All Chapters of The Son-in-law: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
201 chapters
CHAPTER TWO: LIFE AT ROCK BOTTOM
Billy woke before the alarm.Not because he was rested—but because sleep had learned how to avoid him.The guest room ceiling stared back, cracked in places where paint had thinned over the years. He’d memorized those cracks. One looked like a continent breaking apart. Another like a crooked spine.He lay still, listening.The house was already awake. Footsteps downstairs. The clink of porcelain. Alice’s voice—sharp, controlled, already irritated at something small. Lucas’s low murmur in response, indulgent and bored.Billy swung his legs off the couch and sat there for a moment longer than necessary. His back ached. Not from labor—from restraint. From folding himself smaller than he was meant to be.He dressed quietly. Same plain shirt. Same worn jacket. He checked his phone out of habit.Nothing.Tyla hadn’t come into the guest room last night. He hadn’t expected her to.The company building rose like a glass monument to people who never had to apologize for existing.Billy paused ou
CHAPTER THREE: THE SHAPE OF CONTROL
Billy didn’t go straight home after work.He walked.Past the glass towers. Past the restaurants where laughter spilled out warm and careless. Past reflections of himself in windows that still didn’t recognize him.The city moved around him, unaware that something inside him had shifted alignment.When he finally reached his apartment—the one-room place he’d kept long before the marriage, before the fall—he locked the door behind him and stood there in the quiet.This place had never been impressive. Bare walls. Old furniture. A desk scarred with burn marks from cheap coffee cups and long nights. But it was his. The only place where no one looked at him like he owed them something.He sat at the desk and opened his laptop.Not to celebrate.To verify.The Porsche estate documents loaded slowly. Asset lists. Holding companies. Shell structures nested inside other structures like Russian dolls. Money layered so deeply it stopped feeling like currency and started feeling like architecture
Shadows In The Hallway
Chapter Four: The mansion was never quiet, not really. Even when the lights dimmed and the family dispersed, the air seemed to hum with whispers—resentments and secrets stitched into the walls. Tonight, the silence carried a different weight. It wasn’t peace; it was pressure.Billy felt it as he walked down the long corridor, his steps careful, steady. Every painting on the wall seemed to watch him, gilded faces of long-dead ancestors glaring down, as though mocking his place in a house that never wanted him. He straightened his shoulders, refusing to shrink.At the far end of the hall, voices clashed. Lucas’s voice was sharp, biting. “You can’t let him walk around here like he belongs. He’s an outsider. Always was.”Alice’s reply was low but firm. “You forget yourself, Lucas. This is my house, not yours. And Billy is my son-in-law whether you choke on that truth or not.”Billy stopped short, hidden in the shadow of a carved column. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but the venom in Luc
Shadows At The Table
Chapter Five :The Jones mansion glowed beneath a canopy of chandeliers, the kind of glow that could trick outsiders into thinking peace lived here. From the outside, its towering walls and gilded windows suggested harmony, wealth, and refinement. But inside, the air was heavy, thick with unspoken resentments and grudges sharpened by years of rivalry. The dining table was no longer a place of nourishment—it was a battlefield waiting for its first strike.Billy sat at the far end, shoulders squared, posture rigid with quiet defiance. His face gave little away, but inside, he could feel the tension coil like a spring. Across from him lounged Lucas, the heir who thought himself untouchable, his lips curled in disdain. Lucas’s fingers tapped lightly against the polished mahogany table. Every tap was a warning, a rhythm of dominance, a reminder that in his mind, Billy was still the outcast—the poor son-in-law who had no right to sit here.The silence cracked when the sound of heels echoed
Fractures In The Dark
Chapter Six:The streetlights flickered in uneven rhythms, their dull yellow glow bending across the cracked asphalt. Billy kept his hood low as he moved, hands clenched in the pockets of his jacket, trying to bury the heat of his anger beneath a thin layer of control. The words from earlier—his father-in-law’s accusations, his mother-in-law’s silent condemnation—still ricocheted in his skull. They weren’t just words. They were daggers, sharpened by years of hidden resentment.Evelyn caught up with him near the corner shop, her heels clicking too loud in the silence. “Billy,” she called, breathless. “Wait.”He didn’t stop. Not until her hand pressed against his arm. Only then did he spin, the sharpness in his gaze enough to make her flinch.“What?” His voice cracked with restrained fury.“You can’t just storm off like that. They’ll twist it, say you’re guilty of something.” Evelyn’s chest rose and fell as she searched his face. “If you leave, you’re handing them the story.”Billy’s la
Ashes Of Yesterday
Chapter Seven: The morning air was sharp, cold enough to bite through the thin fabric of Billy’s shirt. The streets were quiet, washed in that pale gray light that comes just before the rain. He sat on the front steps of the workshop where he once spent whole days fixing engines—machines that always made sense to him in a way people rarely did. His hands were stained with old grease, though he hadn’t touched a wrench in weeks. The smell lingered—oil, rust, and smoke—a reminder of a past that was simpler, but never truly safe.Through the grimy window he caught his own reflection: hollow eyes, a jaw clenched too tight, a man who looked older than his years. The reflection seemed to sneer at him, as though mocking the illusion of peace he had tried to build.A soft knock broke the silence. Billy didn’t move at first, but the sound came again, gentle but insistent.“Billy?”He turned. Evelyn leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, her hair tied back loosely so a few strands framed h
Shadows That Whisper
Chapter Eight:The rain had turned the streets into slick mirrors, reflecting the glow of neon signs and the fleeting silhouettes of hurried pedestrians. Billy’s boots splashed through puddles as he moved with deliberate pace, his coat collar raised against the storm. Every nerve in his body was taut, ready for the first sign that the shadows from last night had returned.Evelyn kept a careful distance behind him, her eyes scanning every corner, every darkened doorway. She didn’t speak, but her presence was enough to steady him—like a tether to the world he was determined not to let swallow him whole.They turned down a narrow alley, where the smell of wet concrete mixed with oil and rust. A soft shuffle echoed behind them. Billy froze. His instincts screamed, and in one fluid motion he spun toward the sound.A man stepped out, hood pulled low. Not one of the strangers from before, but someone smaller, wiry, and fast. A note was pressed into Billy’s hand before the man vanished into t
The Web Tightens
Chapter Nine: Rain had left the city slick, the streets gleaming like black glass under the flickering streetlights. Billy and Evelyn moved silently, the echoes of their boots lost in the hum of the storm. Each step carried the weight of the night before, and the whispers of the shadows that had followed them since dusk.“They know more than we think,” Billy said, his voice low, a barely audible growl beneath the downpour. He paused under the dim light of a cracked lamp post, scanning every alley, every rooftop edge. “Whoever sent that man is organized. Too organized to be just Liam.”Evelyn’s eyes darted around, sharp and calculating. “So, we’re talking about a network. Someone at the top pulling strings. Someone who knows your father’s past better than we do.”Billy nodded, jaw tight. Memories of his father’s last days—the Luoshen, the threats, the whispered warnings—pressed down on him like a physical weight. The man they’d just encountered was only a fragment of the machinery tha
Shadows In The Vault
Chapter Ten: The city had gone quiet after the storm, streets glistening with residual rain. Billy moved with Evelyn in the narrow alleyways leading to the abandoned warehouse. Every step was deliberate, every sound amplified in the silence. The Luoshen’s coordinates had led them here, but the moment felt like walking into the teeth of a trap.“They know we’re coming,” Evelyn whispered, scanning the rusted gates and broken windows. “The security on this place isn’t normal. Someone’s planning for us.”Billy’s jaw tightened. “It’s not Liam alone. Whoever’s orchestrating this—he’s smart. Too smart.” Memories of past threats, the thefts, and the mysterious manipulation of his father’s life pressed down like a weight.The warehouse loomed ahead, massive and forbidding, shadows swallowing its edges. Billy’s heart beat faster—not from fear, but anticipation. Every clue, every secret he’d uncovered led to this point. The Luoshen was close, and the first move against the invisible mastermind