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

He expected to wake up in a filthy warehouse surrounded by rough-looking men. Instead, his blurry vision met vaulted ceilings, expensive pine furniture, and four wealthy men staring at him as if he were a particularly disgusting piece of roadkill.

His dark eyes finally locked onto the man sitting in the center of the room.

Damien was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped loosely together. He was staring at the Viper boss with a gaze so devoid of human empathy that it sent an icy shiver down the Frenchman’s spine.

”Who took her?” Damien asked, his voice quiet, but firm.

The French boss swallowed hard, tasting copper. He tried to shift his arms, but the zip-ties held him firmly against the chair. He looked at the suits, the relaxed postures of the men surrounding him. They were just rich boys playing gangster.

The man let out a laugh, spitting a streak of blood onto his own chin.

”You think you can hold me here, Sinclair?” the boss sneered, puffing his chest out in a pathetic display of bravado. ”You think your money means a damn thing to the Vipers? They’ll come for me here, they’ll—.”

”I asked you a question,” Damien cut him off. ”Do you know or not?”

The boss’s chest heaved. He locked eyes with Damien, a smug smirk stretching across his bruised face. If they were asking questions, it meant they didn’t have the answers. It meant he had leverage.

”I know exactly where they are,” the Frenchman bragged, lifting his chin. ”The Orpheus Syndicate thinks they can hide, but we’ve tracked their every move. Cut these ties, wire ten million to my offshore account, and maybe I’ll give you a name. Otherwise, your little wife is going to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her short, tragic life.”

Damien stared at him. He tilted his head slightly, analyzing the micro-expressions on the man’s bleeding face.

The room fell dead silent.

And then, Damien let out a soft, dark hum.

”You’re lying,” he stated smoothly.

The boss flinched. ”I know—”

”You know nothing,” Damien interrupted. He stood up slowly from the dining chair, towering over the captive.

”You’ve been hunting them for a long time,” Damien deduced, pacing slowly around the tied-up man like a panther circling its prey. ”If you actually knew where they were, you wouldn’t have wasted your time terrorizing a twenty-year-old girl.”

The Frenchman’s cocky smirk slowly fell.

”You are grasping at straws to save your own life,” Damien concluded, stepping back around to the front of the chair. He looked down at the man with disgust. ”You are useless to me. What a waste of time.”

”Kill him, then,” Kai chimed in cheerfully, tracing the rim of a coaster on the coffee table. ”I can have a cleanup crew here in ten minutes. We can dissolve him in an oil drum and still make it to brunch!”

The man’s breath hitched, real terror finally seizing his chest as he stared up at the four billionaires. They weren’t messing around.

Damien stared down at the bleeding, useless man, considering it for a moment, but then...

”It is my revenge. It is my mother.”

”No,” Damien commanded softly. ”Lock him in the basement.”

Kai blinked, surprised. ”You’re keeping him alive? Why? He’s a dead end.”

”I’m sure my wife has questions about her mother,” Damien replied. ”She deserves to ask them.”

”Get him out of my sight,” Damien ordered.

Two operatives immediately stepped out from the shadows of the hallway. They grabbed the wooden chair by the backrest and hauled the struggling, swearing cartel boss out of the living room, dragging him away.

Damien let out a long exhale. After all that, he got nowhere. The Vipers weren’t as useful as he thought they would be. He can’t use them to find the Orpheus Syndicate.

The migraine was back with a vengeance.

Without another word, Damien turned and walked toward the glass doors leading out to the house’s sprawling backyard terrace. He pushed the glass open, stepping out into the cool air.

He walked to the edge of the stone railing, pulling a silver lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit a cigarette, inhaling the nicotine deep into his lungs, trying to drown out the pulsing throb in his skull.

A moment later, the glass door slid open again.

Elias stepped out onto the terrace. He leaned against the stone railing beside Damien, pulling his own cigarette from his coat pocket and placing it between his lips.

Damien wordlessly held out the silver lighter.

Elias accepted the flame, taking a long, desperate drag. He blew a thick cloud of grey smoke up into the blue sky, closing his eyes.

”I stabilized him,” Elias muttered into the quiet.

Damien didn’t look over. He knew Elias was talking about Raymond Vale, who was currently lying in a bedroom down the hall, recovering from the brutal beating he had sustained during his escape from the ICU.

”Will he live?” Damien asked, his voice flat.

”From the blunt force trauma? Yes,” Elias answered, flicking some ash over the railing. ”His ribs will heal. The concussion will fade.”

Elias took another slow drag of his cigarette, his expression turning grim.

”He has cancer,” Elias stated bluntly.

Damien froze.

He stared at the glowing cherry of his cigarette. Raymond Vale was a coward and a pathetic excuse for a father, even if it was what Aria’s mother allegedly did to him that caused him to be so pathetic. Damien wouldn’t give a damn if the man dropped dead right now.

But Aria would.

She still needed answers from him. Raymond came looking for her to tell her something.

”Can you treat it?” Damien asked.

Elias shook his head slowly. ”Not here. Not in New York. The only facility with the technology to even attempt a removal is located in California. At the Vanguard Oncology Institute.”

Damien took a final, long pull from his cigarette, the smoke burning his throat. He crushed the butt against the stone railing.

’California.’