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

Thousands of commuters and tourists screamed in unison, ducking, covering their heads, and scattering like ants under a magnifying glass. The paparazzi dropped their cameras, trampling over each other to sprint toward the exits.

”DOWN! GET HER DOWN!”

Damien’s private military contractors moved with instantaneous precision. They swarmed Aria, tackling her roughly to the polished marble floor and piling their bodies directly over her small frame.

Aria lay crushed beneath the weight of three, armed mercenaries.

Her face was pressed directly against the dirty, sticky floor of the transit hub. It smelled like spilled coffee and old shoes.

But hidden beneath the curtain of her messy, rose-gold hair, where not a single camera lens or terrified bystander could see...

Aria was smiling.

It was a small, incredibly smug, victorious smile.

Nobody in the terminal had noticed. They had been too busy looking at her tear-stained face. But exactly three seconds before the deafening BANG shattered the peace, Aria’s right hand had been resting casually against her thigh.

She had tapped her thigh twice. And she had given a subtle nod easily disguised as her acknowledging the person who wanted to ask a question.

It was the signal.

Twenty minutes ago, in the back of the SUV.

”Aria, what?!” Zoe shrieked, clutching her chest as she stared at her best friend in the dim light of the cabin. ”Did you just say you ordered a sniper?!”

”WITH LIVE AMMUNITION?!” Zoe hyperventilated, her eyes bulging out of her skull. ”Are you a psychopath?! You cannot use actual firearms for a PR stunt! What if he misses?! What if he blows your brains out?!”

”He won’t miss,” Aria said simply, meeting Zoe’s panicked gaze with certainty.

Aria leaned forward.

”Zoe, listen to me,” she explained, her emerald eyes sharp. ”The internet’s attention span is fried. Tears aren’t enough anymore. A crying woman is just a victim, and victims get forgotten the second the news cycle refreshes. But a woman getting shot at in public while begging for her life? That makes me a martyr. I need to show them exactly how dangerous it is for me to be in public. I need the world to see the threat so they stop questioning my motives.”

Zoe looked like she was going to throw up.

”It’s insane,” Zoe whimpered.

”It’s effective,” Aria corrected. She looked at the rearview mirror, meeting the eyes of her driver. ”Damien’s men are the best in the world. He’ll aim for the wall. It will just whiz past me. Right?”

”The operative stationed in the rafters is a former Tier-One marksman, Ma’am,” the driver confirmed smoothly. ”He could shoot the wings off a fly from a mile away. You are perfectly safe.”

”Does Damien know about this plan of yours?” Zoe anxiously questioned.

”Ummm,” Aria ran her hand through her hair.

Back in the present, Aria let out a slow, shaky breath. ’Okay,’ she admitted internally, her heart hammering against her ribs. ’It was kind of terrifying.’

She had felt the rush of air brush past her cheek a millisecond before the bullet impacted. She turned her head slightly, peering through a gap in the guards’ boots.

Embedded deep into the solid limestone pillar, exactly six inches to the left of where her head had just been, was a smoking, crushed bullet casing.

It was a flawless execution.

”MOVE! GOGOGO!” one of the operatives roared over the screaming crowd.

The guards hauled Aria up from the floor by her armpits. They didn’t give her a chance to walk; they practically carried her, keeping her head tucked down, their bodies completely surrounding her as they blitzed through the chaotic, stampeding crowd toward the side exit.

They burst through the glass doors and spilled out into the cool night air.

The black SUV was waiting at the curb, the engine roaring. The doors flew open, and they unceremoniously shoved Aria and Zoe into the backseat before piling in themselves.

”GO!”

The tires shrieked against the asphalt as the driver floored the accelerator, tearing away from the transit hub and merging into the traffic.

Zoe collapsed back against the leather seat, clutching her chest, gasping for air as if she had just run a marathon.

”You are crazy!” Zoe screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Aria. ”I thought I was going to die! I thought you died!”

Aria brushed the dirt off her clothes, a breathless grin spreading across her face.

Zoe stared at Aria’s grinning face. A sudden, hysterical laugh bubbled up in Zoe’s throat. The overwhelming relief hit her like a tidal wave, and Zoe burst into loud, ugly tears of pure joy.

”You psychotic bitch, it actually worked!” Zoe sobbed, aggressively wiping her eyes, laughing and crying at the same time. ”It worked! Oh my god, we actually saved our jobs!”

”Of course we did!” Aria cheered, bouncing excitedly in her seat.

They both instantly dove for their phones.

The live stream had been screen-recorded, clipped, edited, and reposted millions of times in the span of five minutes. The final three seconds of the broadcast—Aria crying, the deafening BANG, and the camera dropping to the floor—were playing on an endless, horrifying loop across every single platform.

The volume of the reaction was exactly what they needed.

”Look at the trending tab,” Aria gasped, her eyes flying over the screen.

#WhoShotAria#LeaveAriaAlone#TheScarletQueenLives

”They are eating out of the palm of our hands,” Zoe cackled, swiping through her own feed. ”The audio leak is completely dead! No one cares about a coma conspiracy when there’s an actual, live-fire assassination attempt on camera!”

Aria scrolled through the timeline.

@PopCultureTea:SOMEONE JUST SHOT AT ARIA SINCLAIR ON IG LIVE?! OMG THE DEMON KING IS GOING TO LITERALLY NUKE THE CITY. HIDE YOUR KIDS.

@FilmNerd99:She was literally crying about being hunted, telling us she was terrified, and we bullied her anyway. We failed her. I feel sick. #ProtectAria

@ConspiracyKing:The bullet trajectory came from the upper mezzanine! It was a professional hit! The elites are trying to silence her because she knows too much about Vale Entertainment!

”Oh, it gets better,” Zoe shrieked, shoving her phone toward Aria. ”The influencer apologies are rolling in!”

Zoe hit play on a TikTok video. It was a famous drama-channel creator who had spent the last two days viciously tearing Aria down. Now, the creator was sitting on her bedroom floor, completely devoid of makeup, wearing a baggy grey hoodie, and aggressively fake-crying into the camera.

”I made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment,” the influencer sobbed, wiping a non-existent tear. ”When I believed the audio leak, I was contributing to a culture of misogyny. Aria Sinclair is a victim and my heart breaks for her. I will be donating fifty dollars to a victim’s fund in her name...”

”Hypocrites,” Aria scoffed, swiping the video away. ”But we’ll take the engagement. You really can’t win everyone over unless you’re Keanu Reeves. Haters are going to hate.”

”Wait,” Aria paused, her thumb freezing over her screen.

A loud snort escaped her lips.

”What?” Zoe asked, leaning over.

”I stumbled into a wild algorithm,” Aria wheezed, her shoulders shaking with laughter. She tapped on a highly explicit, AI-generated piece of fan art that had already racked up a hundred thousand likes.

It depicted Damien Sinclair standing amidst the ruins of Grand Central Terminal. He had massive, leathery, demonic bat wings bursting from his broad back, his golden eyes glowing with literal hellfire. He was completely naked, his eight-pack abs dripping with blood and shadow. He was standing protectively over a Renaissance-painting version of Aria.

”Oh my god,” Zoe gasped, covering her mouth to muffle a shriek of laughter. ”That is...! It’s like... the size of my forearm. Do you think he’s seen it?”

”Definitely not,” Aria cackled, wiping a tear from her eye.

Aria swiped out of the fan art, still giggling, her thumb accidentally brushing the DMs tab in the bottom corner of her screen.

The screen transitioned to her inbox.

Sitting at the very top of her requests folder was a message from an unverified account.

The smile on Aria’s face vanished instantly.

The blood drained completely from her face as she read the single line of text glowing on her screen.

Zoe, noticing the sudden shift in Aria’s demeanor, leaned closer.

”What is it?” Zoe asked, her voice dropping. ”Did a brand drop you?”

Zoe tried to peek at the screen, but the premium, edge-to-edge privacy protector Damien had pre-installed on Aria’s phone did its job perfectly. From Zoe’s angle the screen looked black.

Aria plastered on a wide, incredibly fake, overly bright smile and quickly locked the screen.

”Nothing!” she lied smoothly, her voice pitching up with false cheerfulness. ”Just a really creepy, graphic hate message from a troll. You know how it is.”

”Ugh, ignore them,” Zoe dismissed easily, completely buying the lie. She threw her hands up in the air. ”Who cares about trolls?! We won, Aria! We literally beat cancel culture!”

”We won!” Aria echoed, forcing a loud, squealing cheer as she grabbed Zoe’s hands, bouncing excitedly with her in the backseat.

But as she laughed and cheered with her best friend, Aria’s blood ran ice-cold.

You better not go to the movie premiere if you know what’s good for you. (Snake emoji)