After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law-Chapter 157: Cancel Culture Doesn’t Work on Warlords

In the janitor’s closet...

Zoe’s head was tipped back against the metal shelving, her fingers digging desperately into Kai’s shoulders. The kiss was consuming—a wet, heated battle for dominance that she was perfectly happy to lose. His hand between her thighs was ruthless, finding an agonizingly slow rhythm through the damp lace of her underwear.

"Fuck, Kai," Zoe moaned into his mouth, her hips bucking off the wall.

"You have to be quiet," Kai murmured, his breath hot against her swollen lips. He shifted his stance, crowding her further into the dark, his thumb pressing down right where she needed it.

The coil in her lower belly pulled tight. She was floating, soaring, seconds away from completely forgetting her own name.

And then, a shrill, theatrical scream pierced right through the thin wooden door of the closet.

"Help! Damien Sinclair’s men are attacking us! Help her!"

Zoe froze.

Her brain, which had been blissfully short-circuited by Kai’s fingers, slammed violently back online. That was Bella Vale’s voice. And Bella Vale meant cameras. Which meant a live broadcast.

"No, no, no," Zoe gasped, her eyes snapping open in the dark.

She shoved both of her hands hard against Kai’s chest. The sudden rejection caught him off guard, and he stumbled back half a step, his hand slipping away from her heat.

Kai let out a harsh, frustrated groan, his head falling back. "Zoe, you cannot be serious right now."

"I am entirely serious!" Zoe hissed, frantically smoothing down her hair and pulling his oversized Saint Laurent jacket tight across her chest to hide the obvious signs of ravishment.

"My best friend is in a coma, her toxic sister is outside, and her husband is about to make everything worse! I am her publicist! I cannot...be here...doing this while her husband gets canceled!"

"Let him get canceled," Kai grumbled, leaning against the doorframe, his chest heaving as he tried to rein in his own adrenaline. "He can afford it."

"Move!" Zoe demanded. She scrambled past him, taking a deep breath to steady her wildly erratic pulse, and threw open the supply closet door.

She burst into the hallway, fully prepared to throw herself in front of a camera lens and shout, "No comment!"

She didn’t have to.

Zoe skidded to a halt on her bare feet. The scene in the corridor was not the chaotic media circus she had anticipated.

Outside ICU Room 1, the heavy frosted glass doors were open. Damien Sinclair stood in the threshold. He hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t even stepped fully into the hallway.

But the sheer, oppressive, suffocating weight of his obvious irritation had frozen the entire corridor in terror.

The paparazzi, who just seconds ago had been shouting questions about drone footage and Tik Tok conspiracies, were now dead silent. They stared at the Demon King, their cameras lowering instinctively.

"Mr. Sinclair," one brave, trembling paparazzo stammered, holding up a microphone. "The internet is saying... they’re saying you threw her. They’re saying Aria jumped to escape you. Do you care to comment on the allegations of abuse?"

Damien stared at the man. His expression remained utterly blank. He didn’t look like a man afraid of a PR scandal. He looked like a man who was deeply, profoundly annoyed that a gnat was buzzing in his ear.

"You are breathing too loudly," Damien whispered.

The paparazzo blinked. "E-Excuse me?"

"My wife," Damien said, his voice a low, terrifying rasp that carried perfectly in the dead silence, "is trying to sleep. And you are disturbing her."

He didn’t look at the cameras again. He shifted his dead, golden gaze to the lead security contractor who currently had Lucas pinned face-first against the drywall.

Damien gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.

The guards didn’t hesitate.

Two of the massive operatives stepped forward and began physically ripping the cameras out of the paparazzi’s hands. There were yelps of protest, quickly silenced when a guard shoved a photographer back against the wall.

"Hey! You can’t do that! Freedom of the press!" one reporter shouted.

CRUNCH. A guard dropped a ten-thousand-dollar DSLR camera onto the floor and brought his combat boot down squarely on the lens, shattering it into a hundred pieces.

Bella dropped her ring light. It clattered to the floor, the bulb breaking. She shrank back against the wall, her hands trembling as she stared at the monster Aria had married.

Against the wall, Lucas tried to struggle. "Uncle Damien! Tell them to get off me! I’m family!"

The guard holding Lucas simply pressed his forearm harder against the back of Lucas’s neck, cutting off his airway until Lucas choked, his face turning a mottled red.

Damien watched it happen with supreme indifference. Let the internet think whatever it wanted. The only opinion he gave a single fuck about was currently unconscious in the bed behind him.

His eyes slowly swept the hallway, landing on Zoe.

She was standing near the supply closet, barefoot, her lips visibly swollen, clutching a leather jacket that was three sizes too big for her. Kai was leaning against the doorframe behind her, looking thoroughly annoyed by the interruption.

Damien didn’t ask questions. He didn’t care.

"Ms. Chen," Damien commanded softly.

Zoe snapped to attention. "Yes, sir?"

"Confiscate their memory cards," Damien ordered, gesturing vaguely to the terrified press pool. "Take the phones. If a single photo of this hallway leaks to the internet, I will buy their parent companies, liquidate their pensions, and ensure they spend the rest of their lives writing obituaries in a basement."

The threat wasn’t a hyperbole. It was a Sinclair guarantee.

Damien turned his back on the crowd. He didn’t look at his choking nephew, or the weeping Bella, or the shattered cameras on the floor.

He walked back into the ICU, pulling the heavy glass doors shut behind him with a definitive click.

The lock engaged.

In the hallway, Zoe stood in the silence, staring at the closed door. Then, she looked at the terrified paparazzi and the heavily armed guards waiting for her instructions.

Zoe let out a long, slow breath.

"Alright, boys," Zoe said, holding out her hand to the press. "You heard the man. Hand over the SD cards."