The rise of the forgotten son-in-law

Chapter 2

I stared at the papers spread across the expensive, shiny table. The words DIVORCE AGREEMENT glared back at me like a cold, waking nightmare.

The room had gone dead silent. Just moments ago, the people at the table were laughing and making fun of me, but now the air felt thick and heavy.

The only sound left was the shaky, terrified breathing of the guests. They finally realized the truth; they weren’t just sitting with an ordinary man, they were sitting next to a ticking time bomb.

Against my forehead, the metal barrel of the gun felt ice cold and heavy.

“Sign it,” the man in the red suit growled.

His voice was low, sharp, and full of hate.

I reached out and picked up the pen. Surprisingly, my hand was steady. 

I didn’t tremble, even with a weapon pressed against my skull.

I slowly flipped through the pages. I wasn’t looking for a way out, I just wanted to see the truth. 

There were no demands for money, no arguments over property, just a clean, cold separation.

And the document didn’t even give a reason why she wanted to leave me. It was as if the last three years of my life, every sacrifice I had made for her, had been completely erased with a stroke of a pen.

Ada stood right behind the gunman. She had her arm wrapped playfully around his sleeve, tracing the tattoo on his chest with her fingers. 

She didn’t care that I was being threatened. She didn’t even look at me. To her, I was already a ghost.

I signed the papers one by one, my movements gentle and calm. 

The sound of the ink scratching against the paper felt like a heavy door finally locking me out.

I realized then that I had spent years trying to stay in a house where I was never wanted.

When I finished, I set the pen down with a soft click.

“It’s done,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

For a heartbeat, no one moved.

Then, the man in the red suit burst out laughing. It was a cruel, mocking sound. 

He pulled the gun away and tucked it back into his jacket as if it were a toy.

“Smart move,” he sneered. “You should have done this a long time ago. Now look at you, you’ve scared everyone half to death just by being stubborn.”

I stood up slowly. I didn't argue. The weight of the disrespect hit me harder than the gun ever could. I knew they didn't love me, but Ada bringing a thug to threaten my life was a new level of cruelty.

The room remained awkward and tense. Suddenly, Ada stepped forward and stood right in front of me.

“Give me the documents already,” she snapped, her voice full of impatience.

I didn’t say a word. I took a deep breath, straightened my wrinkled suit jacket, and turned toward the door.

As I walked away, the whispers started behind my back.

“That guy has some nerve. Does he really think he can survive even one day without this family?” one person whispered.

“He didn't even beg for his life,” another added with a chuckle.

I blocked their comments out. At the door, I stopped and turned back one last time. 

I didn't want to beg, I just wanted to look at the woman I had once loved with all my heart.

I watched Ada for a few seconds. People around her at the table started giggling and whispering, but she refused to look my way. That was the answer I needed. She was truly done with me.

I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. I walked through the mansion's corridor and finally out into the late night.

The freezing city wind hit my face, and for the first time in years, I smiled genuinely. It felt like the cold air was washing away all the filth and tension from that house.

I started walking down the street. I had no car and nowhere to go; I had given up my own home to move in with her family.

But I wasn't worried.

 As I got further away from the Williams’ mansion, my mind started to clear.

Three years. I had endured three years of insults, emotional abuse, and pain just to keep my marriage alive.

“It’s finally over,” I muttered to myself. I took a deep breath of the night air to steady my heart.

I had known this day would come, but the sheer disrespect from Ada had still caught me off guard. I knew there was one place I could go, but returning there came with a heavy price.

One worse than enduring the maltreatment from the Williams family.

It was a life I had walked away from, but if I wanted to survive this world, I had to go back.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out an old, beat-up phone. To anyone else, it looked like a piece of junk, but I only carried it for a moment like this when I had run out of options.

I turned it on. The phone vibrated instantly once, twice, then it didn't stop. A flood of notifications lit up the screen.

They were missed calls. Encrypted messages. High security alerts. Some were months old, others were years old.

They were from people I had tried to leave behind, but they had never stopped looking for me.

I typed in a passcode I had memorized years ago. As the home screen loaded, I knew that the power balance of the entire city was about to shift.

I scrolled through my contacts until I found a specific name. There were dozens of messages from a month ago, but I didn't read them. Instead, I typed three simple words.

“I am back.”

Then I sent it to a single contact.

I slid the phone back into my pocket. I didn’t expect an answer right away.

Important people are never just waiting around. But I knew that by tomorrow, the world would know I was no longer the man they could kick around.