All Chapters of Orphaned Son-in-law is Billionaire Heir: Chapter 71
- Chapter 80
126 chapters
Ch. 71- Pawns
Connor didn't even realise that the dusk had worn the blanket of the night, and then discarded it in favour of the dawn, but he had remained seated at the dining table he had converted into a makeshift office for himself. Papers fanned around him like scattered leaves, his laptop screen glowing with spreadsheets, encrypted logs, and account statements. The early light caught the sharp angles of his face, highlighting the tension in his jaw, the tightness of his hands resting on the table.He was engrossed in the same work as before: tracing the trail over and over, each loop sinking deeper into frustration. Their funds were frozen. On the surface, the bank’s email was innocuous, almost perfunctory: “Compliance review in process.” Connor had read the fine print so many times that the phrasing had etched itself into his memory. Approval chains, department stamps, signatures… he could navigate them blindfolded. And yet, something here smelled of being rotten. He scrolled back three
Ch. 72- Pretender or not!
The glow of Connor’s phone screen was the only light in the flat that morning, faint blue against his face as he scrolled through the latest industry newsletters and news feeds. A bitter taste rose in his mouth as the headline caught his eye:“Connor Kuranda: Pretender or Pawn?”His thumb froze over the glass. He opened it.The article unfurled in neat, polished paragraphs, the kind that cut with polite precision:For years, Connor was nothing more than a caretaker at the Billabong Care Orphanage, handling its modest accounts and daily management. Respectable, but ordinary. Then, suddenly, he married into the Kuranda family—heiress Kirra Kuranda, no less—and his fortune changed overnight. And yet, strangely, he continued to hold onto his old post, drawing income far beneath his new means. Why would a man with such newfound influence refuse to let go of such humble work?Connor’s jaw tightened. The next section chilled him more.Rumors now suggest he has been invoking the Waratah name
Ch. 73- Stolen?
Kirra had spent half the day pacing around the flat, her mind buzzing with an idea. Connor had been her shield, her anchor, her strength these past weeks. He had taken every blow meant for her, shouldered every insult. She wanted to do something that wasn’t related to survival, that wasn’t dictated by their enemies. She wanted to make him smile.The thought struck her as she stood in the kitchen staring at the barren counter: a home-cooked dinner!Not just any dinner, but her special pasta that she learned in the six months of culinary academy, and a pineapple cake that she knew he liked. She tugged open cupboards, checked the fridge, searched every shelf, and decided to step out for shopping instead. But her enthusiasm was quickly deflated. The local shops she had visited earlier had none of the things she needed. No ricotta, no proper herbs, not even decent cocoa…Just dusty tins and basic staples. Her throat tightened with frustration. What good was it to dream of something nic
Ch. 74- Hope
Kirra froze, her eyes following the trembling finger. And when she saw who stood at the end of it, her stomach dropped.“Aunt Kakadu?” Her voice cracked with disbelief. She took a step forward, her expression hardening. “You? Of all people, you are the one framing me for theft? And that too—for things like cheese? Have you completely lost your mind?”Kakadu didn’t flinch. Her head lifted, chin pointed like a blade. “So what if I did?” she snapped, her tone imperious. “I saw you here and I immediately knew you had no business being in this store. Should I have stood by and let the place suffer because of you?”Kirra’s voice shot upward, a scream tearing through the hum of shocked murmurs. “How is the store suffering because of a paying customer?”Her aunt let out a harsh scoff, her rings glinting as she waved a dismissive hand. “Paying customer—or stealing customer? We all know which one you are, Kirra. Ever since you chose the side of that orphan, you’ve been nothing but a disgrace.”
Ch. 75- Guarantee??
The chamber smelled faintly of polished timber and dust, and light fell through narrow windows, along the long semicircle of council seats where twelve elders and industry figures sat, each with their own ledger and pen, each pretending impartiality while their eyes betrayed their alliances. Connor entered with measured steps, boots clicking against the floor. Kirra followed some steps behind him, wearing a formal black dress and keeping her hair tied back. She held her chin up, but Connor could feel the tremor in her presence, like a string being pulled tough. At the center of the bench that was supposed to be interrogating Connor Waratah today, sat Elder Venn. His frame was thin, sharp cheekbones jutting out of his face, revealing a look of pinched disdain. His voice, when he spoke, cut through the murmurs like a blade. “Mr. Connor Waratah!” Venn began, lingering on the name as though tasting something sour, “if that is indeed your family name… this council questions yo
Ch. 76- Trail
Connor found the trail where most people thought it would end, in the neat, respectable offices of men who believed their sins were safe behind mahogany and discretion. It took days of quiet probing: a missed payment here, a trace of wire there, a courier who remembered the wrong time and then the right name. He moved patiently, lying low when needed and letting small openings widen until they became doors for him to step through. The name that kept surfacing belonged to a senior financial officer who kept his reputation scrubbed clean by day and his compromises quiet by night. Connor had watched the man’s habits: the address, the habits of his car, the way the gardener left at dusk. He did not come with a warrant… he went alone, because some men were easier to convince of their own vulnerability when the world was sleeping.The study smelled of tobacco and old money. A lamp burned at one end of the room, spilling a weak halo over shelves of bound reports and art bought for tax re
Ch. 77- Glass and gunpowder
It had been hours since Kirra had been sitting in the dark. Connor stepped in quietly, his coat dripping, eyes dark from the night. Her voice was small and hesitant, “Did you find it?”He didn’t answer at once. He crossed the room, set a wet drive on the table, and stripped off his gloves.“StratCo Media Holdings,” he said finally. “Joyce’s shell company. Funded by a line that runs through three different media groups. All of them… linked to your family.”Kirra’s pulse thudded, “Meaning?”“Meaning your family doesn’t just have a bank in their pocket! They own the mouths that speak for it.”He crouched beside the fireplace, pulling the wet drive from its sleeve, holding it to the low heat to dry.Kirra stood at last, walking slowly to him.“You should have told me before,” she whispered. “All of it. The Corps, the accounts, the networks. You think you’re protecting me, but you’re just—”She stopped. Her voice cracked.“—you’re just making me feel useless.”He looked up, the firelight
Ch. 78- The Knock
He reached for the remote and killed the feed.The sudden silence was deafening. The television screen reflected their faces, her pale, his unreadable, before fading into a dark mirror.Kirra stood frozen, the echo of her own name still hanging in the air like static.For a moment, she could almost hear the hum of a thousand voices outside these walls. Strangers debating her morality, dissecting her life, typing judgments into comment sections as if they’d lived it with her.Her voice came out brittle.“They’re not even pretending anymore. They’re calling us thieves.”Connor leaned against the table, arms crossed, eyes distant. “That’s the point. They can’t unmask who leaked the files, so they’ll brand the nearest faces guilty. Guilt sticks faster than truth.”Kirra swallowed hard. “And if it works?”“Then we start again,” he said quietly. “From under the rubble.”There was no panic in his voice, no despair, only the same cold steadiness that made him terrifying in moments like this.
Ch. 79- Breaking it down
The outside was black glass that reflected only what burned within.Connor’s laptop screen glowed in the dimness, casting sharp angles of blue light across his face. Numbers and codes cascaded down, like a storm of secrets unraveling line by line.Kirra sat at the edge of the couch, legs pulled up beneath her, still in the clothes she’d worn all day. She watched him, the rhythm of his fingers, the clenched jaw, the silence that filled every corner of the flat.It wasn’t the silence of peace. It was the kind that came before storms.“Connor,” she said finally, her voice quiet but trembling with what she didn’t want to name. “You haven’t moved for hours.”He didn’t turn. “I’m tracing their feed lines.”“Feed lines?”“Every slush channel that moved money from the Waratah accounts. The ones that froze ours.” His tone was almost detached, too calm. “They’re using intermediary shells; three in the Isles, two in Singapore, one in Perth. They thought I wouldn’t notice the transfer intervals.
Ch. 80- Change
The apartment was quiet except for the steady rhythm of the laptop keys. Connor hadn’t moved since the breach — the red thread of data still pulsing on-screen like a heartbeat.Kirra leaned against the doorframe, arms folded tightly, trying to ground herself in the ordinary sounds — the whir of the fan, the hum of the city below — but nothing about the air felt ordinary anymore.“What is it?” she asked softly.Connor didn’t look away. “A relay.”“Meaning?”“Meaning,” he said, fingers still flying, “the person pulling the strings doesn’t leave fingerprints. They use digital runners — false IDs, off-shore logins, ghost servers bouncing across time zones. But this one…” His tone shifted, colder, sharper. “This one slipped.”Kirra stepped closer, drawn in by the glow of the screen. Numbers shifted, letters rearranged themselves, entire maps of transactions blinking in and out of existence.“Connor—”He cut her off. “Here.”A frozen frame appeared — a metadata tag, timestamped and signed.