Chapter 36
Benjamin
Ben sat across from Joshua, his fingers idly tapping against the conference table.
The afternoon light filtered through the blinds, casting thin bars of gold across the stack of files between them.
He nodded occasionally, making appropriate sounds of acknowledgment as Joshua moved through the progress reports.
His body was present. His focus was not.
His mind kept drifting—back a few nights, to the image burned behind his eyes. Kath, asleep at her desk, curled beneath his jacket. The slow, even breaths. The dried tear tracks on her cheeks. The way she’d pressed her face into the fabric, chasing comfort without even knowing where it came from.
That was three days ago.
And somehow, the moment still lived in his chest like a splinter he hadn’t figured out how to pull.
"—and the Thompson deposition went better than expected," Joshua was saying, flipping through his notes. "We should have the transcripts by Thursday."
Ben made a noncommittal sound, eyes on the document in front of him, but seeing none of it.
The meeting room felt too quiet. Too controlled. And still, his thoughts lingered in the shadow of that night—until Joshua spoke again.
"Oh, and Winters handled the witness meeting today for the Sterling case. She'll file the report herself."
Ben stilled.
The pen in his hand froze mid-stroke. His grip didn’t shift, but something in his entire posture changed—sharp, alert, lethal.
"Really?" he asked, voice cool, measured. Carved from stone. "She handled it?"
Not requested. Not cleared. Not approved.
Handled.
Joshua nodded, oblivious to the subtle crack in the atmosphere. "Yeah, she said she had it covered. Spent all morning on it."
All morning. No message. No heads-up. No permission.
Ben exhaled slowly and set the pen down with the kind of careful control that warned—if anything snapped next, it wouldn’t be the pen.
She’d broken a rule.
And worse—she’d done it like she thought he wouldn’t notice.
"Anything else I should know?" Ben asked, his tone perfectly controlled despite the cold fury building beneath his skin.
Josh glanced up, finally sensing something off. His brow furrowed slightly. "No, that's everything. Is there a problem with Winters taking the meeting?"
Ben's lips curved into something that resembled a smile but held no warmth. "Not at all. Thank you for the update."
She had deliberately gone behind his back. Had broken one of his most explicit rules. Had thought she could get away with it.
Ben stalked down the hallway, his pace measured, each step a controlled statement of intent. The office buzzed around him, but he registered none of it—not the greetings, not the questions, not the subtle shift in atmosphere as associates scrambled out of his path.
His focus had narrowed to a single point: Katherine Winters and her deliberate defiance.
He'd given her rules. Clear, explicit boundaries. And she'd chosen to break them, thinking he wouldn't notice. Thinking she could manipulate the situation and slip through the cracks of his control.
The thought made something dark coil in his chest. Not just anger—something deeper.
When he reached her office, he didn't knock. Didn't announce himself. Just turned the handle and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him with a soft click that echoed in the sudden silence.
She didn't flinch when he walked in.
Because she was expecting him.
Ben's expression tightened as he observed her—the careful way she continued writing, the deliberate calm in her posture. She'd known he would come. Had calculated this entire scenario, right down to her unbothered expression when she finally looked up.
Her gaze met his—steady, unreadable. No guilt. No apology. Just that maddening composure he wanted to shatter one controlled breath at a time.
He didn’t say hello. Didn’t ask how her day went.
"Tell me what you did," Ben said, voice low and lethal.
The air changed—tightened—sharp and heavy, as if the walls themselves were bracing for impact. He remained by the door, unmoving, his presence a live wire drawn taut across the room.
He studied her. Cold. Controlled. Coiled.
Let her talk. Let her reach for whatever thread of justification she thought she had.
Because when she finished?
He’d show her what it meant to cross a line carved in blood.
Kath’s fingers curled around the armrest—slow, deliberate. Composed, at first glance. But he caught it in her eyes: the flicker of tension, the steel behind the stubborn tilt of her chin.
"I met with the witness," she said quietly. "Or—I tried to.
He didn’t show."
Ben exhaled hard through his nose.
"You went alone," he said, voice low.
She nodded once. “You said it probably wouldn’t lead anywhere.”
"So you decided to test that theory—without telling me?"
Her shoulders pulled back. "I didn’t want to bother you with it. You said the lead was dead. I just… I thought maybe there was a chance.”
Ben stared at her. No smirk. No cutting remark. Just heat pulsing beneath his skin, fury coiled tight in his chest—not because of the broken rule, but because of what it meant.
"You went alone," he repeated, quieter this time, like saying it again would help him make sense of it. "Jesus, Winters."
He moved without thinking, crossing to her desk in a few long strides. His hands hit the edge of the table—not hard, but enough to make her flinch.
"You don’t do that," he snapped, voice cracking under the weight of it. "Not with a case like this. Not with him involved."
She looked up at him then. No arrogance. No smugness. Just guilt—raw and flickering across her face like a warning flare.
"I didn’t think he’d show," she said. "I wasn’t trying to—"
"But he could’ve." His hands clenched into fists on the desk. "And what then? What the hell would you have done if you were wrong?"
Silence stretched. Her throat bobbed. And he saw it—that hesitation. That moment where she finally realized this wasn’t just about disobedience.
It was about danger. Real. Present.
He exhaled again, this time slower, shakier. The anger hadn’t left him. But now it sat beside something else. Something colder.
Fear.
"You don’t get to make that call alone," he said, quieter now. "Not anymore."
Ben stared at her, the silence stretching so long it became oppressive.
"You want to run around behind my back? Fine. There’ll be consequences."
Kath’s chin lifted—defiant, defensive—but her eyes flickered. She knew that tone. The one he used when he was about to cut deep.
Ben’s gaze dropped for a fraction of a second—enough to make her feel it—then returned to hers, unblinking.
“Starting tomorrow, you’ll wear the same kind of underwear you wore at Crimson. Every day. Under your suits. In this office.”
Kath’s breath caught, a flash of disbelief skimming across her features. “Are you serious?”
He smiled. Slow. Razor-sharp.
“Oh, I’m dead serious.”
She opened her mouth, maybe to argue, maybe to laugh, but he cut her off—soft, brutal:
“Since you want to blur the lines so badly, I’ll make sure you remember exactly where they are. Every. Damn. Day.”
He leaned in then, voice dropping to something darker.
“You’ll feel it all day. And I’ll know. While you sit across from me in meetings, while you try to act like you’re not squirming. That’s your punishment. You wanted to make your own rules?” He smiled wider. “Now you wear mine.”
She didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
And Ben?
He just watched her. Drank it in.
Because that wasn’t just compliance in her silence. That was memory. Shame. Want.
All tangled together.
Exactly as intended.
◆◆◆
The lights were low. The city hummed beyond the windows, blurred and distant.
Ben poured himself a drink—neat, efficient. But the glass just sat there, untouched. Sweating on the counter.
His mind was on Kath. On her recklessness. On the rule she broke without blinking. The image of her sitting at her desk, defiant and unrepentant, replayed in his thoughts. She'd met a witness alone. Deliberately kept it from him. Violated their agreement without hesitation.
She'd worn that look—the same one she'd given him when she was in his lap at the club. Like she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
But deeper than that—beneath the irritation—was frustration. Real frustration.
Because it had been weeks now. And they'd gotten nowhere.
Every lead? Dead. Every potential witness? Ghosted. Every time they got close—close enough to breathe on the truth—it slipped away.
Someone was tying off every thread before they could pull.
Ben rubbed the back of his neck, jaw tight, eyes scanning the same half-dozen documents he'd read too many times.
The evidence was there, fragmented and incomplete. Patterns that hinted at Crawford's corruption, at the manipulation of Niel Winters' case. But nothing concrete. Nothing that would hold up.
They were stuck.
And he knew it.
That's when the thought came. Sharp. Unwelcome.
Julian.
His name didn't come with comfort. It came with consequences.
Ben glanced at his phone. Didn't reach for it.
Not yet.
It hadn't started with the case. It had started long before that.
Ben was already interning—eager, idealistic, obsessed with following in their parents' footsteps. The Sinclair name had meant something. For three generations, they'd been lawyers, judges, advocates. Fighters for truth. Believers in justice.
To Ben, it was a calling.
To Julian?
It was a fucking joke.
He remembered the way Julian had looked at him that summer—fresh suit, new badge, chasing courtrooms like they were cathedrals.
"You really think you're going to change the system?"
Julian had laughed, sharp and scathing. "Ben, the system was never built to be fair. It was built to protect power. You're not noble. You're just another cog."
Ben had tried to argue. Had thrown words like justice, ethics, responsibility.
Julian had just rolled his eyes and walked away.