screamed, struggled, and called my name in desperation.

“MOM! MOM, SAVE ME!”

Her screams echoed through the log cabin, tearing at my heart, but I didn’t turn. I stood still, looking out the window at the darkness enveloping the forest.

They dragged her to the car. The car door slammed shut. The SUV rolled away, carrying my only daughter into the darkness of the underworld I had spent my whole life trying to escape.

Chapter End

The house fell silent again. Only the wind howled outside.

I went to the liquor cabinet and poured myself a glass of whiskey. My hands trembled slightly.

I am not a devil. I am a mother. And sadly, sometimes a mother’s final task is to teach her child a lesson she refuses to learn: consequences.

She will have to work. She will have to suffer. It will have to live in fear, under the watchful eye of Sal – who now fears me more than a tiger and wouldn’t dare harm its life, but would force it to work to pay off the debt.

That’s the harshest reformatory I could send it to.

I drained my glass of wine. The bitter taste spread down my throat.

Tomorrow, I’ll sell this house. I’ll move somewhere sunny, somewhere by the sea. I’ll live out the rest of my life there.

I buried “The Auditor” 20 years ago. Tonight, I’ll bury the role of “Mother” as well.

Now, I It’s just Eleanor. And I’m free.