Mae

Stepping back into my apartment after meeting with Harriet, I felt a loneliness wrap around me that I hadn’t felt since my father died. He had been the one person to make me feel both vulnerable and safe at the same time. I’d been his little girl and the strong woman who would take over his company. Now I just felt lost.

I had to find a way to regroup, and that would take me shutting down for a while. I grabbed my phone and shot off an email to Sherry, letting her know I’d be taking a few days off and to only contact me for an emergency. I simply couldn’t face the optics and needed space and time.

Obviously, the better move—the more professional and responsible move—would be to go back into work, hold my head up high and be a team player. But fuck that. When your team consisted of two-faced liars and misogynists, what was the point?

I wanted to scream, to cry and break things, but instead, I held it in and headed down the hall, planning to draw a bath. It often calmed me when I was wound up. It was a habit, and that was all I had the energy for.

The photos on the hallway wall called out to me, and I halted. I turned and examined our family through the years, glaring at the smiling faces of Harriet and Clinton. My mouth pursed, and my heart struggled to provide oxygen. God, you are so stupid. How did I not see it was always those two? They were their own priorities. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it. Always focused on being the daughter my father wanted.

I moved in front of a picture of my high school graduation, Dad and Harriet flanking me, both with wide smiles. How could Harriet become this person who turned on her daughter? My heart constricted in my chest. Not daughter. Stepdaughter, as she so coldly pointed out.

And what about my father? Had Harriet fooled him, too, or had she changed after his death? Either way, Harriet’s betrayal almost felt worse knowing my father would never know what an awful person he’d married.

“Damn it! Why’d you have to leave us?” I touched my dad’s face in the image.

Pity had always been tough for me to choke down, and this time was no exception. Letting the anger out would keep the self-pity from overwhelming me. So, I reached up and yanked a photo off the wall, letting it fall to the ground with a crash. I did nothing wrong… This is all because two people who were supposed to love me and have my back betrayed me.

Harriet’s smiling face peered at me through the lines of broken glass. “You won’t get away with this!” I’d find a way to ruin Clinton’s and Harriet’s lives, the way they’d ruined mine. First, I’d start by taking every good memory I’d had of them, and throwing them in the damn garbage.

One by one, I pulled the photos of my stepbrother and stepmother off the wall, leaving only two photos hanging: my father and I at my college graduation and him sitting behind his desk at work.

With a small pile of framed photos at my feet, I plunked myself down and began pulling the prints from the frames, then ripping each one into tiny shreds.

A snapping sound had me glancing up and noting a vaguely smoky smell in the air. A beat after, Azrimin appeared next to me, sitting with his legs crossed just like I was.

Scrambling backward, I yelped then slammed against the hallway wall. “What the hell? Can you not do that?”

Azrimin grinned and held his hands up. “My bad… but you’re the one who summoned me.”

“No I didn’t.” Leaving the mess in the hallway, I stood and went to the living room.

Azrimin didn’t follow but when I rounded the couch, there he was.

“Dammit!” I jumped back, then fell into a chair beside the couch. This would take some getting used to.

Leaning his forearms on his knees, he said, “I felt that you were ready to talk revenge…so, here I am.”

I could only gape at him. I just couldn’t fathom why any of this was happening. Sure, some things are just unexplainable, but that didn’t mean I had to trust him. If he really was a devil—and given what he’d shown me, I didn’t see how I could deny that—should I be entertaining the possibility of using him to get back at Harriet and Clinton?

“This is insane…” I mumbled under my breath.

“Sometimes it takes insanity to do what others can’t.”

He had a point, but was I willing to go that far? Harriet and Clinton deserved it, not to mention men like Randall Philips.

“Get out of your head, Mae,” he said, pulling me from my inner struggle. His eyes seemed to be searching mine, then he gave me a single nod. “You have decided on revenge, yes?”

I hesitated, then a moment later, I returned the nod. “Yes. I’m ready.”

“Then say it. Tell me with words, right here.”

“I want revenge on Harriet and Clinton.” Then I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms because that was all I was going to say. I knew from years of negotiating that letting the other person break the silence gave you more leverage. People didn’t want to sit in an uncomfortable silence, so they’d fill it in whatever way they could…which usually meant giving things up they hadn’t even meant to. But Azrimin wasn’t your average person, and he didn’t say anything either; he just sat back and mirrored my position with his arms crossed, that irritating smirk on his face like he knew what I was doing.

Azrimin and I sat in silence for what felt like several minutes, until Azrimin’s smirk widened and he finally flicked his hand toward the coffee table. “All right, Mae. You’re good.” A sheaf of papers appeared between the two of us. “This is the agreement,” he said, gesturing toward the small stack. “It just needs your signature.”

I glanced at the papers, then back at him, my pulse kicking into high gear. This all suddenly felt too real.

“You do want my help?”

Looking at the papers once more, I teetered on the edge of a metaphorical cliff. I’d always known exactly what to do and when to do it, but this… I heard Azrimin say my name and I snapped out of it, turning my attention back to him and determined to hold it together. “I don’t know if I want your help, but I think I can use your…gifts.” He lifted a brow but before he could respond, I continued, “And, I’m not signing anything until I read it.”

“I would expect nothing less from my savvy business woman,” he said as he pushed the paperwork closer to me.

Ignoring his flirty little label of me, I focused more on how struck I was by this bizarrely mundane transaction between a devil and me. I lifted the papers onto my lap and skimmed the first page.

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t expect,” I heard him say but kept reading. “I help you, I get your soul, yadda, yadda, yadda. Pretty standard.”

I froze and popped my head up, my stomach instantly twisting into knots. My soul? I would be giving up my soul…for revenge. God, Dad would be heartbroken if he were here. But that life was no more and what was reality was the so-called family I was saddled with.

Harriet’s sneering face popped into my mind and the way she’d said stepdaughter. That was enough to blacken my soul right then. Screw it. . What did I care about my soul if it meant that woman would go down in flames?

Shaking off my unease, I looked down at the contract again, then took hold of Azrimin’s gaze. “I’m still reading every word of this.”

“Suit yourself.” He pulled a piece of gum out of his pocket and held it out to me. When I shook my head he popped it into this mouth, then crossed one leg over the other, settling in.

I spent the next few minutes reading through each page, and surprisingly, it was similar to many contracts I’d worked on myself.

I paused at a particular clause and looked up at Azrimin with wide eyes. “So…according to this, every time you help me, it actually takes years off my life? Meaning, I’ll die sooner?”

Azrimin laughed. “You are thorough, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, but don’t worry about that clause. Truly, it’s not that much time.”

Shooting him a dry look, I snapped back, “What’s to stop you from doing whatever you want, helping me at every turn, just so you’ll have my soul whenever you want?”

Azrimin pressed a hand against his chest as he conjured up an expression of mock disgrace. “I have some integrity, Mae.”

For a moment, I forgot I was sitting there with a devil, about to sell my soul—because that laugh, his knowing grin, felt like he could be a handsome man I met at a bar and struck up a conversation with.

I tossed that thought away and said, “I don’t rely on integrity. So, I want to add a point. You can only help at my direction.” I squinted over at him. “I will dictate exactly what actions you take, and you can’t do anything on your own. Then I’ll sign.”

Azrimin’s smile went practically feral at that. He leaned forward, snapping his fingers. “Done.

When I gazed down at the paper, I found the clause had appeared on the page. I nodded at him, certain I could handle him. “Pass me a pen.”