Rise Of The Broken Son-in-law

I can do it

“You can’t just make decisions that have nothing to do with you.”

Kelvin snapped the words like a whip. His face was red, fingers drumming the edge of the counter. “Who gave Ethan the authority to come in here and decide anything? Does he even know how to treat acne? Since when did Ethan become an expert in curing the simplest ailments?”

Mia glanced between Kelvin and Ethan, uncertainty carved across her features. “Was that… Ethan’s right to decide?” she asked, voice small. “Doesn’t Ethan work at the hospital?”

Lila stepped Forward. “Ethan is my husband,” she said, her voice was steady and threaded with apology. “I’m sorry if Ethan gave you false hope. He has no medical experience. He’s just trying to help.”

That admission was a fuse.

“Since when can he talk?” Elizabeth snapped. “Has he been pretending all this time? What else has Ethan lied about?”

Lyndia’s eyes narrowed into hard slits. “If he’s been lying about speaking,” she cut in, lethal and quick, “what else is he hiding?”

Elizabeth didn’t stop. She turned to Mia with a smile that smelled. “Miss Mia you should consider plastic surgery, It can’t be worse than this.”

Mia looked at Ethan again, skeptical and raw. “Does he really have no experience?” she asked.

Ethan lifted his chin. “Yes. I have no formal knowledge.” He paused, then added, "But I understand if you don’t trust me. I’m willing to try. There’s no harm in it.”

He had not planned on sounding so steady. The words felt like someone else’s handwriting on his tongue, but they landed with a certainty that shifted the air. For a long second Mia considered the risk, weighing embarrassment against hope. Then she nodded.

“Good,” Mia said. She beckoned Elizabeth over. “Give Ethan whatever he needs to make a proper treatment right now.”

“And if he doesn’t improve my face immediately, the whole family will face the wrath.”

Elizabeth shot Ethan a glare, then Ethan snapped out a list. Ethan watched shoved the page toward her. “Go to the nearest market. Get what’s on this list. Now.”

She took the note with numb fingers and left. Elizabeth returned some time later with full packages, her face flushed as if she’d run a race she’d won by blaming someone else. Her voice was breathless with annoyance. “That was the most horrifying errand of my life!” she announced, dropping the bundles on the table so hard a spice tin rattled free. Sweat darkened at her armpits. “If this doesn’t work, we’re all in trouble. I’ll make sure you pay for it.”

Something inside Ethan turned cold. He had enough silent years of humiliation, he turned toward Elizabeth abruptly that she stepped back, surprise and fear crossing her face. “I’d like some privacy while I work,” he said.

Mia peered around him, then, as if relieved, she shooed the others. “I want the expert alone.”

Kelvin muttered, Lyndia harrumphed, and they all left.

Ethan sat opposite Mia and moved with deliberate care. He didn’t touch the worst patches; he kept his hands respectful, measuring the skin, listening as he asked the basics — onset, products used, allergies. Mia’s replies was just curt; then as his questions found a pace she could follow, her answers expanded. She described the burn from a cheap cream, the sudden red swell after a new cleanser, the shame that made her fingers work private routines in dim bathrooms.

When Ethan mixed the herbs, his hands were steady. He measured by feel and memory, though he could not have said where the knowledge came from. It was as if something within him had opened a door and pushed precise motion through his limbs. He boiled, strained, cooled. He asked one last question which was her pain scale, whether heat or sting was tolerable and Mia, trusting the shape of his voice, nodded.

Ethan held the small bowl up to her face and for the first time hesitated. The mixture smelled of iron and rosemary. His hand trembled minutely. He had no right to know this. He had no right, logically, to possess the sequence of steps that should have been foreign to him. Yet his body moved as if answering an order from somewhere else.

“This will burn at first,” he told her. “It will sting. It will fade. It’ll be fine after that.”

Outside the consultation room, the air was thick with unease. Kelvin’s leaned toward Lila.

“You never said your husband could talk,”

Before Lila could form a reply, Lyndia cut in sharply, her tone heavy with a strange mix of disdain and conviction. “Ethan stopped speaking after marrying Lila” she said. “At first, we thought he was just being difficult. Stubborn. Then after a year, we assumed some god had struck him mute.” Her eyes narrowed, voice rising. “And we accepted it. We all did.”

Elizabeth scoffed loudly, arms folding across her chest. “I can’t believe this. All this time, he’s been deceiving us? What if his plan is to steal the company from you, Lila? Pretending to be weak so no one suspects him?”

Lila’s lips parted, but no words came. For a moment, she seemed completely lost in thought, her brows knitted in doubt. “It’s… more complicated than you think,” she murmured finally, her gaze lowering. “I should probably question him about it later.”

Kelvin stepped closer, seizing her hand with sudden urgency. His needy eyes bore into hers, trembling with desperation. “Then don’t wait,” he said quickly. “We should run away together before your husband ruins everything. I have enough money to take care of you. You know Ethan can’t cure her. You know he’s going to drag you down, Lila—you’ll be sued into debt by the time he’s done—”

But before he could finish, Lila ripped her hand away, wiping it firmly against her suit as if scrubbing off contamination. Her eyes hardened.

“Listen, Kelvin,” she said, cutting him down with her tone alone. “Even if I weren’t married to Ethan, you and I would never be together.”

Kelvin flinched, but Lyndia immediately jumped in, her voice sharp and defensive. “Don’t say that, Lila! Kelvin is just trying to help you. He’s looking out for your future—”

“No, Mother.” Lila’s voice cut through hers like ice. “It’s true. You need to stop pushing me toward him. I’m not interested in Kelvin. I never was, and I never will be.”

The tension snapped in half with a piercing scream from inside the consultation room. It was so raw, so violent, it froze every one of them where they stood.

Elizabeth and Lyndia vanished in an instant, rushing toward the door like hounds chasing blood.

Lila’s heart lurched. She couldn’t resist. She took a step forward, but Kelvin’s hand shot out again, grabbing her arm tight.

“You don’t have to do this,” Kelvin said, his voice was low and urgent. “This is your chance, Lila. Your chance to leave him behind. Run away with me now.”

Her eyes blazed. She yanked her arm back so violently his grip slipped. Her palm twitched, itching to slap him, but she held herself still—barely.

“I can’t run away forever, Kelvin. Don’t you understand that?” Her voice cracked with restrained fury. “I don’t love you. I never loved you. Why won’t you get that through your head?”

Her breath trembled, but she steadied it with a sigh. “Besides… Ethan is still in there. I need to see what he’s done.”

With that, she tore herself free from Kelvin’s reach and stepped into the consultation room. She closed the door firmly behind her, shutting out the arguments, shutting out her mother’s voice, shutting out Kelvin’s endless whining.

For a heartbeat, the silence inside was louder than the scream that had drawn them all here. Lila pressed her back to the wood, inhaling sharply.

God, I hope he hasn’t destroyed us… she thought bitterly. If Ethan had failed, if he had made things worse, then the worst thing she could do now was lock this door. Lock it and never let anyone leave.

Because if disaster had bloomed in this room, then not even the walls of the Clark mansion could contain the shame once the news slipped outside.

So she stood still, her hand tightening on the doorknob, her eyes already searching for Ethan—praying, fearing—waiting to see whether her husband had saved them… or damned them all.