Page 131 of The Rules
The room felt smaller now. The air thick with heat and threat, impossible to breathe. He didn’t move. He didn’t need to.
He was a storm in stillness.
And she—God help her—wasn’t running.
She should have.
She should’ve stood, thrown his terms back at him, walked out and never looked back.
But she didn’t.
Because she needed him.
And that was the most dangerous truth of all.
Not just his reach. Not his power.
Him.
The man who once stood in a courtroom and tore corruption apart with nothing but truth and rage. The man who now sat across from her, holding both her ruin and her salvation in two steady hands.
The man who had stripped her bare with a stare—and fastened rules around her neck like a collar.
Her throat worked. Her heart pounded.
And still—she nodded.
Because walking into hell with Ben Sinclair?
Still felt safer than standing in it alone.
Chapter 33
Benjamin
The lush glow of Crimson Bloom wrapped around them, seductive and warm, but it did nothing to dull the edge between them. Ben lounged on the couch like it was a throne—like the entire room, the night,her, all belonged to him. Fingers steepled. Gaze unflinching. A predator cloaked in calm.
Across from him, Katherine sat rigid, spine straight, arms crossed like armor. Her face was a mask of ice—impressive, practiced—but he saw through it. Saw the flicker just beneath: the rage, the doubt, the hesitation clawing at her composure.
And that? That was exactly where he wanted her.
"I need your answer, Winters. Are you in, or are you out?" The words sliced through the air, sharp, controlled, lethal.
She exhaled, a sharp breath through her nose, shifting like the seat was suddenly too hot.
"You really expect me to agree all of that?" Her voice was tense, challenging, but Ben caught the slight tremor beneath it.
He didn’t blink. Just tilted his head slightly—like a man analyzing a chessboard, already three moves ahead. She was stalling. Calculating. Searching for a crack she could slip through.
His voice came level. Measured. Final.
“These are the only terms. Take them, or walk.”
His expression didn’t shift, but beneath the surface, something coiled—tight, focused, deliberate. He hadn’t crafted these conditions out of cruelty. This wasn’t punishment. It was clarity and control. A boundary drawn with surgical intent.
He needed to know what she was really willing to give.
Because justice had cost him once—deeply. Now it was her turn to bleed for it.
