Page 176 of The Rules
Kath watched him survey the room. He wasn't looking at the mess anymore. He was looking at the pattern. His eyes tracked methodically across the apartment, cataloging each detail with the detached precision of someone reading evidence.
"They wanted you to find it like this," Ben said, his voice low and certain.
Kath's spine stiffened. But her hands shook. She tried to hid them.
She turned away from the ruined bedroom, breath still uneven, hands barely steady. Her mind raced with implications, with possibilities—each one worse than the last. Crawford?
His people? Someone else entirely?
She moved into the kitchen—and stopped.
Ben was already there. Back to her. Still. A dark shape against the counterlight. His shoulders were rigid, his posture unnaturally tense. Something about the way he stood made her skin prickle with dread.
There was something in his hands.
He didn't turn.
"Katherine,watch this." His voice sliced through the silence—a razor wrapped in ice, each syllable carved from stone.
Her stomach knotted. It wasn't the words. It was the way he said them—like he was trying to control something dangerous beneath the surface.
She crossed the room slowly, each step feeling heavier than the last. When she reached him, he shifted just enough to show her.
A manila folder. Left open. Like it was waiting for them.
Inside—
Photographs.
Of her. Of Blondie inCrimson Bloom.
On stage. In costume. At the bar. Leaving late at night.
Kath's breath shuddered. She reached for the counter, fingers digging into the edge to steady herself. The room seemed to tilt slightly, the air suddenly too thin to breathe properly.
These weren't just surveillance photos. They were professional. Clear. Close-up. Someone had gotten close enough to capture every detail—the curve of her smile, the arch of her back, the exact shade of her lipstick.
Someone had been watching her. For weeks. Maybe longer.
"They know," she whispered, the words barely making it past her throat.
Kath's heart stuttered in her chest as Ben's silence stretched between them. She'd seen him angry before—coldly furious in the courtroom, tightly controlled when dealing with difficult clients. But this was different. This was something elemental, something that made the air around him seem to vibrate with barely contained rage.
The muscle in his cheek twitched, sharp and rhythmic—like it had nowhere else to put the fury. The folder crinkled under his grip as his knuckles went white with pressure. He wasn't looking at her anymore—his gaze was fixed on thephotographs, like he could burn them with the intensity of his stare alone.
There was fury in his silence. Not loud. Not explosive.
But lethal. The kind that made decisions that couldn't be undone.
When he finally spoke, his voice was made of steel.
"Thisdoesn't touch you."
Kath flinched—just slightly. Not from him, never from him. But from the lie. From the impossibility of his words. From the knowledge that it was already too late.
"You can't control that," she said quietly, bitterness seeping into her voice. Her fingers trembled against the counter edge.
Ben lifted his gaze then. His eyes met hers, and what she saw there made her breath catch.
