A SON IN LAW TURNS BILLIONAIRE AFTER DIVORCE

Chapter 22

Joseph, however, suddenly had a bright idea. His eyes narrowed as he leaned forward, looking at his sister.

“Susan... can’t you just go back and get together with him?”

Susan blinked. “What?”

“Think about it!” Joseph said, his voice getting faster and more excited. “Sure, Mark isn’t his biological kid, but Leonard raised him for eight whole years! He carried him on his shoulders, took him to school, bought him toys... there has to be some emotional attachment left in his heart, right? A man doesn't just erase eight years of being a father overnight!”

Michael and Magret’s eyes instantly lit up like burning coals.

“Exactly!” Magret gasped, sitting up straight and clutching her hands together. “Eight years of raising a child! No man is that heartless! There have to be feelings left!”

“And you two were married for nine years!” Michael added, his earlier anger vanishing, replaced by pure, desperate greed. He stood up and pushed Susan toward the front door. “Go see him right now! Take Mark with you! Cry, fall on your knees, beg him if you have to!”

“Dad, I can't just—”

“If you can’t get him to take you back, don’t even bother coming back through this front door!” Michael ordered coldly, pointing a harsh finger at her face. “Take your son and get the hell out! I’m sick of looking at both of your useless faces!”

“Come on, Susan,” Joseph urged, pushing Mark toward her and handing her her purse. “We're talking about four hundred million dollars here. Just swallow your pride for a few minutes.”

Whether Joseph could ever live a life of luxury depended entirely on her getting back into Leonard's bed.

In the end, Susan was practically shoved out the front entrance of the apartment. Joseph even dragged little Mark into the hallway and locked the heavy door right in her face.

Susan stood in the dimly lit corridor, her teeth grinding together in fury. But looking at the locked door and her whining son, what choice did she have?

She swallowed her humiliation, took Mark by the hand, and walked across the street to Leonard’s newly purchased mansion.

She stood at the heavy wrought-iron gate and knocked. She pressed the loud intercom button over and over. Nothing.

She waited. An hour passed. Then two. Even after the sun went down and darkness settled over Maple Grove, not a single light came on inside the massive, quiet villa.

Susan stared at the dark, empty mansion in complete confusion, her feet aching in her heels.

Was Leonard not even living here? Where on earth had he gone?

Sydvale was a massive metropolis, and now Leonard possessed hundreds of millions of dollars in cold, liquid cash. He could be staying at five-star luxury hotels, eating at VIP restaurants, partying at exclusive clubs, or he might have even hopped on a private jet to another country.

How was she ever supposed to track him down?

Standing out in the cold wind, looking at the silent gates, a heavy, crushing wave of real regret washed over Susan for the very first time.

Not regret for cheating on him with Jonathan. Not regret for deceiving him about Mark's father.

She deeply, agonizingly regretted agreeing to sign those divorce papers so quickly.

If she had just delayed the paperwork by a single day—no, even by just half a day—she would have legally owned at least two hundred million dollars right now.

As for Leonard?

He was having an absolutely fantastic day.

He slept in until his body naturally woke up, took a hot shower, enjoyed a quiet breakfast, and then sat down at his computer to make a few high-leverage adjustments to his stock market portfolio.

Over the next two months, multiplying his capital through known market surges was going to remain one of his absolute top priorities.

At ten in the morning, his phone rang. It was Thomas Stone.

The famous divorce litigator informed him that he had formally filed the countersuit with the district court to reopen the prior division of marital property, while simultaneously suing Susan for heavy damages regarding Mark’s fraudulent paternity.

Over the past forty-eight hours, Thomas’s forensic accounting team had thoroughly investigated Susan’s past hospital income and cross-referenced it with the bank statements Leonard had provided from their nine years together. After subtracting baseline necessary living costs, they arrived at a rock-solid, legally sound total claim of around five hundred thousand dollars.

To Leonard, sitting on nearly four hundred million, half a million dollars was practically pocket change.

But to Susan and the broke Miller family? Five hundred thousand dollars in forced court debt was more than enough to ruin their lives and keep them awake, screaming in terror every single night.

And with the mountain of certified evidence Thomas had assembled, the Millers were guaranteed to lose. The only remaining question was how fast the court would order them to pay up.

Leonard didn’t have to waste a single minute of his personal time worrying about the trial. Thomas had full power of attorney to handle every legal filing, meaning Leonard wouldn't even need to step foot inside a courtroom unless he personally felt like watching them squirm.

At noon, Leonard drove to one of his favorite local BBQ restaurants in the city. The smoked ribs there were exceptional.

When he walked up to the counter and calmly told the owner he wanted to place an advance order for five hundred full racks of ribs, the middle-aged owner stared at him in complete silence for five long seconds—before bursting into a massive smile and happily accepting the cash deposit.

Over the next few hours, Leonard visited several other high-end restaurants he loved, placing massive, bulk takeout orders for hundreds of portions of hot meals.

Once the food deliveries arrived at his rented house later that afternoon and the delivery drivers drove away, Leonard closed the garage doors, stepped inside, and waved his hand.

With a soft flicker of dimensional energy, every single hot meal—plates, wooden trays, bowls, and all—instantly vanished into his temporal ring space, where time was completely frozen. The food would stay piping hot and freshly cooked forever until he decided to pull it out.

Leonard looked at the growing mountain of delicious food inside his dimensional inventory and chuckled to himself.

Stockpiling prepared meals had one funny, unexpected problem: it used up a ridiculous amount of ceramic dishes and takeout containers.

Not that it mattered in the slightest. He had more money than he could spend.

Leonard had already ordered staggering quantities of heavy-duty food containers, stainless steel bowls, thermal vacuum flasks, and storage crates online. Massive shipments were already arriving daily at a private industrial warehouse he had leased on the edge of the city, along with the mountains of medical supplies, winter gear, and survival tools he had been buying up.

Even spending money as aggressively as he possibly could right now, though, he was still only burning through a little over a million dollars a day.

That was completely fine. This was just the warm-up phase.

Once his heavy stock market trades matured and he pulled all his billions out of the financial system in the final thirty days, he was going to start buying survival supplies by the literal cargo truckload. Twenty, maybe even thirty billion dollars’ worth of goods pumped straight into his ring in a single month.

That was the real master plan.

Meanwhile, Yvonne Quinn, the senior business manager at Apex National Bank, had been staying in constant, eager contact with him, personally ensuring all his massive wire transfers cleared without a hitch.

Lately, though, her text messages weren't strictly about banking anymore. She had started sending more personal, cozy messages—some of them delightfully flirtatious, asking if he was free for late-night dinners or quiet drinks.

Sophia Dean had also been texting his phone almost every single evening, checking up on him under the professional guise of "case updates," though her tone was becoming warmer and warmer with every message.

Still, Leonard had far too many world-ending priorities on his plate right now to waste time getting tangled up in romance. There would be more than enough time to entertain beautiful women after the sky turned white and the apocalypse sealed everyone else inside their freezing homes.

More importantly, his phone chimed with an official notification from Thomas Stone's office.

The district court had officially accepted his case filings. The very first preliminary hearing was officially scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Leonard stood by his window, looking out toward the Miller house in the distance, a cold, dark smile spreading across his face.

Get your checkbook ready, my dear ex-wife. It's time to pay the bill.