Page 166 of The Rules
Ben’s jaw was still tight. His stare locked on nothing.
A thousand volts beneath the surface.
And all Katherine could think was:
This was the cost.
Whatever came next—they'd all crossed into it now.
And there was no going back.
Chapter 39
Benjamin
The office hung suspended in morning stillness. Too early for the mindless chatter that would later fill these halls. Too late for Benjamin to reconsider the path he'd chosen.
He sits at the head of the long conference table, sleeves rolled up. Before him: a spread of files, marked-up depositions, decades-old transcripts. Niel Winters' name printed across too many pages like a scar that never healed.
It's official now. The case is open again.
And everything that comes with it is breathing down his neck.
He'd made his choice when he called Julian. There was no going back now. The thought sits heavy in his chest, a weight he's been carrying since that night at the bar. Julian would deliver—he always did—but at what cost?
Ben flips another page, eyes scanning the text without truly absorbing it. The words blur together, a mess of legal jargon that once felt like home but now feels like chains.
They have proof Niel wasn't guilty. What they don't have? The full picture.
The evidence Crawford buried. The witnesses who vanished. The rot beneath the verdict.
Crawford. The name alone makes Ben's fingers tighten around his pen. The man had been untouchable for too long.
A puppet master pulling strings from the shadows, dismantling lives with surgical precision.
Across the table—Kath.
She's all focus. Elbows on the table, one hand turning pages, the other toying absently with a pen. And then—she does something small. Barely a twitch.
She bites the cap of her pen while reading.
Hesees it. Notices it.
His gaze snares on that unconscious gesture—the gentle pressure of teeth against plastic, the subtle creasing between her eyebrows as she loses herself in the documents. This isn't calculation. Not another move in their perpetual chess match. Just Kath, adrift in concentration, unguarded in a way she rarely allows herself to be.
It's not seduction. Not strategy.
It's instinct. Vulnerability. Uniquely hers.
Ben watched her from across the table, trying not to linger too long on the way the light slid over her features. She didn’t look up. Didn’t notice.
“We need something he won’t be prepared for,” she said finally, her pen tapping once against the folder before stilling. “Something that knocks him off balance.”
Ben nodded once, eyes on her but thoughts already racing ahead.
“Julian’s supposed to be good at that, isn’t he?” she added, glancing up now—sharp again, focused. “The unexpected.”
He didn’t answer immediately.
