Chapter 28
Katherine
The edge of the bed barely supports her weight, spine slumped, hair tangled from restless hands and darker thoughts. The laptop balances in her lap, its cold blue glow casting long shadows across eyes that haven’t known sleep—only regret, and the things that come after.
She feels wrung out—like every nerve was twisted and released, leaving behind a body that no longer fits. As if she’s wearing a life tailored for someone else. A dull ache pulses between her shoulder blades, tension coiled so tight it refuses to unravel, no matter how she shifts.
But her mind? Her mind won't stop. It calculates, analyzes, dissects every moment with surgical precision, cutting deeper with each thought.
You still have to eat. You still have to work. You still have to keep going.
She scrolls. Job board after job board. Firm after firm.
Big names. Small ones. Boutique firms. Contract gigs.
Her fingertips press against the trackpad with mechanical precision, the rhythm of rejection becoming familiar.
Every description feels sharp. Unsafe. Each requirement and qualification a blade against her throat. Words like "team player" and "professional conduct" make her stomach clench, acid rising.
He could make a call. Just one. Whisper something. Laugh in someone's ear. And then it's over before it starts.
Her fingers hover over a 'Submit Application' button.
They don't move. She can't. They remain suspended, trembling slightly, caught in the gravitational pull of consequence.
Her pulse throbs in her wrist, each beat a reminder of what she's lost.
Benjamin Sinclair doesn't need to blacklist me. All he has to do is exist in the same industry.
She sees his face again. That final look—cold, brutal, unforgiving.
The way he tossed that Plan B box on the desk like it was proof she couldn't be trusted to breathe.
The precise, calculated movement of his hand.
The contempt in those green eyes that had once looked at her with something else entirely.
The memory makes her chest constrict, lungs refusing to expand fully.
He hated me. He meant it.
The thought doesn't come with drama—it just sits. Heavy. Settled. Like something that’s been true for a long time, only now she finally let herself say it.
Her fingers tremble. A cold sweat clings to her lower back, soaking into the cotton like shame she can’t scrub out. She doesn’t cry. Not at first. She just... folds.
Closes the laptop. Quietly. Like the click might hold the rest of her together. It doesn’t.
A sound slips loose—less a sob, more a broken breath too jagged to swallow. It escapes before she can stop it, cracking the silence wide open.
Then stillness.
She stays there. Sitting. Breathing in the dark. The laptop closed. No job. No calls. No Ben. Just the quiet echo of too many choices she can’t take back.
She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t break anything.
She already broke. And now, all that’s left is her.
Still. Silent. Staring at the phone in her hand.
The screen blurs with unshed tears. No hesitation.
No second-guessing. Just a name on the screen—then the call.
Please pick up.
One ring. Two. Three—
"Honey? What happend?" Tammy's voice comes through, warm and teasing.
The sound of her voice nearly wrecks her. A familiar rhythm and kindness that makes Kath's throat close up, her chest tightening with the effort not to completely fall apart.
"I fucked up, Tammy," she manages, her voice hoarse, cracking at the edges.
There's no pretense left. No armor. Just that one sentence hanging between them, raw and exposed.
"I really, really fucked up," says, and then she's crying, shoulders shaking as everything she's been holding back finally breaks free.
Tammy doesn't rush her. Doesn't try to fix it immediately.
She just waits, her presence steady on the other end of the line. "It's okay," she murmurs occasionally. "Take your time."
Her voice a gentle anchor while Kath struggles to breathe through the tears.
When the worst of it passes, when Kath can finally draw a full breath again, Tammy speaks.
"I figured. But tell me everything."
"Tammy, I—”
Her voice breaks before it even becomes a word. Kath sits on the bed, phone pressed so hard to her ear it might shatter.
Her hands won’t stop shaking. She doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t blink. Just listens to the silence on the other end, hoping Tammy won’t hang up.
And then everything spills. Ugly. Out of order. Real.
She wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie—inside out, she realizes vaguely, the old coffee stain near the cuff catching her eye like it always does.
The scent of jasmine still lingers in the room. The glow of her desk lamp cuts softly through dust.
Her breath stutters, catches. Then slows—barely.
Something ordinary. Something that doesn’t ache.
“The club... the mask... him. It was supposed to be nothing. Just money. Just control. But then it wasn’t.
And I knew—God, Tam, I knew—that the second I started wanting it, I was fucked.
I let him in. I let him touch parts of me I didn’t even know were real anymore, and now I don’t know how to scrub him out of my skin. ”
She laughs. Short. Empty. It sounds like someone else's voice.
“You know what I saw in his eyes?”
The silence stretched while she steadied herself, teeth sunk into her lip.
“Like I was maggots crawling over something once beautiful.”
Her voice cracked. “Like he couldn’t look at me without wanting to vomit.”
Her breath hiccups out of her chest. She presses a palm to her sternum like she could keep it all in if she just holds tight enough.
“I didn’t just lie, Tam. I let him believe one thing while I lived another. I gave him Blondie’s truth—then looked him in the eye as Katherine and pretended I didn’t even like him. That wasn’t just a mask. That was betrayal.”
Silence stretches. She swallows it.
“He trusted me. Maybe not with words, but with... with that look, you know? Like I was more than what I sold. Like I was worth seeing. And I turned that into a trick. A goddamn performance.”
Her body curls in on itself, like if she gets small enough she can disappear into the guilt.
“I hate myself for it. Not in a poetic way. Not like, oh poor me, lesson learned. No. I hate myself like I want to peel out of my own skin. Like I don’t deserve the air I’m using.”
A beat. Then quieter:
“And now there’s Crawford.”
Her voice wavers.
“He sent me a photo of Lisa. Lisa, Tam. My sister. He found her. He watched her. I don’t know how. I don’t know when.
But I saw the timestamp. He knows what she wore that day.”
Silence swells on the line.
“I thought the worst was losing him,” Kath whispers.
“But this... this is something else. This is what happens when you rot yourself from the inside out. This is what’s left.”
The steady sound of Tammy’s breathing through the phone was the only thing holding her together.
Why didn’t I just tell him?
The thought burned behind her eyes like acid. She could’ve been honest. She could’ve stopped it. But she hadn’t. She’d let it spiral—let herself feel things. And now all she could do was try to survive the wreckage.
There was a long silence. Then Tammy finally spoke, her voice quiet, low, and heartbreakingly kind.
“…You loved him, didn’t you.”
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t judgment. Just understanding.
Kath’s throat closed up. She couldn’t say the word—not out loud. But Tammy already knew.
“I could hear it,” she continued softly. “In your voice. In the way you talked about him when you thought you weren’t.”
She blinked, tears rising again. Hot. Immediate. The kind that came from being seen too clearly.
“I’m not going to tell you what you did was okay,” Tammy said.
“You already know it wasn’t. But Kath… I also know your heart.
You weren’t trying to manipulate him. You were trying to protect yourself.
You’ve been surviving for so long, you don’t even know what it looks like to trust someone until it’s too late. ”
A soft sound broke from Kath’s throat, part sob, part laugh—bitter and small.
“And now I’ve ruined the only thing that ever felt real,”
she whispered.
Tammy didn’t rush to comfort. She let the weight of that settle before replying, her voice like a warm blanket pulled gently over bruised skin.
“You made a mistake. A huge one. But that doesn’t mean you’re unworthy of love, honey. It just means you’re human. And scared. And trying.”
Another beat. A breath.
“And if he ever cared about the real you… not just Blondie… then maybe, someday, he’ll see you’re more than the worst thing you’ve done.”
The words unraveled her. Quietly. Gently. Exactly the way she needed.
Katherine's fingers tightened around her phone, Tammy's voice suddenly sharp with purpose.
"Listen... come work for me."
She went still, her breath caught in her throat. Her mind reeled, trying to process the words that had just cut through her misery. She blinked rapidly, certain she'd misheard.
"What?" she managed, the single word barely audible.
"You need a job. I need someone smart, someone I trust," Tammy continued, her voice calm and unwavering. "It's a win-win."
And it was. Katherine's mind raced through the possibilities. Working for Tammy meant no office politics. No Ben.
No secrets. No constant fear of being discovered. Just honest work with someone who already knew everything about her.
But she couldn't move. Her body felt frozen, caught between relief and something else—something that felt dangerously like disappointment.
"But if you do..." Tammy's voice grew quieter, more serious. "You have to let the Crawford thing go."
It wasn't a suggestion. It was a boundary. A line in the sand that Tammy was drawing between them.
"What?" Her breath caught again, the question hanging in the silence.
"No more digging. No more risks," Tammy said—firmer now. "This case already got inside you, Kath. Don’t let it take you down with it. I’m worried."
Kath’s stomach flipped. The warning was gentle, spoken with care—but it still landed like a slap. The idea of walking away from her father’s case, from the truth she’d chased for so long, felt unbearable.
But the truth? She was tired. So fucking tired of fighting.
Of losing. Of watching everything she built fall apart.
“I just… I need time,” she said softly, her voice fraying at the edges.
“Take it. I mean it,” Tammy replied, her tone easing, but still sharp with concern. “Just—take care of yourself, okay?”
This was the part where she should’ve breathed easier. Should’ve believed in redemption.
But all she felt was the ache of knowing she didn’t deserve it.
“My offer stands,” Tammy added, quieter now. “Anytime. Any day.”
Kath didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because there was a war inside her—two forces pulling in opposite directions, both too loud to ignore.
I want peace, she thought, eyes closing. I want justice.
I don’t think I get both.