Page 164 of The Rules
This was it.
The reason they were sitting here.
Beside her, Ben shifted. Not stiff—not coiled for attack like earlier. But something in him resisted the transition. A delay in his breath. A catch in his composure. His fingers brushed the table’s edge—steadying, grounding—as if anchoring himself back to the present.
A beat. Then his voice, quiet and focused.
"We need to know where the evidence is disappearing to,"
he said. "Who's covering for Crawford. Who’s silencing the people we’re trying to reach."
Julian gave a thoughtful hum, no longer smirking. His eyes narrowed with something deeper—calculation, maybe even curiosity. He didn’t ask for names. He didn’t ask why. He just listened. And then, slowly, his gaze flicked to Katherine.
Not like a threat.
Like a scale, weighing.
"And you?" he asked. The tone was too soft to be harmless. "How far are you willing to go?"
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look at Ben. She simply met Julian’s stare like she already knew what game he was playing—and didn’t plan to blink first.
This wasn’t a hypothetical. Not for her.
This was prison bars and courtroom silence. Her father’s name dragged through the mud. Years of watching doors close and trails go cold. This was what she’d burned her own life down to chase.
Katherine sat straighter, her hands folded neatly in front of her, her voice steady as iron.
"As far as it takes."
There was no immediate reply.
Katherine could feel Julian watching her—not with that usual smirk, not with mockery or condescension, but something colder. Like he was reassessing her weight in the room, adjusting her value in real time.
She didn’t look away.
Kath knew that kind of silence. Knew what it meant to be evaluated by men who expected her to flinch. She didn’t. Not for Crawford. Not for a courtroom full of doubters. And definitely not for this particular shade of Sinclair.
But this? This didn’t feel like he was searching for cracks.
This felt like he was testing the alloy.
And then—it came. A smile.
Not the usual, wolfish curve. Not the smug little cut of teeth he’d been tossing around like knives since she arrived.
This one was quieter. More deliberate. Still dangerous.
But darker.
Like respect, in Julian Sinclair’s world, had teeth too.
"Good answer," he said, his voice is approving.
Ben didn’t speak. Didn’t look at Julian. Instead, he shifted back in his seat with a low, steady breath—more controlled than a sigh, but edged with something rough.
His hands flexed once against the edge of the table before he leaned back, shoulders rolling slowly like he was forcing tension out of his body one knot at a time. Not relaxed. Not even close. But composed, at least on the surface.
A single hand lifted, dragging across the back of his neck, like he needed to reset the temperature in his skin.
