After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law

The center of Elysium’s produce section had transformed into a courtroom, and Damien Sinclair was the executioner.

The billionaire tech bros, the supermodels, and the Old Money socialites were huddled together near the artisanal breads, completely silent, watching a man they usually only read about in Forbes unravel into something distinctly inhuman.

The store manager, a man in his fifties sweating completely through his bespoke suit, approached Damien with trembling hands. He held out an iPad Pro.

”M-Mr. Sinclair,” the manager stammered, his voice cracking. ”The security footage from the rear corridor. As you requested.”

Damien snatched the tablet from his hands.

He stared at the screen. The high-definition feed showed the pristine, marble-tiled back hallway leading to the alley exit. It was completely empty.

Damien watched for ten seconds. His golden eyes, sharp and predatory, caught the subtle distortion.

A drop of condensation fell from an overhead pipe. It hit the floor. Five seconds later, the exact same drop fell. The timestamp in the corner was ticking forward, but the footage itself was a flawless, five-minute, seamlessly spliced loop.

”They hacked the mainframe,” Damien said, his voice a dead, emotionless void.

He didn’t hand the tablet back.

With a sudden, explosive surge of violence, Damien slammed the iPad down over his bent knee. The reinforced glass and aluminum shattered with a sickening crack, the device snapping completely in half. He tossed the ruined pieces onto the floor at the manager’s feet.

The manager flinched, stepping back with his hands raised.

From the corner of the crowd, a flash went off.

A young socialite, draped in a mink coat, was holding her phone up, trying to live-stream the CEO’s meltdown to her followers.

She didn’t even get to check the lighting.

One of Damien’s massive security operatives, a man built like a freight train in a tailored suit, stepped out of the shadows. He didn’t say a word. He reached out, his massive, leather-gloved hand enveloping the woman’s phone and half her hand.

He ripped the device from her grip. With a sickening crunch of grinding metal and popping glass, the operative crushed the smartphone entirely within his fist. He opened his hand, letting the twisted, sparking remains drop to the marble floor.

”No recording,” the operative rumbled.

The socialite let out a quiet, terrified whimper, shrinking back into the crowd. No one else dared to breathe.

The heavy, frosted glass doors at the front of the store rattled as the security shutters were briefly bypassed.

Two more of Damien’s operatives marched into the store. Between them, they were dragging a man by the lapels of his suit jacket. It was the bouncer who had been stationed at the front retinal scanner.

They hauled him down the main aisle and threw him violently onto the floor. He landed hard on his hands and knees right at Damien’s feet.

Damien looked down at him. The air pressure in the room seemed to drop.

”You’ve seen my wife?” Damien asked softly.

The bouncer scrambled backward, his eyes wide with sheer panic as he looked up at the Demon King.

”I didn’t see anyone, Mr. Sinclair! I swear to God!” the bouncer babbled, his hands shaking as he held them up in defense. ”Nobody matching her description came out the front! Just... just some crazy, barefoot stalker screaming at the doors!”

Damien froze.

Every muscle in his body locked into stone.

”A barefoot stalker,” Damien repeated, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.

”Yes!” the bouncer nodded frantically, desperate to explain himself. ”Look, man, I deal with delusional women pretending to be billionaires’ wives every single day! It’s an occupational hazard here! She was just another crazy fangirl having an episode! She looked haggard, her hair was a mess, and she didn’t even have shoes! It couldn’t possibly be Aria Sinclair!”

Damien’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. She had fought her way out. She had run to the front door.

”She was screaming for help,” Damien stated, the terrifying calmness in his voice peeling back to reveal a layer of absolute, homicidal rage. ”And you turned her away.”

”She was causing a scene!” the bouncer pleaded, sweat dripping down his forehead. ”But then her brothers showed up! I thought I was doing the right thing by handing the unwell woman over to her family!”

Something inside Damien snapped.

Damien grabbed the bouncer by the throat with one hand. Using pure, unadulterated adrenaline, he lifted the grown man entirely off the ground and slammed him backward into a pyramid display of artisanal apples.

Fruit scattered violently across the floor. The bouncer’s feet kicked in the air as Damien pinned him against the shelving, his long fingers wrapping around the man’s windpipe like an iron vice.

”Ghk—” the bouncer choked, his hands clawing uselessly at Damien’s unyielding arm.

”What did they look like?” Damien roared, his face inches from the bouncer’s, his golden eyes burning with a lethal fire. ”Describe the men you handed my wife to!”

”D-Dark shades!” the bouncer gasped, his face turning a mottled purple as he struggled for air. ”Dark suits... thick French accents!”

Damien’s grip tightened.

”What else?” Damien demanded.

”They said... they said she slipped away from her nurse!” the bouncer wheezed, tears leaking from his eyes. ”They said she was off her medication! I thought I was helping!”

’French accents.’

Damien’s blood ran ice-cold.

’The Vipers.’

He released his grip.

The bouncer dropped to the floor like a sack of dead weight, coughing and gasping for oxygen amidst the bruised apples. He curled into a fetal position, weeping openly.

”I’m so sorry,” the bouncer sobbed, clutching his throat. ”I’m so sorry, Mr. Sinclair. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was her.”

Damien stared down at the broken man. There was no pity in his eyes. Only absolute disgust.

”Your ignorance,” Damien said, his voice a chilling, hollow promise that echoed off the vaulted ceilings of the grocery store, ”just signed your own death warrant if she isn’t found.”

He turned his back on the weeping man.