System: From Trash Son-in-Law to Billionaire

Chapter 3

The light drizzle over Manhattan had not completely subsided when a luxurious black Mercedes-Maybach sedan glided smoothly to a stop in front of the iron gates of the magnificent Monroe family mansion. Daniel Leonard stepped out from the back seat. The waiter's suit that had been soaked earlier had now been replaced with a sharply tailored custom-made suit delivered directly by a representative of his private bank in a remarkably short time.

Daniel had not come here to mourn the end of his marriage or beg for mercy as his former mother-in-law would normally imagine. He had come to settle the remaining unfinished business.

With calm and authoritative footsteps, Daniel pushed open the mansion's main door. His steps echoed across the marble floor of the spacious living room, immediately attracting the attention of the three people leisurely seated on a velvet sofa while enjoying their evening tea.

They were Seraphina, her mother—Victoria Monroe, and her notoriously arrogant younger brother, Keith Monroe.

The moment Victoria saw Daniel enter, the smile on her face vanished and was replaced by a deep expression of disgust.

"Daniel?! How dare you set your filthy feet in this house again after signing the divorce papers?! Get out! This place is no longer for a harbinger of bad luck like you!"

Keith Monroe, the younger brother-in-law, also stood up with his hands on his hips, looking Daniel up and down with contempt.

"Sis, look at your shameless ex-husband. He must have come back because he regrets everything and wants to beg for an increase to your one-hundred-thousand-dollar compensation payment! What a roadside parasite!"

Seraphina, who was seated in the middle, merely sighed and looked at Daniel with disappointment-filled coldness.

"Daniel, I thought you had some dignity when you signed those papers at the cafe earlier. Why do you have to embarrass yourself by coming to my family's house in the middle of the night? If Evan finds out, he won't let you off."

Daniel was not the slightest bit provoked by the barrage of insults from the family he had patiently served for the past two years. Instead, he walked toward the coffee table and dropped a thick document folder bearing the emblem of one of New York's top law firms directly onto their tea table.

Bang.

"I didn't come here to collect old clothes or beg your family for pocket change," Daniel said. His voice was heavy, cold, and filled with such authority that Keith unconsciously fell silent.

Victoria frowned and glanced at the folder arrogantly.

"What document is this? Don't try to intimidate us with worthless papers, Daniel!"

"It is a Property Ownership and Asset Eviction Document," Daniel replied in an extremely flat tone, yet one that instantly froze the atmosphere in the room. "One hour ago, my new investment company purchased the entire plot of land on which the Monroe Clan's mansion stands from the mortgage bank."

"What?!" Seraphina shot to her feet, her eyes widening in disbelief. "Daniel, what kind of joke is this?! This mansion land belongs to our family!"

"It used to belong to your family, Seraphina." Daniel crossed his arms and stared directly at his ex-wife. "But two months ago, to cover Monroe Consulting's budget deficit, your mother mortgaged this land's title deed to Chase International Bank with a deadline that expires today. And one hour ago, I paid off the entire remaining debt in cash and simultaneously acquired complete legal ownership of this land."

Victoria Monroe's face instantly turned as pale as a burial shroud. Her body trembled violently as she remembered that she had indeed secretly mortgaged the land without Seraphina's knowledge in order to invest in the stock market, an investment that had ultimately failed.

"T-That's impossible... How could a poor cafe waiter like you possibly have tens of millions of dollars to buy this land?!" Victoria screamed in fear, her voice shrill as her trembling hands frantically tore open the document folder on the table to read its contents.

There, the official court seal and the name Daniel Leonard as the sole owner were displayed clearly and unmistakably.

Keith, seeing his mother panic, immediately began reading the documents as well. The moment he saw the forty-million-dollar cash settlement amount, his knees suddenly weakened, and he collapsed back onto the sofa with a blank expression.

Seraphina stared at Daniel, breathing heavily as her heart pounded from overwhelming shock. Her entire sense of logic was collapsing tonight. The man who had spent two years wearing cheap clothes, cooking in the kitchen, and lowering his head whenever he was insulted now stood before her like a supreme tycoon capable of dictating her family's fate with a snap of his fingers.

"Daniel... you... who are you really?" Seraphina whispered. Her voice trembled violently with disbelief.

Daniel did not answer the question. He merely cast a cold glance around the living room where he had once been constantly humiliated.

"You've always worshipped money and social status, haven't you?" Daniel smiled mockingly, a smile that made the hairs on the Monroe family's necks stand on end. "According to Manhattan property law, your right to occupy property on my land has expired as of this very second. Since I'm feeling generous, I'm giving you exactly twenty-four hours to pack up all your trash and get out of this mansion."

"Daniel! You can't be this cruel to us!" Victoria screamed hysterically, tears beginning to stream down her face at the thought that her family would be evicted and become homeless by tomorrow morning. "Seraphina is your ex-wife! How could you—"

"When you threw divorce papers and a one-hundred-dollar bill onto the floor of that cafe earlier, you destroyed every last trace of my kindness yourselves," Daniel interrupted sharply, his words as cutting as a blade and instantly silencing Victoria.

Daniel then reached into his suit pocket, pulled out a summons document from the New York Civil Registry Office, and tossed it directly toward Seraphina.

"Tomorrow morning at exactly nine o'clock, come to the Civil Registry Office so we can officially finalize our divorce," Daniel said as he slowly turned toward the exit. "Don't be even a minute late, Seraphina. If you try to avoid it or use the influence of your new boyfriend's Vanguard Group... I promise you, Monroe Consulting will be reduced to dust before tomorrow's sunset."

Without waiting for their lamentations or replies, Daniel strode out of the mansion, leaving the main door to slam shut with a loud boom that echoed through the house now filled with deathly silence.

Inside the house, Seraphina slowly stepped backward before dropping herself onto the velvet sofa once again. Rather than trembling in fear or collapsing to her knees, her beautiful face hardened, covered by a mocking smile full of disbelief. She looked at the summons document in her hand before casually tossing it back onto the table.

"Buying the land beneath this mansion? Threatening to destroy Monroe Consulting overnight?" Seraphina chuckled dryly and shook her head as though she had just heard the most ridiculous joke of the century. "Daniel, Daniel... you've truly gone crazy because you can't accept the fact that we're divorced."

"That's right, Sis!" Keith immediately chimed in, trying to restore the courage that had momentarily shrunk. "This document must be fake! How could that bastard cafe waiter suddenly have forty million dollars in cash? He must have hired a fake stockbroker and printed these stupid documents at some roadside computer rental shop just to scare us!"

Victoria Monroe, who had initially turned pale, gradually regained her composure after hearing the analysis from her son and daughter. She rubbed her chest and snorted hatefully toward the front door.

"What a damn piece of trash! The nerve of him coming here and acting like a billionaire in front of us!" Victoria cursed, her face flushed red from lingering anger. "Sera, you mustn't be influenced by that poor man's bluff! He only wants to make you beg and cancel this divorce so he can continue being a parasite in our family!"

Seraphina stood up and elegantly straightened her slightly wrinkled blazer. Her eyes became cold once more, filled with the arrogance of a respected female CEO.

"I'm not that stupid, Mother," Seraphina said, her tone once again becoming dismissive and contemptuous. "He thinks New York can be controlled with a single forged document and a few threats? Tomorrow morning, I'll still go to the Civil Registry Office. But not because I'm afraid of his threats. It's because I want to make sure that loser disappears from my life forever."

Seraphina walked toward the large window and watched the black sedan slowly drive away through the remnants of the night's drizzle, leaving the mansion grounds behind.

"Threatening the Monroe Clan when I already have the Vanguard Group backing me? Daniel... you've truly chosen the wrong opponent," Seraphina murmured with a cold smile full of ridicule.

In her eyes, Daniel tonight was nothing more than a frustrated man performing one final circus act to save the dignity that had already been shattered at rock bottom.