* * *
THE LITTLE BITCH was back.
Susan closed the bedroom door behind herself. Flipped the lock—then slapped her palm against the wood.
The pain was fresh, staggering, and it helped her to push back the fury that had her whole body shaking.
Juliana had just marched in...and kicked her out.
After all of these years. After all the work she’d done.
Juliana hadn’t stayed around to look after Aaron. She hadn’t been there, day in and day out, working to keep the man on a leash. Working to make him look sane when the man hadn’t cared about anything.
Or anyone.
Susan glanced at the ornate bed.
I was here.
And everything—it was supposed to be hers now. Aaron had promised to take care of her. Only, he hadn’t.
He’d been weak until the end. Weak and desperate, and he’d taken the easy way out.
A bullet to the brain. She would have made him suffer more. He’d dangled his promises in front of her for so long.
It should all be mine. The money. The houses. The cars. Every. Single. Thing.
She was so tired of pretending. She’d pretended for years. Yanked herself out of the gutter. Pushed her way into Aaron’s life.
His weakness had been an advantage for her, at first.
But now...
Her gaze roamed around the room. Right past the paintings that he’d ordered hung on the wall. Juliana’s paintings. Her precious work.
Did the girl even realize her father had bought them? That he’d ordered the pieces, paying far too much, and had them delivered back here?
Susan hated them. Storms, dark skies and threatening clouds.
Susan had been so tempted to slice the paintings in the past few days. To just rip them apart.
Payback.
But she’d kept up her image, for all the good it had done her. Kept it up even when she’d shattered on the inside.
“Ms. Walker.” A rap sounded at her door. “We’ll be leaving soon.” An order.
She recognized the voice, of course; it belonged to the first man who’d come into her home. The dark man with the darker eyes.
His stare didn’t scare her. She’d seen plenty of darkness as a kid.
“Just a minute,” she called, trying to keep her voice level. Now wasn’t the time to lose her control. Now was the time to keep planning. To keep her focus.
She headed for the nightstand and the small safe that she knew waited inside.
There were files in that safe. A small handgun. Sure, the police and the FBI and who the hell knew who else had been in the house, and they’d searched everywhere, but...
But they didn’t see the papers inside the safe.