Page 9 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

I head in the direction of the tellers and pause in line before a familiar face behind the counter recognizes me with widened eyes. The skinny man in an ill-fitted suit hurries down the line of tellers and opens the door at the end.

“Mrs. Osman,” the man proclaims. “So lovely to see you again. What can I do for you today?”

I keep my smile in place—though only barely. “I’d like to see my husband’s box.”

“Of course,” he agrees quickly. “Just a moment. Allow me to get the key and I shall meet you around the corner and take you there.”

He disappears back behind the counter and I head in the familiar direction of the vault room, stopping just outside the hallway. I glance down at the diamond ring on my finger and grimace. I’d like nothing more than to rip it off and throw it down a sewer somewhere, but it still serves a purpose. So, for now, it remains on my finger.

Besides, the most important aspect of this ring, my husband—or rather Thomas Kincaid’s business partner—is no longer in the picture. Continuing the masquerade as Mrs. Osman merely allows me access to all that I need to accomplish my tasks, and for now, I need to finish gathering my intel.

I rest my back against the hallway wall. Soon, I’ll find myself back where it all started. I can’t say I miss Eastpoint, but I do miss the simplicity that my life had there. I miss … other things. Things I no longer deserve.

“This way, if you please, Mrs. Osman,” the bank manager says as he steps out of a side door, a ring of keys in his grasp along with a keycard. I follow him further down the hallway until we come to a door that leads into an outer room. “I was sorry to hear about your husband’s death,” the man says as he swipes his card down the side of another room door and it lights up green. “I’m sure it’s heartbreaking considering…”

I know what he’s trying to say. Considering how long we’d been married—or as is the actual case, how short our marriage had been. Then again, it’d been nothing but a sham of a marriage to begin with, merely a way for Thomas to sell me and my debt to a man more interested in his used goods.

“Thank you for your condolences,” I say through clenched teeth.

“You have his key?” the manager asks, glancing back as he opens the final door into the vault and holds up a ring of keys.

“Yes,” I reply, withdrawing a small metal key from my purse and holding it in my grasp.

“Good, good,” he says with a sweaty smile. He moves towards the wall of cage wire that splits the final room in half. He slips the key into the door there and swings it open, allowing the two of us access to the wall of small lock boxes cemented in place. “Shall I leave you to sort through your husband's documents?”

I shake my head as I move towards the lockbox I’m looking for. Number seventy-seven. Double sevens—a lucky number. He moves forward and unlocks the door before stepping back and allowing me to pull the small black box from inside. “That won’t be necessary,” I reply. “I’m merely collecting what’s inside for the lawyer. I won’t be back. My husband’s account will be closed.”

The bank manager jerks where he stands, appearing shocked. “M-Mrs. Osman!” he exclaims. “If there’s any concern you have with the safety of—”

“It has nothing to do with you,” I tell him stiffly, cutting him off as I slip the key into its hole and lift the top of the box. A small pile of documents sits wrapped in twine to the side, and next to it is a stack of hundreds and a few extra tidbits, including a flash drive. I remove it all, carefully placing it into the small purse I brought with me. Once I’m done, I close the box and step back, looking at him.

“It’s hard,” I say. “Being around things that remind me of him.” The manager’s face falls and he nods sympathetically as he moves to put the box back in its hole and close the external door.

“Of course, ma’am, how insensitive of me.”

My words aren’t a lie. Jason Osman is, by far, a man I never want to think of again. Controlling. Vile. Perverted. He’d been every inch a practical replica of Thomas Kincaid, only marginally less terrible due to his lack of intelligence. “If you’re planning on closing out your husband’s accounts, there’s some paperwork we should go over.”

I step out of the cage room within the vault and head towards the exterior room as he follows. The weight of my purse is hefty against my side. “I’ll have to make an appointment,” I lie. “I want to make sure my lawyer has everything he needs first.”

“Of course,” the manager nods. I pause, allowing him to finish locking up. In reality, I can feel the anxiety beginning to set in. My skin practically crawls. There are so many cameras. I can feel them like beady little eyes observing my each and every action. After being out of the line of sight for so long, it’s a whole different world back in the city.

It’s easy to ignore all of the eyes and the constant surveillance, but despite all that I’d hoped to escape, I can’t hide from the fact that Thomas had instilled within me the need to hide. Soon, though, there will be no more hiding.

Jason Osman. The fire at the Kincaid mansion. Eric Truman. Now this—the flash drive. Everything else is falling into place easily.Too easily,a small voice at the back of my mind says. Perhaps it’s too easy because none of them ever expected someone like me. They took and tore through everything, thinking there was no chance a fallen piece of prey could ever get back up and fight back.

Yes, maybe it should be easy for their kingdoms to fall. The higher they climb, the further they have left to descend.

I’m slowly crossing out the names and the actions on my list until there will only be one left.

I leave the bank with what I came for, slipping into the backseat of a black town car. “Where to next, Miss Michaels?” the driver inquires, tipping his head down so that he can meet my eyes from the rearview mirror. The tension in my shoulders eases at the familiar name. Not Mrs. Osman. Not bitch. Not cunt. Just … me.

I withdraw the pack of documents and open the first one. “The airport,” I say as I start scanning the information.

Thomas made a mistake selling me to Jason Osman. Thomas Kincaid had been harder to understand, harder to manipulate. He was too set in his old school ways to be malleable. But at the very least, he had taught me things.

How to be adaptable. How to influence others. How to give men exactly what they thought they wanted and use their desires against them. Most of all, how deep to drive the knife that would end their lives.

He thought he’d driven me down into the deepest hole a person could be, but in fact, all he did was merely teach me how to crawl out of such a place and how to rise to the very top.

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