My Mother Paid $30,000 to Get Rid of Me

Kidnapped for five years, I finally returned home covered in scars.

But there was no warm hug from my mother. Only a cold, harsh question through the iron gates:

"Why are you back?"

It wasn't until I pried open her locked jewelry box years later that I realized my kidnapping was no accident.

A "relocation agreement" signed by my mother, alongside a transaction record of thirty thousand dollars.

It turned out to be her final payment to buy me out of her life.

I stood outside the towering, gilded iron gates of the luxury gated community.