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

The struggle didn’t end when the bouncer turned his back. If anything, Aria fought harder.

She thrashed like a wild animal as the two men dragged her toward the idling van. She threw her elbows, kicked her bare, bleeding feet at their shins, and twisted her torso with everything she had.

”Hold her still!” one of the men grunted.

A thick, plastic zip-tie was brutally secured around her wrists, biting sharply into her skin as they wrenched her arms behind her back. A rough cloth blindfold was pulled over her eyes, instantly plunging her into total darkness. Before she could scream for help one last time, a wadded piece of fabric was shoved into her mouth and secured tightly around the back of her head with a knot.

She was hoisted into the air and thrown into the back of the van.

She landed hard on the plush, leather-carpeted floor of the vehicle. Her claw clip snapped, her carefully styled hair tumbling down in a tangled, ruined mess around her shoulders.

The heavy sliding door slammed shut with a definitive, metallic thud.

The two men didn’t climb into the back with her. She heard the front driver and passenger doors open and close. The engine revved, and the van peeled away from the curb so violently Aria slid across the floor, her shoulder slamming into the base of a passenger seat.

The panic in her chest was a living, breathing monster.

Aria rolled onto her back, her breathing ragged through her nose. She drew her knees up to her chest and began kicking the back of the seats furiously with her bare feet, thrashing against her plastic restraints, letting out muffled, furious screams through the gag.

”Arrêtez,” a voice said softly.

Aria froze.

The voice hadn’t come from the front of the van. It came from the darkness right next to her, in the back cabin.

It was a woman.

”Stop,” a man’s voice echoed from the front passenger seat. It was a cold, robotic, heavily accented monotone—a live translator doing his job without a single ounce of inflection. ”She says to calm down. You are not in danger. She just wants to talk.”

Aria’s chest heaved. The blindfold and the gag were suffocating her, but the sudden realization that she wasn’t alone in the back of the van acted like a bucket of ice water over her panic.

She forced herself to stop kicking. She squeezed her eyes shut beneath the blindfold and forced air through her nose.

’Calm down,’ Aria ordered herself. ’Damien will realize how long I’ve been gone. By now, he’s realizing the bathroom is empty. He is going to tear the city apart to find me. I just have to survive until he does.’

She steeled her nerves, going completely rigid on the floor, waiting.

Soft, manicured fingers brushed against her cheek. The hand moved up to her ruined hair, gently untangling a knot near her temple. The touch was incredibly tender. It was maternal. The contrast between the violent kidnapping and this affectionate, soothing caress was so jarring it made Aria’s skin crawl.

She smelled the woman then—an intoxicating wave of vintage, expensive perfume. It smelled like midnight jasmine and old money.

The woman sighed. It was a heavy, emotional sound.

”Tu es si belle...” the woman murmured in French, her voice carrying a soft, aristocratic lilt that was laced with profound sorrow.

”She says you are beautiful,” the deadpan translator recited from the front seat, ruining the emotion entirely.

The woman continued stroking Aria’s hair, her thumb tracing the line of Aria’s jaw.

”C’est incroyable...” the woman whispered, her voice catching slightly. ”Tu lui ressembles tellement.”

”It’s incredible,” the robotic voice droned from the front. ”She says you look so much like him.”

Aria’s brow furrowed beneath the blindfold.

’Him? Who was ’him’? Raymond? No one with eyes would ever marvel at someone looking like Raymond Vale.’

”Ta carrière d’actrice est florissante,” the woman continued, her tone shifting to one of genuine, proud approval. ”Et tu as réussi à attraper un mari très bon et très beau. Un roi.”

”Your acting career is doing well,” the translator relayed. ”And you managed to catch a really good and handsome husband. A king.”

Aria lay rigidly in the dark. This wasn’t an interrogation. This was a twisted family reunion. The woman spoke of her success not with the bitter envy Lydia always used, but with the quiet pride of an aunt watching from afar.

But the warmth didn’t last.

The woman’s hand stilled against Aria’s hair. When she spoke again, the soft lilt was gone, replaced by the hardened, chilling authority of a cartel boss.

”Tu devrais vivre ta vie parfaite,” the woman commanded softly. ”Arrête de déterrer ce que ta mère est morte pour te cacher.”

”She says you should live your perfect life,” the translator’s monotone echoed. ”Stop digging up what your mother died to protect you from.”

Aria gritted her teeth against the gag.

’My mother died because Lydia poisoned her!’ Aria wanted to scream. ’I’m digging up a murder!’

The woman let out a dry, humorless chuckle, as if she could hear Aria’s thoughts.

”J’ai engagé ces filles,” the woman confessed smoothly in the dark. ”Pour voler le registre à ce séduisant avocat.”

The translator didn’t miss a beat. ”I was the one who hired the women to steal the ledger from that sexy lawyer.”

Aria’s eyes widened beneath the rough cloth.

Her breath hitched.

This woman, who smelled of jasmine and spoke with maternal pride, was the one orchestrating the cover-up. It shattered Aria’s entire theory.

”Arrête d’essayer de faire arrêter Lydia,” the woman ordered, her voice laced with a tragic, heavy sorrow. ”Arrête d’enquêter sur les Vipers. Laisse ta mère partir. C’est ce qu’elle aurait voulu.”

”Stop trying to get Lydia arrested,” the translator said. ”Stop investigating the Vipers. Let your mother go. It is what she would have wanted.”

The woman leaned closer. Aria could feel the warmth of her breath against her cheek. There was no malice in her next words, only a bleak, unavoidable truth.

”Si tu continues sur ce chemin, je ne pourrai plus te protéger. Et ta fin sera une mort atroce.”

”If you continue on this path,” the translator finished, the robotic voice making the threat sound utterly absolute, ”I can no longer protect you. And your end will be a gruesome death.”

Aria’s heart hammered against her ribs. She was drowning in confusion. The ledger, Lydia, her mother, the Vipers—nothing was aligning the way she thought it did.

She couldn’t just sit here. She needed a name. She needed a face.

Aria acted.

She brought her bound hands down as far as the zip-ties would allow, shifting her weight onto her side. She pressed her face hard against her shoulder, using the friction of her skin and the rough plastic bindings to push the cloth gag upward.

”Mmmph!” Aria grunted.

The woman gasped slightly, pulling her hand away.

With one final, desperate jerk of her neck, the knot holding the gag slipped. The wad of fabric popped out of her mouth, resting awkwardly against her cheek.

Aria gasped, her lungs burning as she sucked in the stale air of the van.

”Who are you?!” Aria choked out, her voice raw, screaming into the pitch-black void of her blindfold.

The van fell dead silent.

The woman just let out a long, shuddering sigh in the dark.