Page 236 of The Rules
There was a pause—brief, but long enough to make her stomach clench.
And then her mother's voice came through, warm and worn thin by worry. "We're here. We're fine. Lisa's asleep."
Katherine pressed a hand to her forehead, a wave of relief crashing over her so hard it left her breathless. She sank onto the window ledge, swallowing the sudden sting behind her eyes. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d laugh or cry.
"You're safe," she whispered, voice hoarse. "You're really there."
Bianca exhaled into the line. "We're safe. You did good, honey. Now breathe."
Katherine bit her lip. The tears came fast, burning her eyes, and she didn't even try to stop them. She nodded, even though Bianca couldn't see.
"Tomorrow night," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "I'll call. Don't answer anything else until then."
"We won't." The line clicked.
Katherine lowered the phone slowly, letting the weight of the moment settle across her chest like armor.
She stood in silence, feeling the world reorient itself around her. Lisa was safe. Her mother was safe. They were away from this mess—away from Crawford, away from danger.
Relief overwhelmed her, rolling through her body like a slow, crashing tide—too strong to ignore, too vast to contain. She pressed her palm against the window, letting the cool glass anchor her as the adrenaline began to drain, leaving her breathless.
From across the room, Julian watched her. His smirk was faint—contained, almost polite.
"Didn’t even handle it that badly," he said, tone light. Too light.
Katherine didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
She felt the shift—the quiet control in his voice. The way he measured his presence now. Yesterday, he’d pushed. Deliberately.Purposefully. It hadn’t been a loss of control. It had been the opposite.
He’d known exactly how far to go. Knew exactly what would rattle her enough to burn away the fog in her chest. To shake the fear loose.
And now he didn’t need to push again. Because the point had been made.
But her body still remembered the chill of his fingers, the ghost-pressure on her throat, the moment his tongue had dragged across his lip—and maybe, just maybe, brushed hers. Or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe her mind had filled in the rest.
It didn’t matter.
The idea of it still made her skin crawl.
Not because it hadn’t been calculated.
But because it had been.
That’s what made it terrifying.
He was too good at this.
And now, she understood why people feared Julian—not for what he did, but for what he didn’t need to do. For the precision of his methods. For the way he could read fear like a language and bend it into whatever shape he needed. His power didn’t lie in brute force.
It was in how easily he could unravel you.
And seeing him now—calm, still, withholding—letting her have this space, this silence, without a single look that could be misconstrued?
That earned something unexpected.
Respect.
