The Live-In Husband They Despised Is Now a Millionaire

My wife got drunk at a girls' night with her best friend and called me to pick her up.

In the taxi, she slurred through half-closed eyes:

You know, compared to my friend's husband, you really are kind of useless.

My hand was mid-scan on the payment code. It froze.

Before I could say a word, she kept going:

"Sure, you were a hotshot at a top university once, but now? Dead-end job, no ambition. You can't hold a candle to Herman Simmons, not in looks, not in anything."

"Let's be honest. You're a live-in son-in-law. You're basically free labor for my family. What right do you have to say anything about him?"

The words hit me like a plunge into ice water.

Then it clicked. She was still furious about a few days ago, when I'd called out her adopted brother for devouring the entire forty-dollar durian I'd brought home without saving a single piece for my eight-year-old son.

Fine. So that's how she really felt.

Then we were done.

"Just because I had too much to drink and said some stupid things, you want a divorce?"

Leona Simmons sat on the couch the next morning, sober and staring at me like I'd lost my mind.

"Yes."

I gripped the handle of my suitcase and pushed the signed divorce papers closer to her face.

On the balcony, my son Silas Weiss looked up from his building blocks, frowning at me.

"Dad, can you stop threatening Mom with divorce? She wasn't even wrong. You're not as successful as Uncle Herman. Everyone knows that."

My own son, the kid I'd fought tooth and nail for, standing with his mother and throwing it back in my face.

Leona and I had been married ten years. Our combined salaries barely cleared fifteen hundred a month.

Six people crammed into a nine-hundred-square-foot apartment, and her parents had no pension, no retirement income whatsoever.

That forty-dollar durian was something Silas had been begging me for, day after day, until I finally broke down and bought it.

I'd planned to save it for when he got home from school. But when I brought him back and opened the fridge, the durian was gone.

Herman strolled out of his bedroom holding an empty plate, shrugging like it was nothing:

"Sorry, man. It was just so good I accidentally ate the whole thing."

I wasn't happy, but all I said was:

"Forty bucks for a durian. Never mind anyone else, you could've at least left some for Silas."

One sentence. That was all it took. Herman's eyes went red on cue, like he'd been dealt some unforgivable blow.

The moment Leona got home from work, he ran straight to her:

"Sis, I barely touched the durian Lucas Weiss bought, and he already went off on me..."

Leona shot me a look, the kind that said I was the problem, though she didn't say anything out loud.

But she'd been carrying it ever since.

"Hey, is breakfast ready? I'm meeting friends to go shopping soon."

Herman shuffled out of his bedroom in pajamas, yawning.

"Uncle Herman, have my milk and egg!"

Silas rushed over with the breakfast I'd prepared for him, holding it up like an offering.

My in-laws, who hadn't said a word during the whole divorce conversation, instantly switched on warm smiles.

My mother-in-law, Amy Simmons, set down her watering can and hurried over:

"What do you feel like eating? Mom will make it for you today."

Funny how nimble her legs were all of a sudden.

Last time Leona was away on a business trip, I'd had a hundred-and-four-degree fever, and Amy still dragged me out of bed to make her husband corn and pork rib soup.

Ten years I'd given this family. To them, I was still an outsider.

"Uncle Herman, my school has a family sports day coming up. Could you come with my dad?"

Silas gazed up at Herman, eyes wide and hopeful.

Herman glanced at me, a look that might have been casual or might have been deliberate, and patted Silas on the cheek.

"The parent-child field day is something your daddy should go to with you. If your uncle goes instead, your daddy will be upset!"

Silas immediately shot me a look of disgust.

"I don't want him there. He only makes ten thousand dollars a year. When my classmates ask, I'm too embarrassed to even say it!"

So in my own son's eyes, my job was nothing but a source of shame.

My mother-in-law chimed in:

"You graduated from a top university and you work at a bank. If you go to the field day for Silas, even his teachers will think more highly of him. Just go. Lucas won't mind!"

I turned to look at Leona, sitting motionless on the couch.

Her son and her mother were talking about me like this. As my wife, shouldn't she stand up and say something on my behalf?

If she would just speak up for me, then I...

Leona stood and walked over to me. She cupped my face, her voice soft:

"Come on, stop making a scene."

"See? It's not just me who thinks you can't measure up to Herman. Children are the most honest people there are. You should believe what your own son says, right?"

"But don't worry, we're not looking down on you. As long as you treat Herman better from now on and stop picking fights with him, we can still forgive you!"

Words dressed up as grace, but every syllable cut like a dull blade dragged across my heart.

Something inside me snapped. I shoved Leona away and slammed the divorce papers into her arms.

"This marriage is over!"

The force of my push sent Leona stumbling back a step, straight into my father-in-law's fish tank.

A deafening crash.

The tank shattered on impact.

The golden arowana inside, the fish my father-in-law pampered like a firstborn son, flopped onto the floor.

It thrashed twice out of the water, then went still, suffocating on open air.

My father-in-law had been mid-feeding when it happened. The look on his face was pure anguish.

His palm cracked across my face before I could say a word.

"All this because Herman ate your damn fruit the other day? You come out here first thing in the morning looking for a fight!"

"And now you've killed my fish! Do you need every single person in this family to be miserable before you're satisfied?"

"You want a divorce? Fine! Let's see if a man in his thirties with nothing to his name can find anyone willing to marry him after my daughter!"

I hit the floor. My palms landed on broken glass, and blood ran between my fingers.

Amy had already pulled Silas and Herman behind her, shielding them, keeping them as far from me as possible.

Leona's back had struck the tank frame hard; her brows were drawn tight with pain.

Every one of them looked at me like I was the lunatic. Like I was the one being unreasonable.

Ten years of marriage, and in that moment the whole thing struck me as nothing but a grotesque joke. I clenched my jaw, glaring at all of them through the blood and the broken glass.

Amy was the first to soften. She stepped forward, brushed my arm, and spoke in that gentle, coaxing tone she saved for moments like this:

"Honestly, what's gotten into you? It was just a piece of fruit. Was it really worth all this?"

"You're an orphan, Lucas. No parents, no family of your own. If you leave us, where would you even go?"

"You've been married to Leona for ten years now. She's about to be promoted to department manager. Even if she said the wrong thing, is that really worth blowing up your whole marriage over?"

"Here, let's say it was my fault. I didn't raise my daughter right. I'm apologizing to you. I'm sorry. Is that enough?"

She even bowed toward me as she said it.

But before her head had dipped more than an inch, Leona caught her by the shoulders and pulled her upright.

"Mom, don't you dare bow to him. If he wants a divorce, let him have it!"

That was when Herman stepped forward too.

"Lucas, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have eaten the fruit you bought last time."

"Please don't fight with my sister anymore. As long as the three of you stay together as a family, I'll move out and rent my own place!"

Herman's eyes rimmed red as he turned away, the picture of wounded dignity.

Leona and Amy grabbed him immediately.

Even Silas threw himself into Herman's arms.

"Uncle Herman, please don't go! I love you, Uncle Herman! You can have all my durian, I don't even want it!"

A touching farewell scene for the ages. I didn't bother watching his performance.

I just turned to Leona. "Sign the papers. He stays, I go."

Herman was adopted by my mother-in-law.

She'd always wanted a son, but an illness when she was young had damaged her body.

After giving birth to Leona, she was never able to have another child.

Herman wasn't their biological son, but they'd spoiled him rotten since the day they brought him home.

I grew up in an orphanage. It made me a people-pleaser, desperate to be accepted by this family.

So from the first day I married in, I didn't just handle everyone's meals, laundry, and daily needs.

I also worked, grinding away to put food on the table.

Even when I was so exhausted I collapsed, I never dared take a day off.

After Silas was born, I threw myself in even harder, trying to give the whole family a better life.

During the day, my in-laws were the ones looking after him.

I didn't know what they taught him. All I knew was that as he got older, he seemed to hate me more and more while growing closer to his Uncle Herman.

It wasn't like I hadn't tried to repair things between us. But he always pushed me away.

All my efforts to make them happy only made them treat me worse.

I was done. I was done bending over backward for people who would never bend for me.

If they wanted to believe this was about a durian, fine. Let them.

Herman watched all of this unfold and let his lips curl into a satisfied smirk.

What was he smiling about? Did he think he'd won? That he'd finally driven me out?

I pressed my lips together, turned, and walked into the bedroom. I came back carrying a medicine box and shoved it into Herman's hands.

Inside were all the medications my in-laws took daily for their chronic conditions.

"Dad has diabetes and high blood pressure. Mom has rheumatic arthritis and cervical spondylosis. There are a lot of different medications in here. The dosages and schedules are all written on the labels. They can't read the fine print, so make sure you sort them out and give them their pills every day."

Herman's eyes went wide. His face screamed inconvenience.

I pretended not to notice and handed Leona a class schedule.

"This has every class Silas takes. The school has a reduced-load policy, so you need to pack the right textbooks for him each morning. His tutoring sessions are listed on there too. Make sure he gets to every one on time."

Leona stared at the schedule, crammed edge to edge with entries, and her brow furrowed involuntarily.

I turned to Amy and pointed at the sticky note on the refrigerator.

"That lists the dietary restrictions for everyone in this house. Silas is allergic to high-protein foods. Beans, shrimp, anything like that. Absolutely off-limits."

"Dad's blood sugar and cholesterol are both high. No greasy food. Period."

"Leona has a stomach condition. She needs her own separate bowl of millet porridge every morning for breakfast."

Amy's face crumpled like she'd bitten into something sour.

I pressed again. "Sign it, Leona."

Leona gritted her teeth and lowered her pen toward the paper.

Amy lunged forward. "Don't sign that!"

Stanley kept his expression rigid, saying nothing.

Herman hung his head, putting on his best look of quiet heartbreak.

Silas saw all of it. He balled his small fists and charged at me like a little tiger.

"Bad daddy! You bullied Uncle Herman over a stupid durian! I'm gonna beat you up!"

"Just go! I want you gone! I don't even want you to be my daddy anymore!"

His fists landed on me, one after another.

They didn't hurt. But every single one tore a hole through my heart.

Leona yanked Silas back and snapped at him:

"Silas, you can't treat your father like that! Can't you see he's so angry he wants to divorce me? Apologize to your father right now!"

Silas stuck out his chin stubbornly:

"No! He made Uncle Herman cry. He's a bad daddy. Tell him to get out!"

Herman crouched down, rubbed the top of Silas's head, and said gently:

"Silas, go ahead and say sorry to your dad. Otherwise, he'll blame Uncle Herman for breaking up your mom and dad."

"Just do it for me, okay?"

The boy who'd been snarling and flailing seconds ago went quiet as a kitten.

After listening to Herman, he nodded, looked at me, and muttered through clenched teeth, "Sorry. Happy now?"

A cold breath hissed through my teeth.

This was the child I'd poured ten years of my life into raising.

What was I still hoping for?

Maybe I was just born to be unloved by my own blood.

I couldn't stop staring at Silas. After a long silence, I ground out the words:

"Silas Weiss, you really are an ungrateful little brat."

He was young, but sharp enough to know it wasn't a kind thing to say.

Everyone else's faces changed first.

Amy snatched Silas into her arms.

Leona's expression twisted as she jabbed a finger at me and screamed:

"What kind of vicious man says that about his own son?!"

Then Stanley spoke up, hands clasped behind his back, every inch the patriarch:

"Lucas, it's obvious you've been holding a grudge for a long time, and you're just using this as an excuse to force Herman out of this family."

"If nobody's apology is good enough for you, then leave."

"But let me make one thing crystal clear: this house was bought by your mother-in-law and me. Don't you dare think you're entitled to a single cent of it."

"And another thing. You married into this family. Silas is a Simmons. Custody stays with us. You walk out of here with nothing."

I laughed. "You say that like I'm dying to keep that ungrateful kid. This house, this family? None of it's mine. I don't want any of it."

I'd never had anything to begin with.

And they were worried I'd try to take something.

Unbelievable.

Leona signed the papers without hesitation and shoved the divorce agreement at me:

"Take it."

"The economy's garbage right now. You're all alone in this world. I'd love to see how you survive."

"And if you ever come crawling back, don't expect me to take you in."

Silas bit down hard and said, "I'll never tell anyone you're my dad."

The moment I held that signed agreement in my hands,

something heavy that had been sitting on my chest finally lifted.

The loss I'd braced myself for didn't come with the pain I'd expected. Instead, there was relief.

Herman couldn't hide the triumph in his eyes. "No offense, bro, but you were just a live-in son-in-law. Without this family, you won't last a day out there."

I smiled coldly.

A live-in son-in-law?

I married in because I loved her. Not because I had no other choice.

When it came to ability, not a single person in this house could hold a candle to me.

Without another word, I grabbed my suitcase and walked out the door.