I hesitate.
“Zatanna.”
I sigh, then tip the phone slightly so the camera catches the terrace railing, the white stone, the impossible strip of beach beyond it.
There is a long, loaded silence.
Then Frankie shrieks. “What thefuck?”
I jerk the phone away from my ear. “Jesus.”
“No. No. Absolutely not. What do you mean there is a beach behind you? Yesterday you were in your weird evil-corporate office and now you are in what appears to be a honeymoon resort.”
I press the heel of my hand to my forehead.
“Zee.” Her voice drops into something much more serious. “Where are you?”
I stare out at the water.
And realize I cannot keep any of this in anymore.
Not the dates. Not the guns. Not the suite. Not the private jet. Not the fact that I am standing in something so far outside my normal life it feels like if I don’t say it out loud, I might actually lose my mind.
So I say, very calmly, “Okay. I need you to let me finish before you scream.”
Frankie goes completely silent. That alone tells me how bad this sounds.
I take a breath. “Two weeks ago, I got hired by the billionaire CEO job, right?”
“Yes…”
“And then I accidentally sent him one of my… recordings.”
There is already an inhale on the other end. I keep going before she can interrupt.
“And he listened to it.”
“Oh my God.”
“And then I started working there, and it turns out he hired me to help him find a wife.”
“What…”
“And then I walked in on him in his office bathroom listening to my voice and?—”
Frankie makes a sound I can only describe as a spiritual implosion. “Zatanna.”
“And then there were inheritance issues, and fake brides, and his ex showed up pretending to be someone else, and then some men tried to kidnap me, and also he’s in organized crime.”
Silence. But not normal silence.
It’s the kind of silence where I can actually hear Frankie trying to sort human language into categories that still make sense.
When she finally speaks, it’s much quieter than I expected. “I’m sorry.”
I blink. “For what part?”
“For not believing you when you said your life was weird.”
