The Son-in-law

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 outside the entrance, just long enough to take it in. The logo above the doors gleamed—Lucas Jones’s name etched cleanly into steel.

Once, Billy had helped negotiate the funding that made this expansion possible.

No one remembered that now.

Inside, the lobby hummed with early-morning efficiency. He signed in at the maintenance desk, clipped the badge to his chest, and took the cart assigned to him.

A young woman in heels walked past, stopped, then did a double take.

Her eyes flicked to his face. Then to the badge.

Recognition flared—and died.

She smiled awkwardly. “Oh. Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”

Billy nodded and pushed the cart forward.

Someone else.

That phrase followed him all morning.

He cleaned conference rooms where his voice used to carry weight. Polished tables where men once leaned in when he spoke. Wiped fingerprints off glass walls that had once displayed projections of his ideas.

No one spoke to him unless they needed something removed.

A cup. A spill. Him.

At one point, Lucas walked past with a group of executives.

He didn’t acknowledge Billy at all.

That hurt more than the insults.

At lunch, Billy sat alone in the maintenance break room. Plastic chair. Vending machine humming like it was alive. He ate slowly, methodically, because rushing felt like panic.

His phone buzzed.

A text from Tyla.

Did you eat?

He stared at the screen.

That was all. No apology. No warmth. Just concern stripped of intimacy.

Yes, he typed back. Then deleted it.

He set the phone face-down and finished his meal in silence.

The call came later that afternoon.

He was in a hallway outside the executive offices, mopping a spill someone had walked through without noticing. The phone vibrated in his pocket—insistent this time.

Unknown number.

His first instinct was irritation.

His second was something colder.

He stepped into a supply alcove and answered.

“Mr. Anderson?” The voice was male. Controlled. Too formal to be casual. “This is Charles Ford, attorney representing the estate of Father Klein.”

The name landed differently this time.

Not like surprise.

Like recognition.

“Yes,” Billy said.

“I’m calling to confirm receipt of our earlier message. We’d like to schedule a private meeting in New York to finalize the transfer outlined in the will.”

Billy leaned his shoulder against the wall. The fluorescent light flickered overhead.

“Transfer of…?” he asked, even though he already knew.

There was a pause. Not hesitation—calculation.

“The Porsche family holdings,” the lawyer said. “Entirely.”

Billy closed his eyes.

The hallway noise faded. The building felt far away. Like he was standing somewhere deeper than the present moment.

“When?” he asked.

“As soon as possible,” Ford replied. “Discretion is strongly advised.”

The call ended.

Billy didn’t move.

He stood there for a long time, mop handle slipping slightly in his grip.

This wasn’t relief.

It didn’t feel like rescue.

It felt like something old stirring awake.

That night, the Jones family ate dinner without him.

He arrived late. Sat quietly. The insults still came, but they slid differently now—no longer cutting, just… catalogued.

Lucas spoke about business. Alice criticized the food. Karen laughed too loudly.

Billy listened.

Observed.

He noticed things he hadn’t before. The way Lucas’s confidence depended on being witnessed. The way Alice’s cruelty sharpened when she felt ignored. The way Karen watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking—measuring, reassessing.

Tyla barely spoke.

When Billy stood to leave the table, Lucas finally looked up.

“Early night?” Lucas asked mildly.

“Yes,” Billy replied.

Lucas smirked. “Try not to dream above your station.”

Billy met his eyes.

“I don’t,” he said. “I remember.”

Something flickered across Lucas’s face.

Billy turned and walked away.

In the guest room, Billy sat on the edge of the couch and stared at his hands.

They were steady.

That disturbed him.

He thought of Father Klein. Of the quiet weight in the man’s gaze. Of the way he used to say some inheritances are not gifts—they are tests.

Billy had never asked what he meant.

Now he wondered if the old man had seen this coming.

He lay back and stared into the dark.

For the first time since his fall, Billy didn’t feel small.

He felt contained.

Like something dangerous was being held behind his ribs—patient, observant, waiting for permission.

And Billy wasn’t sure anymore whether he was holding it back…

…or protecting the world from it.