Page 48 of Falling for Mr. Ruthless (The Rules We Break #1)

I grasp her wrist, the same way she held my son's. Not threatening. A connection she's wanted for fifteen years. "Let him go, Tanya. This is between us now."

Her focus snaps back to me, hunger overriding caution. She sinks back onto the bed, closer now, knee pressing against mine. "You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that."

Behind her, Jaden slips through the doorway. I track his footsteps—quicker now, nearly running. The sound of his descent fades as I hold Latanya's gaze, as I maintain the illusion for precious seconds needed to put distance between predator and child.

Only when I hear the faint creak of the front door do I allow my mask to slip. Only then do I let her see the truth I've been hiding.

"What have you done, Tanya?"

She laughs, the sound almost genuine. "What do you mean? I picked him up from school. Like I've done a dozen times before."

"And brought him here instead of karate. Gave him something in that hot chocolate." My eyes flick to the mug in her hand. "Something from that prescription bottle downstairs."

"Just to help him rest." She sets the mug down, straightens a photo frame with precise fingers. "He gets so wound up after school. Too much sugar in the cafeteria, I've always said it."

The calm in her voice raises the hair on my arms. Not denial. Not defense. Just the casual certainty of someone who believes completely in their own twisted logic.

"Fifteen years." I don't move closer. Don't retreat. "Northwestern. My wedding. Jaden's birth. The divorce. All of it."

"I've always been there." She nods, pride warming her features. "When he wasn't. When nobody else was. I was the one who picked up the pieces."

"And took pictures of us without permission. Tracked our movements. Planned to take my son."

Something shifts in her posture—a subtle tensing, a recalibration. "You don't understand. We were perfect, Chanel. The three of us. A family. Until he came back."

The accusation lands with physical weight. Jakob. The audit. The aquarium visit. The slow gravitational pull back toward what we once were.

"You were my friend," I say, the past tense deliberate. "And I loved you. But not like this. Not at the cost of my child."

"Cost?" Her voice rises slightly, the first crack in her composure. "I would never hurt Jaden. I love him like he's my own."

"But he's not yours." The truth lands between us, sharp-edged and uncompromising. "He's mine and Jakob's. He always has been."

She flinches at Jakob's name, fingers curling against the dresser edge. "That man abandoned you both. Left you broken. I was the one who stayed. I was the one who deserved?—"

"Deserved what, Tanya?" I step forward, just once. Claiming space without threat. "My life? My child? Some fantasy where my gratitude turned into something else?"

"We could have been happy." The dreamy quality returns to her voice, gaze drifting to the photo wall. "If you'd just let him go. If you'd just seen what was right in front of you all along."

"I see it now." My voice drops lower, the truth cutting paths through years of blind trust. "Every lunch date. Every offer to babysit. Every shoulder to cry on. It wasn't friendship. It was calculation."

Her eyes snap back to mine, suddenly sharp. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare reduce what we had to that."

"What exactly did we have, Tanya? Tell me. Because I thought I had a friend. Someone who loved me for who I was, not for who she wanted me to become."

"I saw you." Her voice breaks, genuine pain bleeding through. "Really saw you. When he only saw what you could be. What you could do for him. His perfect wife. His perfect mother. His perfect auditor."

I absorb the blow, the terrible familiarity of the accusation. The same doubt that plagued me during those final months of marriage—that Jakob loved the idea of me more than my reality. That I was symbol rather than substance.

"Maybe he did, once." I acknowledge the pain without surrendering to it. "But at least he never pretended to be something he wasn't. At least he never used my trust against me."

"Used your—" She laughs, the sound sharp and wounded. "I have been the only constant in your life for fifteen years! The only person who never left!"

"Because you were waiting." The realization crystallizes as I speak it. "Waiting for the perfect moment. For me to be vulnerable enough. Lonely enough. For enough time to pass."

She moves then, a sudden shift from stillness to motion. Her hand disappears into the dresser drawer beside her, emerges holding something that catches light—a blade, small but lethal, the kind she uses for crafting projects we've done together over wine and laughter.

"He's poisoned you against me." The knife doesn't point at me yet, just rests in her open palm like a possibility. "Made you forget everything we've been to each other."

I should feel fear. Should calculate exits, defensive positions, ways to create distance. Instead, I feel only clarity—a crystal-sharp focus that narrows the world to this room, this moment, this confrontation years in the making without my knowledge.

"No one had to poison me against you." I keep my voice steady, gaze locked on hers rather than the knife. "You did that yourself the moment you decided to take my son."

"I didn't take him!" The shout erupts without warning, composure fracturing. "I saved him! From you making the same mistake twice! From you going back to a man who will just break you all over again!"

The knife rises now, pointed between us like an accusation. Her hand trembles slightly, control slipping beneath emotion too long contained.

I don't retreat. Don't flinch. Instead, I step forward, reducing the distance between us. Moving toward the threat rather than away.

"Latanya." Her full name, not the nickname born from intimacy. "Put the knife down."

"You're not listening to me." Desperation edges into her voice. "You never listen when it comes to him. It's like you can't even see what's happening."

Another step forward. Deliberate. Measured. The auditor who calculates risk for a living, who identifies weak points in systems, who knows exactly where pressure creates collapse.

"I'm listening now." I modulate my tone, not soothing but present. Engaged. "Tell me what you think I'm not seeing."

The invitation catches her off-guard. The knife point dips slightly, uncertainty flickering across her face.

"That I love you." The confession breaks from her like something long caged. "That I have always loved you. That every man you've chosen has been wrong because none of them were me."

The raw truth lands between us, stripping away pretense. Not madness. Not delusion. Just love twisted by years of silence, of proximity without possibility, of hoping for transformation that never came.

"I know." The simplicity of my acknowledgment startles her. "I've always known, somewhere beneath recognition. But Tanya—" I take another step, close enough now that the knife point nearly touches my sternum. "—love doesn't take. It doesn't manipulate. It doesn't hurt children."

"I would never hurt him." Her eyes fill, voice breaking. "I love him like my own."

"Then let us leave." My voice gentles without weakness. "Put down the knife. Let Jaden go home, where he feels safe."

"He is safe here!" The blade trembles between us. "We could be a family. The three of us. I could make you both so happy if you'd just try. If you'd just see?—"

"I see you, Tanya." I reach up slowly, hand not moving toward the knife but toward her face.

Fingertips brushing her cheek where tears have started to fall.

"I see the woman who held me when I couldn't stand.

Who celebrated every victory. Who knows how I take my coffee and which wine makes me laugh too loud. "

Her breath catches, knife lowering fractionally.

"I see the brilliant teacher who makes children believe in themselves. The friend who never let me give up." My voice remains steady, anchored in truth beneath strategy. "And I see what loving me has cost you."

The knife point drops further, her control wavering beneath recognition.

"But this—" I gesture to the wall of surveillance, the hidden obsession made manifest. "This isn't love. This is possession. This is fear that I might choose something you haven't planned for."

"He'll just hurt you again." The knife hangs forgotten at her side now. "He'll take everything and leave nothing. Like last time."

"Maybe." I don't offer false certainty. Don't pretend to know what's coming. "But that's my choice to make. My risk to take."

Something final breaks in her expression—the mask of control slipping completely to reveal the exhaustion beneath. Fifteen years of wanting. Of waiting. Of constructing an intricate fantasy that's dissolving before her eyes.

"I can't watch you destroy yourself for him again." Her voice hollows, defeat seeping in. "I can't."

"Then don't." I don't soften the truth with false comfort. "Step back. Let go. Find the part of yourself that exists outside of us."

The knife slips from her fingers, clatters against hardwood. Not surrender, but exhaustion. The collapse of something too fragile to sustain its own weight.

She sinks to the edge of the bed, shoulders curving inward. Smaller suddenly. Human rather than threat.

"What happens now?" she asks, voice distant.

I don't answer immediately. Instead, I move to the dresser, to the wall of photographs that chronicle her obsession. My fingers find the edge of one frame—a candid shot of me laughing at something off-camera, taken without my knowledge.

"Now I take my son home." I turn the frame facedown. "Now you get help. Real help."

"They'll arrest me." The reality seems to hit her with sudden force. "For taking him."

"No." The decision forms even as I speak it. "No police. No charges. Not if you leave. Not if you never contact us again."

She looks up, surprise cutting through despair. "Why would you protect me after this?"

I think of Jakob outside, waiting with contained violence. Of the destruction he could unleash with a word. Of the fifteen years that can't be erased by one day's madness.

"Because once, you were my friend." The truth costs me, but I give it anyway. "Because hatred would take more energy than I'm willing to spend on this. Because Jaden has seen enough trauma for one day."

She absorbs this, fingers twisting in her lap. "Where would I go?"

"I don't care." The words emerge without cruelty but without compromise. "As long as it's away from us."

I bend, pick up the knife, slip it into my pocket. Not threat. Insurance.

"You have twenty-four hours." I move toward the door, not turning my back completely. "After that, what happens isn't up to me."

The unspoken presence of Jakob hangs between us—the threat she knows I'm capable of restraining, but not forever. Not if she pushes.

She nods once, a gesture of acknowledgment rather than agreement. "I did love you. Not just what I wanted you to be."

"I know." The admission comes easier than expected. "That's the tragedy of it."

I back through the doorway, unwilling to turn completely away from her, even now. Even defeated.

"Goodbye, Tanya."

I don't wait for her response. Don't linger in the doorway for final words or false promises. Just pull the door closed, listen for the soft click of the latch, then turn toward the stairs.

Jaden waits at the bottom, backpack clutched against his chest like armor. His eyes track my descent, searching for answers I'm not ready to give, for stability I need to reconstruct.

"Time to go, baby." I hold out my hand, steady despite the tremor building beneath my skin.

He takes it without hesitation, fingers curling into mine with complete trust. The feeling cuts deeper than any knife—the faith of a child who believes his mother can fix anything, can face any danger, can walk through fire and emerge unburned.

I guide him toward the front door, past the photos I'll never look at the same way again, past the couch where we've shared countless glasses of wine and confidences. My free hand finds the doorknob, turns it with quiet precision.

Outside, Jakob stands exactly where I left him, body coiled with contained violence, eyes fixed on the door. Waiting. Watching. Trusting against every instinct.

The moment he sees Jaden, something breaks in his expression—relief so profound it transforms his face. He drops to one knee, arms opening without words.

Jaden hesitates, looking up at me for permission. I nod once, releasing his hand.

He runs forward, collides with his father's chest, small arms wrapping around Jakob's neck. Jakob's eyes close briefly, face pressing into our son's hair, arms enfolding him with fierce protection.

Over Jaden's head, Jakob's gaze finds mine. Questions he doesn't voice. Assessments he doesn't share. Just raw gratitude and something deeper—recognition of the strength it took to walk through that door alone. To face the threat without him.

I move toward them slowly, legs suddenly unsteady as adrenaline begins to ebb. As the gravity of what just happened—what could have happened—settles into my bones.

Jakob's arm extends, opening the circle of protection to include me without words. Without demand. Simply offering space I can choose to enter or reject.

I step into his embrace, into the shelter of his strength, into the warmth of his gratitude. Not surrender. Not dependency. Just the conscious choice to accept connection when I need it most.

His arm closes around my waist, solid and certain. Jaden between us, safe. Protected. Whole.

We stand together on the sidewalk, three people bound by blood and choice and history. A family fractured but not broken. Damaged but not destroyed.

Tomorrow will bring questions. Explanations. Decisions about what happens next, about whether the bridge between past and future can bear our weight.

But today—in this moment—we are simply survivors of the same storm. Holding each other against winds that tried and failed to tear us apart.

And for now, that's enough.