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

The white Apple logo burned brightly against the black screen of Aria’s phone. The screen transitioned from the boot logo to her lock screen.

And then...

Aria gasped, nearly dropping the device as it buzzed so violently in her palm that the internal motor whined. It wasn’t just iMessages. It was a synchronized waterfall of push notifications from almost every single app on her phone.

Twitter: #AriaSinclairCanceled is trending in your area.TMZ Alert: The Scarlet Queen’s Sick Hoax Exposed!E! News: Boycott Empress’s Shadow gains 2 million signatures.

Aria swallowed hard, her heart executing a sudden, terrifying freefall directly into her stomach. She stared at the screen, all the color instantly draining from her face.

”Aria?” Damien asked, noticing the shift in her posture. He lowered the piece of Toblerone he had been holding. ”What is it?”

Aria couldn’t speak. Her fingers were trembling so badly she could barely input her passcode.

She opened Twitter. Her timeline didn’t even need to refresh; it was a bloodbath.

Right at the top of her feed was a video with over thirty million views. The thumbnail was a black screen with an audio wave graphic.

Aria tapped the video.

The audio wasn’t high studio quality, but it was crystal clear.

”I am actually so glad the coma ruse is over,” Aria’s voice complained through the phone speaker, ringing out in the quiet hotel room. ”Hiding from the world was getting exhausting.”

Aria stopped breathing. The blood roared in her ears. She recognized those words. She remembered saying them.

”How?” Aria whispered, her voice cracking. ”How did they get that? Was the car bugged?”

Damien ignored all the missed calls and notifications on his phone and dialed Ken. ”The audio,” he snarled the second the call connected. ”Where did it come from?”

”We don’t know, sir,” Ken’s voice echoed through the receiver, sounding completely frantic. ”It was uploaded to an encrypted server based in Eastern Europe last night and immediately seeded to thousands of bot accounts on TikTok and Twitter.”

”Scrub it,” Damien commanded. ”Call the board at Twitter. Call Meta. I don’t care how much it costs, wipe the audio from the internet.”

”Sir,” Ken hesitated, the despair evident in his tone. ”It’s too late. It’s been downloaded and remixed millions of times. It’s on local news broadcasts. It’s completely out of control.”

Damien’s jaw locked. The muscles in his forearms strained as he gripped the phone. For the first time in his entire life, his immense, incomprehensible wealth and power was entirely useless.

Aria was scrolling through the comments, tears of genuine panic stinging her eyes. She was looking at the total annihilation of her second life.

@CinemaJunkie: I actually shed real tears over her fake death. What a narcissistic, manipulative sociopath. #BoycottEmpressShadow

@DemonKingStan: Damien Sinclair went on Vanity Fair and practically broke down over a woman who was faking a coma for clout. FREE HIM FROM THIS TOXIC WITCH!

@PopCultureTea: Aria Sinclair is officially the biggest scam artist of 2024. The absolute audacity to play the victim while secretly plotting this. Throw the whole actress away.

@FilmNerd99: If the studio doesn’t CGI her out or recast Consort Li, I’m pirating the movie. Not giving this fraud a single dime.

The official page for The Empress’s Shadow had released a statement distancing the studio from her actions. Millions of users were vowing to boycott the film, demanding the producers use CGI to replace her or halt the release entirely.

”They’re taking my movie,” Aria choked out, her chest heaving as she stared at the screen. ”Damien, they’re taking everything I worked for. I’m ruined.”

”You are not ruined,” Damien promised fiercely, hanging up on Ken and tossing his phone onto the bed. He reached for her, his hands gripping her shoulders. ”I will fix this. I will buy the distribution rights. They will not take this from you.”

Aria shook her head wildly, the panic blinding her. ”It doesn’t matter if you buy the internet itself! The public hates me! The box office will tank! I’ll be box-office poison for the rest of my life!”

She backed out of Twitter, opening her iMessage to check her texts.

There were over a hundred unread messages from Zoe.

Aria tapped on the thread, scrolling rapidly to the very bottom to read the most recent texts.

[Zoe (7:00 AM): ARIA. THE STUDIO IS PANICKING. I HAD TO ANNOUNCE A PRESS CONFERENCE TO BUY US TIME.][Zoe (9:00 AM): PRESS CONFERENCE IS AT 1:00 PM. I AM GOING TO DIE!]

Aria’s eyes darted to the top corner of her phone screen.

1:10 PM.

”Oh my god,” Aria gasped, leaping off the mattress as if it were on fire. ”Zoe!”

”She called an emergency press conference for one o’clock to do damage control!” Aria shrieked, frantically spinning around the hotel room. ”It started ten minutes ago! She is out there alone! The media is going to literally eat her alive, Damien!”

The terror of her best friend facing a firing squad of global journalists alone snapped Aria out of her self-pity spiral. She couldn’t hide. She couldn’t sit in a hotel room while Zoe took the bullets for her.

”We have to go,” Aria yelled, sprinting toward the pile of discarded clothes near the sofa. ”Right now!”

Damien grabbed his wrinkled, custom-tailored trousers from the floor, shoving his legs into them and aggressively pulling the zipper up. He grabbed his white dress shirt, shrugging it over his broad shoulders, not even bothering to button it past his sternum.

Aria grabbed the blood-red lace nightgown she had worn to seduce him.

”This is a nightmare,” Aria groaned.

She didn’t care. She pulled the sheer red lace over her head, ignoring the fact that it barely covered her thighs and left absolutely nothing to the imagination. She frantically scanned the room.

Damien’s suit jacket was tossed over the back of a chair.

Aria sprinted over, snatching the midnight-blue jacket and throwing it over her shoulders. The oversized coat swallowed her frame, dropping past her hips and perfectly covering the scandalous sheer lace of her nightgown.

Damien grabbed his phone and his wallet from the nightstand, slipping his feet into his shoes.

”Which hotel?” Damien asked, already heading for the door.

”The Marquis! Conference Room B!” Aria shouted, grabbing his hand.

The clock on the wall flipped to 1:15 PM.