You really ought to dress better, Mom,” Kristina drawled, lazily poking at her avocado salad with a fork.
“Dima and I could give you some money. Just so you wouldn’t look so… depressing. People do look, you know.”
Anna slowly raised her gaze—not at her daughter-in-law, but at her son. Dima tensed up. The hand holding his steak knife froze mid-air.
He opened his mouth to respond, but caught the barely perceptible shake of his mother’s head. Don’t. Not yet.
“Thanks for the concern, Kristina,” Anna replied, her voice perfectly calm and composed. “My pension is more than enough.”
“Right, of course it is,” Kristina smirked and sipped her wine. “Enough for that thrift store blouse and an occasional visit to us by economy-class taxi. Don’t take it the wrong way—I’m not judging. Just stating facts.”
She said it with a casual, almost friendly smile, which only made the words more venomous.
Six months.
Just six months ago, Kristina had looked at Anna with admiration, called her “Mama Anya,” and swore money meant nothing to her—only love and family mattered.
The experiment Anna had set up now felt less like a quirky test and more like a cruel necessity.
After Dima’s ex-fiancée had drained his accounts and left him heartbroken, Anna gave him a condition: his new girlfriend would have to live with him for six months, thinking he was just a modest project manager and that Anna was a simple retiree from the Moscow suburbs.
Dima, hopelessly in love and wanting to believe in the best, agreed.
Now, he sat with a stone face, and Anna could see the conflict within him—rage wrestling with the promise he’d made. He understood. At last, he understood everything.
“I work like crazy, you know,” Kristina continued, oblivious to the tension. “We’ve got new management—some fossils from the Stone Age. They want the impossible. But I’ll make it.”
“I’ll be head of the department soon, you’ll see. And you, Dima, will still be running your little projects.”
Anna nodded, mentally noting marketing department. Interesting. She had just planned to review the quarterly reports tomorrow.
“Ambition is good,” Anna said quietly.
Kristina laughed loudly, her voice sharp and grating.
“Oh, what would you know about that?” she scoffed. “You probably lived your whole life like that—no goals, no desires. Content with the bare minimum. You’re just a… woman with very modest needs. Poor.”
She chose her words carefully, but the message was crystal clear: a poor old woman. Irrelevant. Pathetic.
Anna looked directly at her. Her gaze was calm and analytical—like she was studying a failing stock chart or a doomed business plan.
She slowly placed her napkin on the table.
“Dima,” she said, her voice suddenly firm, “I think dinner is over. Tomorrow, 10 a.m., I want you in my office. We need to discuss some staffing matters. Including in your wife’s department.”
The air in the car was thick enough to cut with a knife. Dima gripped the steering wheel so hard it seemed it might snap.
Kristina, in contrast, was oddly relaxed—even cheerful.
“What was that back there?” she asked, touching up her lipstick in the glow of her phone screen. “‘My office’? Is she moonlighting as a receptionist? Or janitor? Should’ve asked her to clean our floor better.”
Dima said nothing. His jaw was clenched tight.
Flashes of memory surged: Kristina scoffing at a trip to Turkey instead of the Maldives, mocking his childhood friends, “joking” that his car was a pile of junk.
He had brushed those things off as bluntness.
“Babe, your mom is a very difficult person,” Kristina went on in a lecturing tone. “Stuck in the past. That attitude, those clothes… She’s trying to guilt-trip us. Classic poor-person manipulation.”
He turned the wheel sharply, making her yelp and drop her lipstick.
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Oooh, touchy!” she sneered, picking it up. “I’m just trying to help. Maybe we could find her a job. Like… coat check? Closer to her ‘office.’ Less embarrassing for everyone.”
That was the last straw. Dima pulled over.
He turned to his wife. She saw something in his eyes she had never seen before—not just anger, but cold, deliberate disgust.
“Tomorrow you’ll find out everything, Kristina. About her ‘office,’ her ‘poverty,’ and a whole lot about yourself too.”
He started the car again, and they drove the rest of the way in silence. Kristina didn’t smile once.
The next morning, half an hour before the meeting, Dima stood in his mother’s penthouse—not the tiny flat Kristina knew, but a vast, sunlit home with panoramic views of the city.
“Mom, I can’t do this anymore,” he said, watching her calmly water her orchids. “I’m filing for divorce today. I was blind.”
Anna set the watering can down. Her expression was calm, but her eyes held deep sadness.
“You weren’t blind, Dima. You were in love. You wanted to believe the best. That’s normal.”
“But she… she’s a monster! The things she said…”
“She just showed what’s inside her,” Anna gently interrupted. “And she did it when she thought she was speaking to someone weak. That’s the truest test.”
She put a hand on his shoulder.
“Divorce is your choice, and I support it. But let’s finish what we started. You gave me your word. I want you there.
Not to witness her humiliation. But so you can get closure—for yourself. To understand that this isn’t about money. It’s about character.”
At 9:55 a.m., Kristina stood confidently outside the CEO’s office. She was already rehearsing the speech she’d deliver when asked about her promotion.
The door opened.
“Kristina Igorevna? They’re waiting for you.”
She stepped inside—and froze. Behind a massive mahogany desk sat her mother-in-law. Next to her, with a blank expression, stood Dima.
Kristina laughed—nervously, unsteadily. She scanned the luxurious office and looked back at Anna.
“What is this?!” she snapped, turning to Dima. “Is this some joke? Mom, that chair doesn’t suit you. Bit too big.”
She was trying to save face, to turn it into a joke. No one laughed.
“Sit down, Kristina,” Anna said, indicating the chair. Her voice was that of a woman used to being obeyed. “We don’t have much time.”
Kristina sat, her legs suddenly weak. Her mind clung to the last desperate theory: this was a cruel prank.
“Anna Viktorovna,” Dima said, using the formal address for the first time, “I’ve brought the reports you requested. Marketing department, last quarter.”
He placed a heavy folder on the desk.
Anna nodded, not breaking her gaze from Kristina.
“Thank you, Dima. Kristina, yesterday at dinner you mentioned our ‘new leadership’ were old fossils.”
She smiled coldly. “Allow me to introduce myself. Anna Viktorovna Orlova. Founder and CEO of this company. The very fossil you mentioned.”
Kristina’s world tilted. The words hit like bricks.
“You also said you work like crazy to become department head,” Anna continued, flipping open the folder.
“But the reports show your performance has dropped by 40% over the last three months.
You’re consistently late, miss deadlines, and according to your direct supervisor, you foster a toxic work environment and constantly complain about ‘incompetent leadership.’”
She pulled out several printed pages.
“These are screenshots of your work chat messages—where you insult me, my son—who, by the way, runs the key IT projects—and the very company that pays your salary.”
Shock gave way to rage.
“So that’s what this is!” Kristina hissed, leaping up. “You planned all this!”
Pointing at Dima: “You lied to me! Led me on!”
To Anna: “You just loved watching me grovel, didn’t you? You evil old witch!”
That was the breaking point. The line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
Anna closed the folder slowly. Her composure was more terrifying than any scream.
“I gave you a chance, Kristina. Six months. I wanted my son to be with a woman who loved him—not his wallet. Who respected his mother, even if she thought I was just a pensioner. You failed.”
She pressed the intercom.
“Alina, prepare a termination order for Kristina Igorevna for repeated violation of job duties. And call security.”
Kristina froze.
“You can’t do this,” she whispered.
“I already have,” Anna replied icily. “Now kindly leave my office. My home. And my son’s life.”
Two security guards entered silently. Kristina’s eyes widened in panic.
“Dima!” she cried, clinging to his jacket. “Tell them! It’s all a misunderstanding! I love you!”
He gently pried her hands off, as if brushing off something unpleasant.
“You meant every word, Kristina,” he said quietly, just for her to hear. “You just didn’t know who you were talking to. Goodbye.”
As the guards escorted her out, she screamed:
“You’ll regret this! I’ll sue you! I’ll tell everyone what monsters you are!”
Her voice echoed down the hall past stunned coworkers.
Back in the office, silence fell like after a storm.
Dima stood by the window, gazing down at the city below.
“I feel like a fool,” he muttered. “A complete idiot. How could I not see?”
Anna joined him. She didn’t comfort him.
“You saw what you wanted to see. You gave her a version of yourself. But she couldn’t carry it—the mask was too heavy.”
She paused.
“It’s not about being a gold digger. Those are common. It’s how she treated weakness.
She saw me not just as poor—but as inferior. And used that as a license to humiliate, belittle, dominate. That’s dangerous.
Today it was a ‘poor old woman.’ Tomorrow, it could’ve been you—betrayed when you needed her most.”
Dima turned to her, his eyes no longer lovestruck, but resolute.
“Thank you, Mom. It was a hard lesson. But I’ve learned it.”
Two weeks later, Kristina struggled to find work. The termination clause and the rumors spreading through their professional network branded her.
Top companies wouldn’t touch her. Smaller firms offered salaries she used to blow in a single shopping trip.
Her world of image and status crumbled.
Meanwhile, Anna and Dima sat on the terrace of the penthouse, overlooking the sparkling city.
“You know,” Dima said, “I nearly ruined everything. After what she said about the coat check, I wanted to throw her out then and there.”
“I know,” Anna nodded. “But then it would’ve been emotional. And maybe you’d regret it later. Doubt yourself.
Now… you saw everything yourself. Made the decision based on facts, not rage.”
She sipped her tea.
“I didn’t build this company for my son to give half of it to someone who despises his family. It’s not about wealth, Dima.
It’s about values. And who we choose to walk beside us.
You made a mistake. But more importantly—you had the strength to correct it.
And that doesn’t make you a fool. It makes you strong.”
