Deadly Wrong

by SM Reine

  Even if her return wasn’t very triumphant.

  She was still dead, undead, whatever she wanted to call it. Isobel had no idea what that meant yet. Would all of her bodily functions continue as they had during her years under Ander’s contract? Would she heal and menstruate and require food again? Or was she no more than an unusually sturdy zombie?

  Either way, the deadline had been lifted. She had time to figure it out. And if being undead would create problems, she had time to figure those out, too.

  Isobel didn’t feel like she’d been saved, but she’d definitely been reborn.

  The warm buzz of satisfaction didn’t last very long. When she stepped through the portal from Dis, she found the Union on the other side. They were working with Lucrezia di Angelis to break down the equipment in Fritz’s office so that everything could be relocated.

  Fritz himself watched from the corner, leaning against the wall with his arms folded and a disapproving tilt to his mouth.

  “She’s through,” Lucrezia announced at Isobel’s arrival. “Tear the rest down.”

  Isobel didn’t even get a chance to step out of the circle of stone before a handful of black-clad Union soldiers moved in. Each brick was tagged with a number and nestled in padded foam before being locked away.

  “What’s happening?” Isobel asked.

  “We’re seizing property that rightfully belongs to the OPA per regulations,” Lucrezia said.

  Isobel looked to Fritz for a real answer. There wasn’t a single window in the room, but he was wearing those stupid reflective sunglasses again, concealing what had to be a scowl. There was no way he’d willingly surrendered Friederling property to the OPA, regulations or not.

  Yet there he was, just standing in the corner, totally silent and not fighting back.

  Isobel felt a surge of helpless frustration as she watched the soldiers disassemble the portal and carry the locked crates out of the condo.

  Her condo. The home that she had shared with Fritz.

  “You people need to get out of here,” Isobel said.

  Lucrezia laughed again. That same smug, tittering laugh she’d used when Isobel accused her of being evil.

  Fritz pushed off the wall. He snapped his fingers at Isobel like she was a dog. “Let’s go.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry about leaving the Union unsupervised. They’ll lock the door behind them,” he said dryly.

  She vibrated with frustration as Fritz led her to the hallway outside their condo. He punched the down button. It seemed to take forever for the floor numbers to illuminate as the elevator approached.

  Isobel studied him in the cool blue light pouring through the hall window. She could see herself in his sunglasses, hair tousled, feathers bedraggled, dust caked in the creases of her skin. He looked wonderful in comparison. Wonderful and clean. It had only taken her a couple hours to follow him from Hell, but he’d had at least a day to compose himself on Earth.

  That meant he’d also had a day to think about what Judge Abraxas had told him about Hope Jimenez.

  “Fritz…” she began slowly.

  “Don’t fucking talk,” he said.

  Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach and then kept going down, down past her knees, her feet, right back to the depths of Hell.

  Abraxas had definitely told Fritz what he’d seen in her mind.

  “Let me explain,” Isobel said.

  “There’s nothing to explain. You only agreed to marriage so that you could steal from me.”

  Isobel gazed helplessly at him. If that had been true, it would have been easy to walk away.

  But it wasn’t true. Even if she hadn’t loved him on the day they married, she’d loved him on the day she died.

  And now…

  “It was wrong,” Isobel said.

  Fritz’s jaw clenched. “You’re goddamn right, it was wrong.”

  The elevator chimed. The doors slid open.

  Isobel expected Fritz to let her enter alone, sending her away and terminating their relationship. But he followed her inside.

  He waited to continue speaking until the doors shut again.

  “I always wondered what kind of luck would have dropped someone like you into my life.” Disgust twisted his lips into a furious sneer. “It wasn’t luck. Not good luck.”

  Fritz thought he was lucky for having her in his life?

  “It wasn’t about you,” Isobel said. “It was about the House of Belial. My family—”

  “Do you want to know the worst part?” he interrupted. “I don’t even care that you stole from me. I don’t care about the lies. The worst part is realizing that you never loved me as much as I loved you.”

  Frustration clawed at her heart. “You don’t love me as much as you think you do, either,” Isobel said. “If you loved me, you wouldn’t have wanted to live separate lives. You wouldn’t have had girlfriends after we got married. You wouldn’t have forced me to represent your spy in court!”

  “Has it occurred to you that I wouldn’t have asked for any of that if you’d just told me it was a problem?” Fritz asked. “That maybe I made those demands because I thought that you agreed with me?”

  Her mouth opened and shut with no sound coming out.

  “And it was all for Ander. That smarmy, smug…” Fritz slammed his fist into the wall of the elevator. “I didn’t even know he was out to get me for that long.” His eyes searched her face. “And I never would have thought you hated me so much.”

  “No, Fritz,” Isobel said.

  The elevator chimed again, cutting off her attempt to defend herself. They had reached the lobby. Fritz didn’t wait for her before marching across the high-ceilinged lobby for the glass doors, outside which his limousine was already waiting.

  She was still wearing dusty leather, so they got more than a few weird looks from the other inhabitants of the condo tower on their way out. It wasn’t the right place to continue arguing. They didn’t need the attention. But she couldn’t remain silent, either.

  “You’re right,” she said under her breath, quietly pacing Fritz toward the door. “I hated every last drop of that fucking Friederling blood. My family was sold into slavery for the House of Belial. I grew up hearing stories about how awful they were from my dad.” She snagged his sleeve before he could head out the door. “I don’t hate you, Fritz. I’ve never hated you.”

  He used her grip to pull her to the limousine and practically tossed her inside. “This conversation’s done, Isobel.” Not Emmeline, not Belle, no affectionate pet names. Just Isobel.

  Fritz climbed into the limo, knocked on the window to tell the driver he was ready, and they were off.

  “Where are we going?” Isobel asked.

  “You’re going back to Los Angeles,” Fritz said. “I’m going back to work.”

  “Is that it? We’re just…going our separate ways?”

  “We’ve always had our own lives to worry about. It’s nothing new.”

  Isobel gazed helplessly at him. Of course he was angry. Heartbroken. His idea of the woman he had loved for so many years had been completely shattered.

  But Isobel was just rediscovering the love she’d had for him. She wasn’t ready to let that go. “Come on. Let’s just talk through this.”

  He glared out the window. “Don’t use that tone of voice with me.”

  “Then how should—”

  “Don’t speak at all,” he interrupted.

  So she didn’t speak, not until they reached a private airport where the Friederling jet was waiting.

  The limousine stopped on the tarmac. The driver opened the door. Fritz didn’t get out—this flight wasn’t for him.

  “When can we talk?” Isobel asked. “Will you get a hold of me?”

  He clenched his jaw.

  “Ma’am,” the driver said politely, sweeping a hand toward the jet.

  She got out of the limousine. Her last glimpse of Fritz before she was led away was of a man hiding behind his
sunglasses, lurking in the shadows deep inside his limousine, lost inside a very plush and very rich Hell.

  It was strange to fly on the Friederling private jet without Fritz’s presence. Isobel would have been grateful for the privacy before visiting Dis, but now that Hope’s memories had been returned to her, his absence felt like a void gnawing in the pit of her belly.

  She missed him so goddamn much.

  Isobel took a shower as they flew over the Midwest. Even Fritz’s money couldn’t lead to a comfortable shower on an airplane, but even the tiny stall and weak showerhead were refreshing now.

  It left her muscles feeling loose, her limbs heavy. She stretched out in one of the big leather chairs to nap.

  When she slept, she still dreamed of her life as Hope Jimenez, but they were no longer Technicolor replays of her past life. She only glimpsed dull snatches.

  She dreamed of the day that Ander had first approached her—the summer after high school, when she’d been looking for more information about her family without finding anything.

  His sweet promises of revenge didn’t translate well to the dream. She couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said, but she remembered how exhilarated she had been that he offered the opportunity to her.

  Her dreams drifted onward, taking her to the day that Hope had agreed to spy on Fritz, quickly followed by the day that she realized she did want to marry him and had gone too far wedging herself into his life.

  Isobel wished she didn’t remember any of that.

  The flight attendant woke her up a couple minutes before the landing gear touched pavement. It was a guy Isobel didn’t recognize. Lucrezia’s stewardess spy had already been replaced.

  Isobel had stopped crying by the time the jet stopped.

  “Can I borrow a phone?” Isobel asked the flight attendant as she pulled her dusty jacket back on. It was uncomfortably hot now, but she didn’t have anything else to wear. “I need to have someone pick me up from the airport.”

  The flight attendant’s smile was sympathetic. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

  Isobel only saw what he meant once she stepped out onto the tarmac.

  Her RV was parked outside.

  Someone had taken it to be washed, and it glistened on the airstrip in all its teal glory. Isobel had to resist the urge to squeal when she turned the key in the ignition and the engine gave a healthy grumble in response. The gas gauge told her the tank was full. The shag carpeting smelled like fresh shampoo.

  Fritz had arranged to have her RV repaired and detailed while they were in Hell.

  Warmth blossomed in her chest, quickly quashed by the realization that he’d probably done it before Judge Abraxas spilled her secrets.

  The RV’s condition wasn’t a romantic gesture. It was just one more nice thing Fritz had done for her that she didn’t deserve.

  But then a card on the dashboard caught her eye.

  She unfolded the square of white paper. All it said was the name of a beach on the California coast, signed “FF.” That was definitely his signature, but it looked like the note had been faxed. Fritz hadn’t actually been in her RV to deliver it.

  Isobel quickly changed outfits while she considered that card, trying to decide if there was any point in going to that beach.

  It wasn’t like he was going to be waiting for her there. He wouldn’t have even been able to reach her in time.

  But where else was she going?

  Having donned a comfortable pair of shorts and a tattered Eloquent Blood t-shirt, Isobel got behind the wheel and drove to the beach.

  It was a couple hours north of Los Angeles. She’d been in the neighborhood a couple times before; there was an old cemetery nearby where lots of people were eager to talk with their ancestors.

  The beach itself was comprised of fine white sand that reminded Isobel of the Bahamas. No wonder Fritz had picked it out.

  She parked her RV behind some rocks and walked up and down the beach. Isobel wasn’t sure if it was actually as cold as it felt, or if she was still acclimated to the ambient temperature of Hell. It felt like Dis was going to cling to her skin for months, if she ever got rid of it at all.

  Aside from a few people walking their dogs, she was alone. The wind beat her hair around her face. She kicked off her sandals and stepped into the surf.

  No Fritz.

  She knew she probably didn’t deserve his forgiveness anyway. Heck, she probably didn’t even deserve a chance for him to listen to what she had to say. There was no real defense for what she’d done. Isobel was guilty of every single thing that he was angry about.

  The sun sank over the horizon, but Isobel didn’t return to her RV. She sank into the sand. Buried her feet among the seaweed. Gazed up at the sky.

  And then she heard it—or maybe she felt it. A shift in the ocean.

  She sat up to find a white yacht slicing through the waves. It was approaching the beach, angling for a pier just a little further south than where Isobel sat.

  Even at that distance, she could read the letters on the side: “Friederling X.”

  Dinner was waiting for Isobel on board the yacht. She hadn’t even realized she was hungry until she saw the food waiting for her, and then she was suddenly ravenous.

  That answered one question about her undead body. She definitely still needed to eat.

  Isobel didn’t sit down, though. She hung back by the boat’s railing, gripping the wet metal in both hands, watching as Fritz Friederling took his seat.

  He was wearing a white shirt, white slacks, loafers without socks. Not a tie or cufflink in sight. If not for the shortness of his hair and the few extra years on his face, he might have been the fun young kopis that Hope Jimenez had fallen in love with despite her very best efforts.

  “Sit,” Fritz said. “Please.”

  He still didn’t exactly sound happy to see her.

  Isobel lowered herself into the opposite chair. It felt moist from the spray of the sea. “You must have left pretty quickly to have caught up with me tonight.”

  “I only stayed in New York long enough to talk with Lucrezia.”

  An unexpected pang of jealousy stabbed through her. “Oh yeah?”

  “She was going to have you arrested when you returned from the City of Dis,” Fritz said. “Arrested, and then recruited to the Union. I gave her the Friederling portal to Hell in exchange for your freedom, but I wanted to get some things in writing before you landed in Los Angeles.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Recruited? Forcefully?” Cèsar had mentioned it as a risk multiple times, but Isobel had always kind of thought he was paranoid.

  “That would have been up to you,” Fritz said. One of his staff members opened a bottle of wine and poured it in the glasses between them. It was a white—probably matched to the fish another waiter was delivering. “You don’t want to work for the Union, do you?”

  “How are the benefits?” Isobel asked lightly. Her actual instinct was to scream no! and leap off the side of the ship, but joking about it seemed slightly less likely to end with her drowning in the twilit ocean.

  “It’s slightly better than slavery. I mean, you get paid for it.” His use of the word “slavery” made Isobel feel sick. It must have shown on her face because Fritz said, “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  He didn’t sound nearly as hostile as he had in New York that morning.

  Hesitantly, she said, “My vendetta wasn’t against you, and I wish I’d never gotten you involved.”

  Fritz took a sip of his wine. “I’d have given you anything, Isobel. Anything you asked for. Any documents, any of the Friederling artifacts, any amount of money.”

  She prodded the fish with her fork. It was flaky, perfectly cooked, aromatic. “I know.”

  “You could have told me about Ander at any time. I would have gotten you away from him before things went as far as the contract.”

  “I know that, too,” Isobel said.

  “But I can see why you didn’t tell me. I’
ve always been incredibly stupid where you’re concerned.”

  She tried not to smile and failed. She ate a bite of the fish. It was just as good as it looked.

  “We’ve both got things to apologize for,” Fritz said. “We’ve both caused pain. We’ve both been selfish.” He slid his sunglasses down his nose, glaring at her over the frames. “One of us a hell of a lot more than the other.”

  Ouch. Isobel ducked her head. “I’m stupid. Beyond stupid. Who dedicates her whole life to getting revenge for family she’s never even known?” She spun the wine glass between her forefinger and thumb. “I did. And it wasn’t even revenge. It was just… God, I don’t know, Fritz. Hope just didn’t care about the pain it could cause. She only cared what Ander could do for her.”

  He tossed the sunglasses onto the table. It was too dark to even pretend he needed them now. “Should I call you Hope again?”

  What a loaded question. It went so far beyond her name.

  Isobel rested back in the chair, arms folded behind her head. The last light of the setting sun bobbed as the ship moved over the waves.

  Was she still Hope Jimenez? There was nothing dividing her from the woman she used to be—no magic, no blank spots in her memory, nothing. She could have easily dressed herself in a suit and gone to court the next day. The real difficulty would be getting up to speed on California law, but only because she’d never worked there.

  “I’ve changed too much to become Hope Jimenez again. My needs, my priorities, my goals—they’re completely different now. I like being Isobel Stonecrow. I like what I’m making for myself,” Isobel said. “I mean…I didn’t even like to bake cookies. That’s just too strange.” She shook her head. “No, I’m Isobel now—not the woman you married.”

  Fritz rested his hand on hers on the table. His palm was warm and rough. “You were never the woman I thought I married.”

  “That’s probably a good thing,” Isobel said. “I think I’m a better person than I used to be.”

  “I agree.”

  “You do?”

  “Everyone says they’re going to change after they ruin a relationship. Most people are lying,” Fritz said. “You really did change, though. In fact, you changed into a completely different person. And I’d like to try again.”