Page 49 of The Rules

His voice dropped, soft as a whisper. "I'd hate to see you waste your potential."

And then—the door clicked shut behind him.

Silence enveloped Kath, and this time, she let it. Not because it brought comfort—but because it confirmed what she already knew. This wasn’t about a file. It never was.It was a message.

A warning. A reminder, delivered straight to her door in a perfectly tailored suit. And the worst part? It landed.

Right where he wanted it to.

Her fingers tightened around the folder's edges, her breath coming too fast, too shallow. She should be furious. Should be raging. But instead? She was scared. And she hated that most of all.

"Fuck." The word barely left her lips, a whisper, a confession. Crawford walked out the door. But the fear stayed behind.

Made itself comfortable. Like it planned to settle in.

Chapter 14

Katherine

Sleep eluded Katherine, leaving her adrift in a dark sea of half-consciousness. Each time she neared the surface of slumber, memories of the previous night pulled her down like an anchor around her throat, crushing the air from her lungs with glacial pressure.

A pervasive wrongness infested Katherine's apartment. What once sheltered now threatened—her sanctuary transformed into foreign territory where every sound arrived as a warning. Floorboards released mournful sighs beneath the weight of steps that shouldn't exist. Outside, vehicles no longer passed but stalked the midnight streets with predatory patience. The refrigerator's mechanical pulse had twisted into something sinister—a hushed, knowing murmur that wound through the shadows and curled against her ear with terrible familiarity, as though it had learned all her secrets and was preparing to speak them aloud.

She told herself she was overreacting. Crawford hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t even raised his voice. He didn’t have to.

And he won.

She shifted beneath the covers, staring at the dark ceiling, hating the way her chest tightened with every inhale.

Katherine's mind scoffed at her body’s betrayal.“Get over it.”Her muscles didn't listen. Her hands still shook when she pushed them through her hair.

But her body didn't believe. Muscles still held the tension of the night and she was still awake when her alarm rang.

By the time she gets to work, the rhythm is off. The world moves two beats ahead of her, and she can’t catch up.

One second, she’s staring at a case file. The next, she’s back in her apartment—Crawford’s voice curling around herlike mustard gas, corrosive and inescapable, something she can’t shake.

She tries to focus. She really does. But fear doesn't listen to logic. Her fingers tighten around her pen when she reads the same email three times. Her coffee goes cold before she even realizes. Kath forces herself to answer calls, to take notes, to pretend like everything is fine. But it's not.

Lisa knows. Of course she does. When Kath calls her during lunch, her fingers tremble against the phone, each word balanced on a knife's edge of composure. The facade crumbles with every syllable.

"You okay?" Lisa asks, her voice gentle as a probe searching for a wound.

Kath's breath catches. The truth sits like a stone in her throat, demanding release. But then—she forces it down, swallows it whole. The confession dies unspoken.

"Yeah. Just tired." The lie slides from her lips, wrapped in artificial lightness.

Lisa doesn't press further, but the silence between them yawns open, pregnant with unasked questions. And she knows—Lisa sees through the paper-thin deception. Hell, even Kath can't sustain the fiction she's crafting for herself. By the time evening crawls in.

Katherine stepped into Crimson Bloom late, her movements dragging like she was wading through something unseen.

She told herself it was just exhaustion. A lie she almost believed.

The second she entered, the familiar neon glow settled over her skin—warm, inviting. Safe. Or at least, it should have been. But tonight, everything felt different. The bass was too deep, the air too thick. And Ian—

Ian was watching her. Not lazy. Not amused. Just sharp.

And then—