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

Chapter 257: Guilty Until Proven Guilty

The black-gloved hand on the screen grasped the bottom edge of the balaclava.

Click.

The video abruptly cut to black. The footage ended.

Aria froze, leaning over the marble kitchen island. She stared at her own reflection in the blank, dark glass of the tablet.

"Are you kidding me?" Aria demanded, her voice flat.

She looked up from the screen, turning her glare directly onto her husband. Then, she looked back at the blank iPad. Then back at Damien.

"That’s it?" Aria asked, crossing her arms over her tailored white blazer dress. "That is your grand, undeniable proof? A grainy, black-and-white snuff film that cuts off right before the reveal?"

Damien didn’t flinch at her annoyance. He took a slow sip of his black coffee.

"The man who was executed on that pavement was Viktor Martin," Damien stated, his voice a low, chilling monotone. "He was the director of a state-funded orphanage located on the outskirts of Lyon, France. The exact same facility where Leonardo and Jade Evans resided from 2012 to 2018."

Aria stared at him, processing the lore drop.

"He was murdered two years ago," Damien continued. "The crime remains unsolved by French authorities."

Aria let out a dry, drippingly sarcastic scoff, rolling her eyes.

"I wonder why," Aria muttered sassily, gesturing wildly to the iPad. "The assailant’s face was never shown! You literally cannot even deduce if the person holding the gun is male or female under all that. They look like a generic shadow! And you want to use this to justify disappearing my co-star and his sister?!"

Damien set his coffee mug down on the marble. The clack of the ceramic was loud in the quiet room.

"It is a localized risk assessment, Aria," Damien said, his golden eyes narrowing, his tone hardening into a ruthless, dictatorial cadence. "I do not wait for a threat to establish itself before I eradicate it. They are embedded in our perimeter. Their connection to an unsolved cartel execution is enough. They are being eliminated."

"No, they aren’t," Aria issued a hard, absolute veto.

She slammed her hand flat against the marble island, leaning forward.

"You are operating on sheer paranoia, Damien!" Aria argued, her voice rising. "You want to play judge, jury, and executioner based on circumstantial geography and a blurry video! I need undeniable evidence before I ruin someone’s life!"

She didn’t say it out loud to him, but the internal reasoning tore at her heart. In her past life, she had been a victim of baseless accusations. She had been condemned to life in a psychiatric nightmare based on misguided truths and Lydia’s fabricated evidence. She knew exactly what it felt like to be locked away or punished without a shred of hard proof.

She would feel physically sick to her stomach if she allowed Damien’s overprotective paranoia to cause an innocent person to suffer that same fate.

Damien stood up from his barstool. The size of him cast a long shadow over the island.

He leaned down, planting his hands on the marble, his face mere inches from hers.

"You are making excuses," Damien accused coldly, his words slicing through the air like knives. "You are hesitating. You spent months plotting to tear your mother’s murderers apart, but ever since they threw you off that bridge, you’ve lost your nerve. You don’t want revenge anymore. You’re just afraid."

The accusation hit her like a physical blow to the chest.

Aria gasped, her emerald eyes blazing with sudden, blinding fury.

"Yes, I am afraid!" Aria shrieked, the raw, vulnerable admission tearing out of her throat. "I was blindfolded, zip-tied, and thrown into a freezing river in the middle of the night! They could have actually killed me! What is wrong with being a little more careful?!"

Damien’s jaw locked. "I can handle everything, Aria. I can handle them."

"But it is my revenge!" Aria exploded, her voice echoing off the penthouse walls. "It is my mother! You don’t get to just hijack my vendetta because your ego can’t handle the fact that I got hurt!"

She grabbed her designer purse off the counter, her chest heaving as she glared at the man she loved.

"I will solve this," Aria vowed fiercely. "But I will do it at my own pace, and I will do it with actual proof. So stop trying to take it over. Back off, Damien."

She didn’t wait for his response.

Aria spun on her heel, the sharp click-clack of her stilettos hammering against the floor as she stormed out of the kitchen and marched directly toward the elevator.

She hit the call button, stepped inside the mirrored cabin, and the steel doors slid shut, sealing her away.

The penthouse fell back into a dead, ringing silence.

Damien remained perfectly still at the kitchen island, his hands gripping the edge of the marble so tightly his knuckles were stark white. His face was a mask of cold, unyielding stone, but his golden eyes were swirling with a terrifying hurricane of rage.

The soft, rhythmic whir of an electric motor broke the quiet.

Diana wheeled out from the corridor, cruising smoothly into the open-concept living area. She had rolled in just in time to see the elevator doors slide shut on Aria’s retreating, furious back.

Diana stopped her wheelchair a few feet away from the kitchen.

She looked at her brother. She saw the tension radiating off his broad shoulders. She saw the murderous storm brewing in his eyes.

Every single self-preservation instinct in Diana’s body screamed at her to back the wheelchair up, return to her room, and avoid poking the bear while he was wounded.

But Diana was a toxic socialite to her very core. Her petty, vindictive nature overrode her survival skills.

She couldn’t help herself. The opportunity to gloat was simply too delicious.

Diana picked up her glass of sparkling water from the cup holder of her chair, took a slow, elegant sip, and offered her brother an innocent smile.

"Trouble in paradise?"