After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law-Chapter 41: The Price of Loyalty

The breakroom of Dr. Elias’s clinic was stark white, smelling of antiseptic and stale coffee. It was designed to be a place of rest for tired nurses. Tonight, it was an interrogation cell.

Ken sat on a plastic chair in the center of the room. His tie was loosened, his glasses were askew, and he was sweating through his pristine white dress shirt.

Standing over him was Kai Vane. The playful, flirtatious information broker was gone. In his place was a man who ran the city’s underworld—cold, violent, and devoid of mercy. He held a heavy glass ashtray in his hand, weighing it thoughtfully.

"I’ll ask you one more time, Ken," Kai said, his voice terrifyingly conversational. "Who did you call?"

"No one!" Ken cried, his voice cracking. "I swear on my mother’s life! I didn’t tell anyone where you were going! I drove the decoy car back to the garage just like you asked!"

"Lydia knew," Kai countered, stepping closer. "She sealed the corridor three minutes after Damien walked in. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a coordinated hit. And only four people knew the location: Me, Julian, Damien... and you."

Julian Cross sat at the small breakroom table, his laptop open. The blue light reflected in his glasses, hiding his eyes. He wasn’t looking at Ken; he was dissecting Ken’s entire life.

"His bank accounts are clean," Julian reported, his voice flat. "No sudden deposits. No offshore transfers. No crypto spikes."

"Then they got to his family," Kai growled. He grabbed Ken by the collar, hauling him halfway out of the chair. "Did they threaten your sister, Ken? Did they promise to pay off your dad’s gambling debts? Talk!"

"I don’t know!" Ken sobbed, tears leaking out. "Please, Kai, I’ve been with the Boss for six years! I would take a bullet for him!"

"Tonight, you might have to," Kai hissed, raising the ashtray.

"Put it down."

The command came from the doorway. It was quiet, raspy, but it carried the weight of absolute authority.

Aria stood there. She looked like a wreck—hair matted with sweat, clothes stained with grease and rain—but she stood with her spine straight. She walked into the room, the heavy combat boots she still wore thudding against the linoleum.

"Sister-in-law," Kai said, not letting go of Ken. "Go back to the recovery room. This is ugly work. You shouldn’t see it."

"I’ve seen ugly," Aria said. "And I’ve seen liars. Ken isn’t lying."

She walked up to them. She placed her hand on Kai’s arm, applying pressure to a specific nerve bundle near his elbow. It wasn’t painful, but it forced his grip to relax reflexively.

Kai dropped Ken. Ken collapsed back into the chair, gasping for air.

Aria turned to the assistant. She knelt in front of him, grabbing his wrist.

"Look at me, Ken," she ordered.

Ken looked up, his eyes wide and terrified.

Aria didn’t speak. She just held his wrist, feeling the pulse. It was racing—thready and frantic, the pulse of a prey animal cornered by wolves. It lacked the erratic, skipping beat of a person trying to construct a lie. His pupils were dilated with fear, not deception.

She stood up.

"He’s clean," Aria announced.

"You can tell that from his pulse?" Julian asked skeptically, though he stopped typing.

"I can tell he’s terrified of you, not of getting caught," Aria corrected. "If he had sold Damien out, he wouldn’t be sitting here crying. He would have run the moment the gas started."

She looked at Kai.

"It wasn’t Ken."

"Then who?" Kai demanded, pacing the small room. "We were ghosted. No digital footprint. No GPS on the car. How did Lydia know?"

Aria closed her eyes, replaying the night in her head. The smell of the gambling den. The noise. The faces.

Iron Tooth.

The floor manager. The man Damien had humiliated at the Pai Gow table. The man who had handed over the key card with a sneer.

"You have five minutes," Iron Tooth had said. "Then the shift changes."

"It was the floor manager," Aria opened her eyes. "Iron Tooth."

Kai stopped pacing. "Iron Tooth is Triad. They don’t work with socialites like Lydia."

"They work with money," Aria said. "Damien humiliated him. He flipped the tiles and exposed him as a cheat in front of his own men. Iron Tooth lost face. And in that world, face is everything."

She walked over to the table, leaning on it for support. Her own adrenaline was crashing, and her knees felt weak.

"Iron Tooth gave us the key card. He knew exactly where we were going. As soon as we walked away, he called Lydia’s people. He sold us out for revenge and a payout."

Kai’s face went blank. Then, a slow, terrifying realization dawned on him.

"I left him alive," Kai whispered. "I threatened him with photos, but I left him standing there."

He slammed his fist into the wall, cracking the plaster.

"My fault. It was my fault."

"Fix it," Aria said coldly.

Kai looked at her.

"Take your men," Aria commanded, her voice sounding eerily like Damien’s. "Go back to The Golden Lotus. Find Iron Tooth. And make sure he never makes a phone call again."

Kai straightened up. The guilt in his eyes hardened into resolve. He nodded once to Aria—a gesture of respect to a superior.

"Consider it handled."

He turned and marched out of the room, dialing his enforcement team before he even cleared the door.

Julian closed his laptop. He stood up, adjusting his suit jacket.

"I’ll handle the police," Julian said. "If Kai is going back to Chinatown, there will be noise. I need to ensure the precinct looks the other way."

He looked at Ken, who was still trembling in the chair.

"Get up, Ken. Go home. Shower. Come back at 8 AM. Damien will need his schedule cleared for the next three days."

Ken nodded frantically, wiping his face. "Yes. Yes, sir. Thank you, Miss Aria."

Aria offered him a tired smile. "Go."

When the room emptied, Aria was left alone in the stark white silence. She sank into the plastic chair Ken had vacated. Her hands were shaking now that no one was watching.

She had just ordered a hit. Or at least, a very violent retribution.

In her past life, she had been unable to order a pizza without anxiety. Now, she was dispatching warlords to Chinatown.

’Survival changes you,’ she thought, looking at her hands. They were clean, but they felt stained.

She stood up. She couldn’t sit here. She needed to be where she belonged.

She walked back down the hallway to the recovery suite.

Inside, the lights were low. The rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was the only sound.

Damien was still unconscious, but his color was better. The angry flush had faded from his skin.

Aria walked to the bedside. She didn’t sit in the chair this time. She kicked off her boots and climbed onto the bed, curling up on top of the covers next to him. She was careful not to disturb the IV lines, but she needed the proximity.

She rested her head on his shoulder, her hand resting over his heart.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

It was strong. Steady.

She closed her eyes, listening to the rain hammer against the clinic windows.

For tonight, it was enough.