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

The VIP wing lobby of St. Jude’s Hospital was extremely peaceful, which made the sound of Zoe’s bare, muddy feet squeaking against the floor all the more noticeable.

”Excuse me.”

Zoe blinked, looking to her left.

An older woman, draped in a beige cashmere shawl and clutching a Birkin bag like a shield, was staring openly at Zoe’s feet. Her upper lip was curled into a sneer of profound, aristocratic disgust.

”Is there a problem?” Zoe asked, her PR-friendly customer service voice completely depleted.

”This is the VIP wing,” the woman said, her eyes dragging up from the mud between Zoe’s toes to the oversized, studded leather jacket. ”Shoes are generally considered mandatory for hygienic reasons.”

Zoe narrowed her eyes. Her best friend almost died tonight. She was absolutely not in the mood for a hospital Karen.

”Take a picture,” Zoe snapped, popping her hip and crossing her arms. ”It’ll last longer. And use a flash, the lighting in here is terrible.”

The woman gasped, clutching her Birkin tighter, and scurried away down the hall as if Zoe were about to bite her.

”Eat the rich,” Zoe muttered to herself.

She slid down the wall, sitting on the cold floor with her knees pulled up to her chest. She needed to know what Jade was talking about. She needed to know how bad the leak was.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened TikTok.

She didn’t even have to use the search bar. The algorithm had already done the work. The very first video on her For You Page was from a verified celebrity gossip account with three million followers.

The thumbnail was a split screen: Damien looking furious outside a courthouse, and Aria smiling at the Celestia Gala.

Bold, neon text hovered over the screen: DID ARIA SINCLAIR JUMP? THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEMON KING.

”Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Zoe groaned, tapping the screen to unmute it.

The influencer’s voice was dramatic and breathless. ”Guys, the footage coming out of New York tonight is actually insane. We all know Damien Sinclair is toxic AF, but this new drone video just changed everything.”

The video cut to shaky, night-vision footage shot from high above the bridge.

Zoe’s stomach plummeted. It was a drone shot. Some tech-bro hobbyist must have been flying his toy over the East River when the chase happened.

The footage showed the black van speeding across the bridge, chased by Damien’s fleet. It showed the heavy side door sliding open. And then, it showed Aria—blindfolded and bound—falling backward out of the van and plummeting into the dark water.

But the video was tragically, perfectly clipped.

The angle of the drone, combined with the shadows, completely obscured the person inside the van. It didn’t show the push.

To the untrained eye, it looked exactly like Aria had thrown herself out of the moving vehicle to escape the black SUVs chasing her.

”She jumped,” the influencer narrated, dropping her voice to a tragic whisper. ”Aria Sinclair threw herself off a bridge to get away from her billionaire husband. #SaveAria is trending worldwide right now. We need to get this girl a rescue team.”

”She was kidnapped by fanboys, you absolute morons!” Zoe screamed at the screen, drawing a startled look from a passing nurse.

Zoe swiped down to the next video, her heart hammering with dread.

It was a feminist think-piece, filmed on a green-screen setup showing the drone footage behind the creator.

”We really need to unpack the power dynamics of billionaire marriages,” the creator said, adjusting her glasses. ”Aria Vale was a rising star, and then she gets legally bound to the ’Demon King’? A man known for destroying lives? This isn’t a fairy tale, y’all. This is a hostage situation. Abuse is never okay, no matter how rich or handsome he is. She needs our help.”

Zoe rubbed her temples. The internet was spinning a literal kidnapping and attempted murder by deranged stalkers into a domestic abuse conspiracy.

She swiped again.

This video was a gay male influencer sipping an iced coffee in his car.

”Honestly? I’m just gonna say it,” he gossiped, tapping a manicured nail against his steering wheel. ”Bella Vale was serving facts all along. Aria is unhinged. Who marries the Demon King willingly? The girl is crazy. Now she’s doing stunt jumps off bridges for attention? Lock her up.”

”I hate everyone,” Zoe whimpered, opening the comments section of the video.

The comments were a chaotic wasteland of humanity.

@PopCultureJunkie:FREE ARIA!

@SinclairStan:Idc what he did, Damien Sinclair is sexy as fuck. I’d let him throw me off a bridge.

@User983742:I know he’s toxic but I could fix him.

@RedFlagCollector:If the Demon King stepped on my neck I would literally say thank you.

@JusticeForBella:Bella tried to warn us! Aria is a psycho!

Zoe swiped to the next video on her FYP. It was a literal fan-cam.

The audio was a slowed-down, bass-boosted remix of a Weeknd song. The video was a montage of Damien Sinclair: Damien glaring at paparazzi, Damien buttoning his suit jacket, Damien looking like he wanted to murder a reporter.

The text overlay read: Sexy as fuck but toxic as hell.

Zoe locked her phone and let her head thunk back against the wall.

This was a PR apocalypse. Aria was currently in a medically induced coma down the hall, recovering from near-fatal hypothermia after being abducted by obsessive stalkers, and the internet had collectively decided that Damien was an abusive supervillain that half of them wanted to arrest and the other half wanted to sleep with.

And worse, it was Zoe’s job to handle it.

”I don’t get paid enough for this,” Zoe muttered, pushing herself up off the floor.

She looked down the pristine white hallway toward the ICU doors. Damien was in there. The actual Demon King.

She was going to have to walk into that room and tell Damien Sinclair that millions of teenagers on TikTok think he is a wife-beating monster.

”He is literally going to buy TikTok just to delete it,” Zoe whispered, a cold sweat breaking out on her neck.

She tightened her grip on her phone, pulled Kai’s oversized leather jacket tighter around her shoulders like a suit of armor, and started sprinting back down the hallway toward the ICU.

”Move! Out of the way!” Zoe hissed at a nurse carrying a clipboard.

She was in for so much work.