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

Three days had passed since the East River freefall, and ICU Room 1 no longer resembled a hospital suite.

Damien had moved his corporate headquarters to the fourth floor of St. Jude’s.

A sleek, temporary mahogany desk had been hauled in and placed right next to Aria’s bed. Three glowing monitors, directed away from her, displayed real-time stock markets, global supply chain metrics, and encrypted security feeds.

Two private military contractors stood stone-faced just inside the door, while Ken operated a mobile printing station in the corner.

In the center of it all lay Aria. She was still deep in her medically induced twilight sleep, pale and peaceful, the rhythmic beep of her heart monitor providing a steady backbeat to the room.

Damien sat beside her. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, holding a very expensive fountain pen in his right hand as he signed off on a multi-billion-dollar acquisition of a tech firm in Kyoto.

His left hand never left Aria’s. His fingers were gently intertwined with hers, his thumb absentmindedly stroking her knuckles.

”I am going to check myself into a psych ward,” Zoe announced, pacing at the foot of the bed. She was clutching an iPad like it was a live explosive, her purple hair pulled back into a frazzled bun. ”I am going to walk into the ocean. The internet is a disease. A fucking plague.”

Damien didn’t look up from his paperwork. ”What is it now?”

”It’s the London press junket!” Zoe shrieked, spinning the iPad around to shove the screen in his direction.

The Empress’s Shadow worldwide press tour had officially kicked off without its leading antagonist. On the screen, a live stream from a red carpet event in Leicester Square showed Bella Vale looking tragically beautiful in a custom black Givenchy mourning gown. She was dabbing her perfectly dry eyes while speaking to an entertainment reporter.

”Aria is just... taking time away to heal from her incredibly toxic environment,” Bella said on the video, her voice a breathy whisper of false sisterly devotion. ”We all saw the drone footage. I’m just praying she finds the strength to escape him. The entire cast is holding space for her.”

”I want to punch her through the screen,” Zoe growled, pulling the iPad back. ”She is milking this scandal for every drop of clout it has. She gained another two million followers yesterday. And the hashtag #SaveAria is currently trending at number one globally.”

”Oh,” Damien said, flipping a page of his contract.

”But it’s not just the haters!” Zoe dragged a hand down her face, looking genuinely irritated. ”Mr. Sinclair, your PR profile is a split-personality nightmare! Half the internet thinks you’re a domestic abuser who pushed his wife off a bridge, and the other half are completely feral sociopaths who want to be next!”

Zoe started swiping aggressively through her feed, reading off the comments.

”Listen to this! @FinanceBro88 says, ’Sinclair stock is up 4% today, the Demon King thrives on chaos, absolute alpha behavior.’ And then there’s @ToxicKitten, who literally tweeted, ’If Damien Sinclair pushed me off a bridge, I would apologize for getting his hands wet.’ And don’t even get me started on the gays! They are making fancams of you snapping that paparazzo’s camera! It has four million views! They’re calling it the ’cuntiest thing a straight man has ever done’!”

Damien finally paused his signing. He looked at Zoe, his expression utterly blank.

”Are you finished?” he asked dryly.

”No!” Zoe wailed. ”Because the studio executives for the movie are panicking! They don’t know how to market the film when the lead antagonist is a comatose hashtag and the male lead is parading his mistress-sister-friend...who fucking knows...around! I need you to give me something, Mr. Sinclair. Anything.”

Zoe stepped closer to the desk, her voice dropping into a desperate plea.

”Please. Just give me fifteen minutes with Vanity Fair. Or Vogue. An exclusive sit-down. You look into the camera, you look sad but handsome, and you say, ’I love my wife. I would never hurt her. The allegations are false.’ That’s all it takes to shift the narrative and clear your name.”

Damien set his pen down. He leaned back in his chair, his golden eyes settling on the frantic publicist.

”Ms. Chen,” Damien said, his voice a low, terrifyingly calm rumble. ”Look around you.”

He gestured vaguely to the bank of monitors and the armed guards.

”Do I look like a man who gives a single fuck about his ’narrative’?”

Zoe swallowed hard. ”But... the bad press—”

”Cancel culture is a poor person’s problem,” Damien stated, his tone devoid of arrogance, simply stating a fact of his existence. ”I own the servers their outrage is hosted on. I own the fiber-optic cables carrying their tweets. If the entire globe decides I am a monster, my net worth won’t dip a single fraction of a percent.”

He turned his head, his gaze softening instantly as it landed on Aria’s sleeping face. He brought her limp hand to his mouth, pressing a tender kiss to her knuckles.

”Let them think I’m a villain,” Damien whispered, his thumb brushing a stray rose-gold curl from Aria’s forehead. ”Let Bella Vale run her mouth on the red carpet. I don’t care. My only priority is the woman in this bed. I am not leaving this room, and I am not performing for the press.”

He looked back at Zoe, the ice returning to his eyes.

”So, no Vanity Fair. Do your job, Ms. Chen. Spin whatever stories you want. But do not ask me to care about the internet ever again.”

Zoe stared at him. The sheer, immovable weight of his devotion was staggering.

”Right,” Zoe breathed, her shoulders slumping in total defeat. ”Spin stories. Got it.”

She turned around and walked out of the ICU room. The heavy glass doors slid shut behind her, cutting off the beeping of the heart monitor.

Zoe stood in the sterile white hallway. She looked left. She looked right.

Then, she slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the cold floor. She pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her forehead against them. The adrenaline of the last three days was finally crashing, leaving behind a hollow, agonizing exhaustion.

”Wake up, Aria,” Zoe whispered, her voice cracking as a single, frustrated tear slipped down her cheek. ”Please wake up. The villains are winning, and your husband is too rich to care. I can’t fight them without you.”