Chapter 40
Katherine
The taxi pulls away, headlights streaking across the pavement before vanishing around the corner.
Kath stays still a moment longer than she should. Shoulders drawn, breath slow.
The night air brushes her skin—cool, but not unpleasant.
Not enough to raise goosebumps.
And yet... something hums beneath the quiet. A faint pull in her gut. Not fear. Not exactly. Just a whisper of tension that wasn’t there a second ago.
She brushes it off. Mostly.
But her fingers curl tighter around the strap of her bag as she turns toward the building.
Nothing moves except shadows cast by streetlights.
The familiar walk home suddenly feels foreign, like she's stepped into someone else's life.
She climbs the front steps to her building. Routine. Familiar. Automatic. The kind of movement that doesn’t require thought—just muscle memory.
The day clings to her like static: Julian’s smile, Ben’s silence, the case twisting tighter and tighter with every lead that turns to ash.
She pushes through the front door. The vestibule light flickers overhead—always does. Her hand brushes the mailbox out of habit, but she doesn’t bother opening it. Bills can wait. Justice can’t.
One flight.
Her heels echo against the worn steps, the sound hollow in the quiet building.
Two flights.
Her shoulder rolls, trying to shake the tension from her spine. It's not gone. Just buried.
Third floor—her floor.
She is looking for her key.
Then stops.
Her apartment door is open.
Not wide. Not swinging. Just… ajar.
Just enough to feel off.
Enough to make her pulse catch, her breath freeze mid-step.
A few inches. Just enough to whisper: someone was here.
Her chest tightens. Her brain trips over itself, reaching for explanations. Lisa? No—she is at home. Tammy? She has a key, but she doesn’t drop by without texting first.
No. No. No.
Crawford's warning echoes in her mind. The photo of Lisa. The veiled threat. You should be more careful about the people you care about.
She steps back. Fast. Shaky. Controlled only by adrenaline.
Her hand dives into her bag. Phone. Fingers fumbling.
Too slow. The hallway suddenly feels exposed, vulnerable. Anyone could be watching. Anyone could still be inside.
She can't go in.
Not like this. Not alone.
Her breath stutters—sharp, shallow. Fingers trembling, she fumbles for her phone. The screen lights up bright. A mess of names she doesn’t want, can’t trust.
Except one.
Only one.
The thumb hovers for half a second.
Then presses.
It rings once.
"Winters?"
Ben's voice cuts through the line, sharp and immediate. There's no drowsiness, no confusion—just instant alertness that makes Kath's chest tighten with something close to relief.
Her voice breaks—just a little. "Ben. My apartment.
The door—it's open. I didn't..." She swallows, throat tight. "I don't know if someone's still inside."
Silence follows. Just for a beat.
But she can feel the shift. The way his attention sharpens through the phone, like a physical presence wrapping around her.
"Where are you now?" His voice is clipped, lethal.
Kath glances down the stairwell, calculating escape routes. "In the stairwell, but I'm going to the corner of 7th and Harper. The coffee shop."
A breath. Then:
"Get out of there quickly. Wait in the café. I'm on my way."
Kath exhaled—sharp, shaky. Relief breaking through the adrenaline.
Because in that moment, she didn’t want to be strong.
She was just grateful—grateful that when everything started unraveling, she had someone she could call.
Someone who answered without hesitation.
◆◆◆
Kath sat in the far corner of the café, untouched coffee cooling by her elbow. The buzz of conversation around her was distant, muffled—like she was underwater. Her gaze stayed locked on the window, eyes flicking to every black car that passed.
It had been nearly half an hour.
Each minute stretched tighter across her nerves. Her foot tapped against the floor, fingers drumming restlessly on the ceramic mug. She tried not to imagine what was waiting in her apartment.
And then—finally—she saw it.
Ben’s car pulled into view, sleek and steady, slipping into a spot just across the street. Kath was already moving.
She grabbed her coat off the back of the chair and pushed through the café doors before he even had time to turn off the engine. The cold hit her instantly, but she didn’t slow.
Didn’t hesitate.
She just needed to reach him.
He didn’t move frantically, but there was nothing slow about him either—just the kind of pace that spoke of certainty.
Every motion deliberate. Controlled.
He searched her skin—not just with his hands, but with his eyes. Checking for damage. For bruises. For blood.
Kath felt something settle in her chest at his touch. The fear didn't disappear, but it retreated just enough for her to breathe again.
"I didn't go in," she said, quiet but steady.
He gave a short nod.
"Good. Let's go."
They moved as one. Up the stairs. Down the hall. Every step was louder than it should be.
Kath's pulse hammered in her throat as they approached her door. Ben positioned himself slightly in front of her—not obvious, but deliberate. Protective.
Ben drew a breath. Opened the door.
The door creaked wider, and Kath's stomach dropped as she took in the destruction.
Papers—scattered. Torn. Couch cushions—slashed open, their insides spilling like entrails. Bookshelves knocked over. Drawers yanked halfway out, gaping like broken ribs.
The television was still on the wall.
Kath stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully. She moved like she was trying not to wake something sleeping in the walls.
Her fingers trailed over the back of the couch, touching the exposed foam as if to confirm it was real. The mess was deliberate—methodical in its chaos.
The bedroom door stood open. She darted inside, heart in her throat.
Laptop? Still there. Jewelry box? Untouched. Passport. Cash. All of it.
Her pulse hammered. It wasn't confusion anymore—it was clarity. Cold, sharp clarity that made her skin prickle.
"This wasn't a robbery," Kath said quietly, her voice hollow in the ruined space. She swallowed hard. "They didn't take anything."
Ben didn't answer.
Because he already knew.
Kath watched him survey the room. He wasn't looking at the mess anymore. He was looking at the pattern. His eyes tracked methodically across the apartment, cataloging each detail with the detached precision of someone reading evidence.
"They wanted you to find it like this," Ben said, his voice low and certain.
Kath's spine stiffened. But her hands shook. She tried to hid them.
She turned away from the ruined bedroom, breath still uneven, hands barely steady. Her mind raced with implications, with possibilities—each one worse than the last. Crawford?
His people? Someone else entirely?
She moved into the kitchen—and stopped.
Ben was already there. Back to her. Still. A dark shape against the counterlight. His shoulders were rigid, his posture unnaturally tense. Something about the way he stood made her skin prickle with dread.
There was something in his hands.
He didn't turn.
"Katherine, watch this." His voice sliced through the silence—a razor wrapped in ice, each syllable carved from stone.
Her stomach knotted. It wasn't the words. It was the way he said them—like he was trying to control something dangerous beneath the surface.
She crossed the room slowly, each step feeling heavier than the last. When she reached him, he shifted just enough to show her.
A manila folder. Left open. Like it was waiting for them.
Inside—
Photographs.
Of her. Of Blondie in Crimson Bloom.
On stage. In costume. At the bar. Leaving late at night.
Kath's breath shuddered. She reached for the counter, fingers digging into the edge to steady herself. The room seemed to tilt slightly, the air suddenly too thin to breathe properly.
These weren't just surveillance photos. They were professional. Clear. Close-up. Someone had gotten close enough to capture every detail—the curve of her smile, the arch of her back, the exact shade of her lipstick.
Someone had been watching her. For weeks. Maybe longer.
"They know," she whispered, the words barely making it past her throat.
Kath's heart stuttered in her chest as Ben's silence stretched between them.
She'd seen him angry before—coldly furious in the courtroom, tightly controlled when dealing with difficult clients.
But this was different. This was something elemental, something that made the air around him seem to vibrate with barely contained rage.
The muscle in his cheek twitched, sharp and rhythmic—like it had nowhere else to put the fury.
The folder crinkled under his grip as his knuckles went white with pressure.
He wasn't looking at her anymore—his gaze was fixed on the photographs, like he could burn them with the intensity of his stare alone.
There was fury in his silence. Not loud. Not explosive.
But lethal. The kind that made decisions that couldn't be undone.
When he finally spoke, his voice was made of steel.
"This doesn't touch you."
Kath flinched—just slightly. Not from him, never from him. But from the lie. From the impossibility of his words. From the knowledge that it was already too late.
"You can't control that," she said quietly, bitterness seeping into her voice. Her fingers trembled against the counter edge.
Ben lifted his gaze then. His eyes met hers, and what she saw there made her breath catch.
There was fury, yes—but beneath it, a quiet, unshakable resolve. His expression hardened, every line of his face carved with purpose. He wasn’t just angry—he was ready. Ready to protect, to defy, to challenge anyone who dared come for her.
Lethal. Uncompromising. Burning.
"Watch me."
The words weren't a promise. They were a declaration of war.
Kath watched as Ben stood in the center of the wreckage, his shoulders taut beneath his suit jacket. Something coiled low in her gut as his gaze swept her violated home—methodical, detached. There was no fear in him. Just calculation. Precision. Something colder than control.
He wasn't shaken. Wasn't hesitating. Just... done.
"You're not staying here," said quietly, the words firm despite their softness.
Kath turned from the bedroom doorway, frowning.
"What?" She heard him. Every word. But hearing it and believing it were two different things.
Ben didn't look at her. He was already scanning corners, testing locks, eyes sharp with a kind of muscle memory that had nothing to do with law and everything to do with threat.
“They didn’t break in, Katherine. They walked in.” A pause. Then—“Like they owned the place.”
Kath stepped forward, folding her arms across her chest.
The stance was instinctive— defensive. She hated feeling cornered in her own home, hated the violation of it all.
"I'll change the locks—"
Ben cut her off with a short, humorless laugh. The sound sent a shiver through her—it wasn't amusement. It was the sound of someone who was past the point of pretending.
"Locks?" His voice sliced through the room, edged with a bitterness that coiled in Katherine's stomach like cold wire. "Katherine, they walked in here like they had a key. You think a deadbolt's going to stop them?"
She bristled at his tone, at the shadow of doubt that crept beneath his words—the implication that she couldn't handle this.
Fear she could tolerate, could swallow down like bitter medicine.
But helplessness? That sensation crawled beneath her skin like poison.
The thought of running, of surrendering to nameless men who violated her sanctuary, made her jaw clench until she tasted metal.
She wouldn't gift them her retreat, wouldn't sacrifice the last fragile threads of control still wrapped around her white-knuckled grip.
"So what's your solution?" she challenged, chin lifting slightly.
Ben finally looked at her then. His eyes were cold, his expression unreadable. When he spoke, his tone was grave—measured and absolute, the kind of voice that didn’t allow space for argument.
"You're coming with me."
Kath's spine stiffened, her body going still as Ben’s words settled between them. Not out of fear—though maybe she should’ve been—but because they meant something.
This wasn’t about strategy or practicality. This was Ben Sinclair—who had spent weeks building walls—now pulling her into his world. His home.
“To your place?” she asked, voice steadier than she felt.
Ben gave a single nod. Sharp. Final. “Until this is over. Yes.”
She hesitated. Fingers curling into her palms. And for once, the pause wasn’t about defiance. Wasn’t about testing limits. It was about how easy it would be to want this—to go with him.
To slip into the gravity of whatever this was, whatever it had always been.
“Ben, I—” she started, but the words caught. There was nothing to say that wasn’t a lie. That she didn’t need his help? She did. That she could handle this alone? Not anymore.
“Get what you need,” he said, cutting through the silence. “You’ve got ten minutes.”
The air cracked between them. Electric. Charged. A line being crossed and neither of them pretending it wasn’t.
Kath should’ve pushed back. Should’ve reminded him of the boundaries he set. But she didn’t.
Because deep down, she already knew.
This wasn’t about protection anymore.
This was war.
And standing beside him?
That was the only place left that felt like armor.