Page 54 of The Rules

The stumbling, entitled idiot was just a mask.

This is who he really is. This is what he planned all along.

She kicks out desperately, her heel scraping down his shin. The angle robs her of power, but she puts everything she has into it. His answering snarl tells her she at least made him feel it.

She rakes her nails down his forearm, carving deep, furious lines. He grunts in annoyance but barely loosens his grip.

The room spins. Grey creeps in at the edges. Fear? Lack of air? Both. She can't tell anymore. Panic claws up her throat, raw and feral.

She wrenches her head to the side and screams again—ragged, broken. “Help! Somebody, please!”

It tears from her like a dying breath, muffled and cracked, but it’s sound. It’s resistance. It’s hers.

But in the clarity that follows, reality strikes.

No one is coming.

Each second slips away, dragging her chances with it.

Her strength, her control, her last options—slipping through her fingers like sand in a storm.

And then—he was gone.

One moment, she still felt his fingers clawing under her skirt, forcing their way between her thighs, searching—violating.

The next, the weight vanished.

A crash tore through the room—splintering glass, a grunt of pain—and then silence.

Katherine gasped, lungs spasming as air rushed in too fast. Her chest heaved, tears streaking hot down her cheeks as she rolled onto her side, body trembling. Her skirt was twisted, her skin burning where he'd touched her, her breath coming in sharp, ragged pulls she couldn't control.

She tried to rise. Failed. Her limbs shook too hard to listen.

And then—Benjamin.

Sudden. Solid. Kneeling beside her. No words, no questions. Just hands—steady, grounding, there. One on her back.

The other brushing hair from her face, as if reminding her she was still real. Still here.

She collapsed against him without thinking, her fingers seizing his shirt like it was the only thing tethering her to the world. He was warm. Solid. The heat radiating off him was fury barely contained.

Her sobs came in broken gasps, her whole body shuddering with them.

Ben didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

The man was already on the ground, coughing, choking on air and blood, trying to remember how to breathe. Ben’s body blocked the light, towering over him, eyes flat, voice cold enough to blister.

“You put your hands on her.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even rage—it was the kind of quiet that came before something broke. The kind that screamed louder than any shout ever could.

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, like a storm deciding which building to tear apart first.

“I will break every fucking finger you used to touch her.”

The man whimpered— but whatever he might’ve said died in his throat.

Ian appeared in the doorway—deliberate, controlled in movement, but already burning from the inside out.