After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law-Chapter 164: I Prefer Emotional Terrorism

Zoe stopped breathing.

The blood physically drained from her face, leaving her usually vibrant, expressive features looking like a wax replica. The sheer, soul-crushing dread in her eyes was absolute.

She stared at Aria’s blank, emotionless mask, the horrific realization settling into her bones that her best friend’s mind had been wiped clean by the East River.

One second passed.

Two seconds.

Three agonizing, world-ending seconds of silence hung in the sterile hospital air.

And then...

Aria’s mouth twitched.

And then, she broke.

Aria threw her head back against the hospital pillows and burst into a fit of loud, cackling laughter. It was a full-chested, gasping, wheezing howl of pure, unadulterated amusement.

Beside her, the heart monitor instantly betrayed the joke, its steady beep-beep-beep rapidly accelerating into a frantic, excited rhythm.

Zoe blinked, the shock short-circuiting her brain. She stared at the laughing girl in the bed.

The despair vanished, instantly flash-boiling into homicidal rage.

"You bitch!" Zoe shrieked, her voice cracking.

She lunged forward and smacked Aria hard on the shoulder.

"Ow!" Aria wheezed, curling into a ball to protect herself, though she couldn’t stop laughing. "Oh my god, Zoe, you should have seen your face! It was priceless!"

"I am going to smother you with this pillow!" Zoe yelled, hitting her again, though hot, thick tears of absolute relief were spilling over her eyelashes, ruining her eyeliner. "I thought you lost your memory! I thought you had a traumatic brain injury! That isn’t funny, Aria!"

"You’re right," Aria gasped, clutching her ribs as she struggled to catch her breath. "It isn’t funny. It was hilarious. I deserve an Oscar. Or at least a Golden Globe for that performance."

"I hate you," Zoe sobbed, throwing her arms around Aria’s neck, hugging her so tightly it threatened to pop Aria’s IV line. "I hate you so much. Don’t ever do that to me again."

"I love you too," Aria smiled, hugging her best friend back, her own eyes stinging with happy tears.

The heavy, frosted glass doors of the ICU clicked.

They swung open.

Damien stepped into the room. He was holding a flimsy paper cup of black vending machine coffee.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

The door shut behind him.

Damien froze. His hand tightened around the paper cup so fiercely the plastic lid popped off, sending a splash of dark liquid over his knuckles. He didn’t feel the burn.

He stared at the hospital bed.

His expression was entirely, terrifyingly unreadable. It was a blank, statuesque paralysis, as if his brain simply refused to process what was in front of him. Aria was sitting up. She was laughing. She was awake.

Zoe pulled back from the hug. She looked at Damien. She looked at Aria.

Aria’s laughter faded. The bravado evaporated the second she met his golden eyes. Her heart executed a violent, frantic leap against her ribs.

A soft, hesitant smile touched her lips. She raised a pale hand, giving him a small, nervous wave.

"Hey, hubby," she whispered, her voice breathy and thick with emotion.

Zoe immediately read the room. The air was thick with a suffocating, intense energy that she had no business being in the middle of.

"Right. Okay," Zoe said, scrambling backward off the mattress. She grabbed her phone from the floor. "I am going to go get the nurse."

She practically sprinted past Damien, slipping out the door and letting it click shut behind her.

Damien still didn’t move toward the bed.

He slowly turned his head to look at the two massive private military contractors stationed inside the corners of the room.

"Why," Damien asked, his voice a low, gravelly whisper that promised absolute violence, "did no one alert me the exact second her eyes opened?" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

The operative on the left swallowed hard, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Mrs. Sinclair ordered us to stand down, sir," the guard replied stiffly. "She woke up twenty minutes ago. She said she wanted it to be a surprise."

Damien stared at the guards for a few seconds.

"Get out," he ordered quietly.

The two men didn’t hesitate. They vanished out the door in record time, leaving them completely alone.

Damien looked down at the ruined coffee cup in his hand. He stepped over to the small trash can by the door and dropped it in.

Then, he crossed the room in three long strides. He sat right on the edge of the mattress, his weight dipping the bed.

He reached out and pulled her into his arms, crushing her against his chest, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Aria gasped, her hands immediately flying up to wrap around his broad shoulders. Her fingers tangled in his silver hair, holding him just as tightly.

When she had first opened her eyes twenty minutes ago, staring up at the blinding white ceiling tiles, her heart had stopped. The smell of bleach and medicine had flooded her senses, and a cold, paralyzing terror had gripped her throat.

’I died,’ her first thought had been. ’I’ve been reborn again.’

The fear of having to start over a third time, of waking up in a tragedy without Zoe, without her career, and without him, had nearly sent her into a panic attack. It wasn’t until she saw the burly security guards in the corner that she realized she was still in 2024. She was still Aria Sinclair.

She turned her head, nestling her face deep into the warm curve of Damien’s neck. She shifted her body, pressing her chest flush against his so tightly that there wasn’t a millimeter of space between them.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The heavy, frantic hammering of his heart pounded against her chest. It was the most beautiful feeling in the world.

Damien’s hand came up to cup the back of her head, his long fingers caressing her hair with a trembling, reverent touch. His other arm was locked like a steel band around her waist.

"Aria," Damien choked out against her skin, his voice cracking.

He pulled back just an inch, framing her pale face with both of his hands. His golden eyes were shining, raw with an emotion so deep it looked like it physically hurt him.

"I love you," Damien confessed. "I would have gone completely mad if you didn’t wake up."