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

By 2:00 PM, ICU Room 1 had been entirely stripped of its Hollywood-level production value.

Zoe had already left for a meeting with a possible client, leaving Aria fully dressed, packed, and bouncing on her heels with anticipation. She was wearing a pair of comfortable vintage Levi’s and an oversized, black Balenciaga hoodie, ready to finally break out of her sterile prison.

The glass doors slid open.

Damien walked in. Behind him marched four massive, heavily armed private military contractors. Between them, they carried a large, rectangular wooden crate.

Aria paused, zipping up her Louis Vuitton weekender bag. She looked at the crate, then up at Damien.

”Um, Damien” Aria said, crossing her arms. ”I really don’t want to be smuggled out of this hospital in a literal pine box. I have claustrophobia.”

”You aren’t going in the box,” Damien said, gesturing for the men to set the heavy crate down in the center of the room. ”The box is staying here.”

He unlatched the metal clasps on the side of the crate and lifted the lid.

”No one can know you are out of this hospital,” Damien explained. ”Well, other than those in on this.”

Aria stepped closer, peering over the edge of the wooden crate.

She immediately gasped, stumbling a step backward.

Lying inside the crate, nestled in protective foam, was a body.

It was a woman. She was wearing a hospital gown. She had rose-gold hair, a delicate bone structure, and the exact same pale, sickly, grey-contoured complexion Zoe had painted on Aria that morning.

It was a hyper-realistic silicone doll.

It looked exactly like her. It was so terrifyingly accurate that Aria half-expected its chest to start rising and falling.

”Oh my god,” Aria breathed, leaning back in to inspect the uncanny valley perfection of its eyelashes. ”Damien... how did you get this made so fast?”

”I pulled a favor from a robotics engineering contact in Tokyo. I actually had it commissioned and shipped weeks ago,” Damien confessed casually, stepping up beside her to look down at the doll.

Aria turned her head slowly, staring at him. ”Weeks ago? Why?”

”Contingency planning,” Damien stated smoothly. ”I anticipated a scenario where I might eventually have to fake your death. When you decided to play comatose, I had my men unbox it and apply the necessary makeup.”

He turned to look at her, fully expecting her to call him a psychopath.

Aria stared at him. Her emerald eyes blew wide.

She threw her arms around his neck, burying her hands in his silver hair, and crashed her mouth against his.

Damien let out a muffled grunt of surprise, his hands instinctively wrapping around her waist to steady her as she kissed him with aggressive, consuming passion.

The four military contractors standing around the crate immediately snapped their gazes straight up to the ceiling tiles, suddenly finding the acoustic paneling incredibly fascinating.

Aria pulled back, looking at Damien with pure, unadulterated adoration.

”You pre-ordered my corpse,” Aria whispered breathlessly, ”That...is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Damien let out a low chuckle, completely disarmed by her reaction.

”Can I keep her?” Aria asked eagerly, pointing down at the silicone double. ”When this is all over? I could use her as a mannequin in my closet to test out outfits and hairstyles!”

”I suppose,” Damien sighed, though his golden eyes glinted with amusement.

He gestured to the guards, who quickly and efficiently lifted the silicone doll out of the crate, hauled it onto the hospital bed, and pulled the thermal blankets up to its chin. With the lights dimmed and the oxygen mask strapped over its face, it was a flawless decoy.

”Now,” Damien said, turning back to Aria. ”You need to be completely unrecognizable to leave this building. The paparazzi have the perimeter surrounded.”

”Way ahead of you,” Aria smirked.

She reached into her weekender bag, pulling out a plain black New York Yankees baseball cap and a pair of massive, oversized black Celine sunglasses. She popped the cap on her head, pulling the brim low, and slid the sunglasses over her nose.

She struck a pose. ”Boom. Invisible. I look like an extra in a Marvel movie trying to hide from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Damien stared at her. He didn’t even blink.

He reached out, plucked the sunglasses off her face, and pulled the baseball cap off her head, tossing them both onto the empty visitor’s chair.

”You look like a millionaire actress wearing a baseball cap,” Damien deadpanned. ”You need to be an entirely different person. A boring person.”

”Boring?” Aria gasped.

Right on cue, the glass doors opened.

Aria’s jaw dropped.

Walking into the ICU room were two of the most legendary, exclusive, and terrifyingly mean figures in the global fashion and beauty industry: The Devereaux Twins.

Amara and Amina were statuesque, flawless dark-skinned women with razor-sharp bobs, both wearing matching monochromatic black Rick Owens outfits. They were the premier celebrity styling duo, notorious for charging six figures for a single consultation and regularly making A-list actresses cry if their cuticles were dry.

Behind them scurried a terrified, breathless team of four assistants, lugging heavy makeup cases and garment bags.

”Oh my god,” Aria whispered, completely starstruck, her hands flying to her cheeks. ”The Devereaux Twins. Zoe is going to literally die when I tell her.”

The twins, who usually radiated an aura of intimidating, unapproachable snobbery, took one look at Damien Sinclair and instantly morphed into the picture of polite, submissive efficiency.

”Mr. Sinclair,” Amara greeted, offering a respectful, stiff nod. ”We brought the kits you requested.”

”Mrs. Sinclair,” Amina smiled warmly at Aria, a level of kindness she had never once displayed on her infamous reality TV judging panel. ”It is an absolute honor.”

”I am a massive fan,” Aria gushed. ”Your work on the Milan Vogue cover last month was a cultural reset.”

”You are too kind,” Amara beamed, clearly flattered.

Aria immediately turned to Damien, slapping his arm repeatedly.

”Damien, take a picture of us,” Aria demanded, her eyes wide with excitement.

Damien pulled his iPhone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and held it up like an aggrieved Instagram Boyfriend.

Aria immediately squeezed between the two towering, intimidating fashion icons, throwing up a peace sign and smiling brightly. The twins offered perfect, supermodel smizes.

Click.

”Thank you, darling,” Aria beamed.

Damien lowered the phone, slipping it back into his pocket. He looked at the twins, his demeanor shifting back to absolute, icy authority.

”The directive is simple,” Damien commanded, gesturing to Aria. ”Make her uninteresting. Strip away the glamour. I want her to look so incredibly bland that if she walked past me on the street, I wouldn’t even notice her.”

”It’s going to be a monumental challenge, Mr. Sinclair,” Amina noted, inspecting Aria’s face. ”Her symmetry is flawless. But we can manage.”

They sat Aria down in the plastic chair. The assistants swarmed, opening the cases.

”We need to dull the complexion,” Amara instructed, pulling out a drab, matte foundation that was completely wrong for Aria’s undertones. ”And hide the hair. Hand me the mousy brown wig.”

They went to work with ruthless efficiency. They blocked out Aria’s naturally arched eyebrows, drawing them back in straight and flat. They applied a beige lip color that washed her out entirely.

”Let’s prep the scalp for the wig cap,” Amina said, reaching into Aria’s messy bun to pull the hair ties loose.

Amina’s fingers brushed against something hard and metallic. She frowned, parting the rose-gold strands.

She pulled out a three-inch, sharp silver acupuncture needle.

Amina blinked, staring at the weapon in her hand. ”Um... Mrs. Sinclair?”

”Oh, just put that in my bag,” Aria said cheerfully.

Amara reached in on the other side, pulling out another needle. Then another.

The twins paused, exchanging a deeply confused glance over Aria’s head.

”Why do you have weapons in your scalp?” Amara asked weakly, handing a fistful of needles to a trembling assistant.

”Acupuncture,” Aria responded smoothly. ”It helps with stress.”

The twins wisely decided not to ask any further questions. They strapped the wig cap on, pulled the dull, mousy brown, shoulder-length wig over her head, and handed her an incredibly frumpy, oversized beige trench coat and a pair of chunky, orthotic-looking sneakers.

”Turn around,” Damien commanded when they finally stepped back.

Aria spun the chair around to face him.

Damien stared.

The vibrant, electric, breathtaking woman he had married was entirely gone. In her place sat a tired, washed-out, utterly forgettable girl who looked like she did data entry for a regional paper supply company.

”Well?” Aria asked, adjusting the terribly itchy synthetic wig. ”How do I look?”

”Bland,” Damien confirmed, highly satisfied. ”Let’s go.”