The Rules We Break

Chapter 1: The Bar

The bar was quiet for a Thursday evening, the kind of place where the lighting was dim enough to blur the edges of bad decisions. A jazz trio played in the corner, their soft, wandering melodies barely competing with the low murmur of conversation and the occasional clink of glass against wood. Daniel Reyes sat at a secluded booth near the back, his fingers tapping idly against his whiskey tumbler, his green eyes fixed on the entrance. He had already been waiting for twenty minutes.

He wasn’t worried she wouldn’t show. Olivia Langley wasn’t the type to back down from anything, least of all an unexpected summons from her best friend’s husband.

She arrived as he expected, looking like the epitome of an edgy college lesbian. The sort who’d gone through a goth phase and never really given it up. Olivia might have been a lawyer now, working in her fathers firm, but she still maintained that carefully curated air of defiance. Dark jeans, a leather jacket over a fitted black blouse, tailored trousers that cut clean lines down to polished boots, and heavy eyeliner that only emphasized the sharpness of her hazel eyes. Her short, dark hair was tousled just enough to look effortless but intentional. She had Double-pierced ears and a silver hoop in her nose, the only piece of her goth past she refuses to give up, no matter how much her father’s firm disapproved of it.

She spotted him from across the bar, and floated through with that same effortless sneer of superiority she had always had. Olivia may have thought that she was above the frivolity that her families money afforded her, but she had always had that manner of looking down on Daniel, a self made man.

When she slid into the seat across from him, she gazed at him, hazel eyes staring coldly at him. “Well … this is new,” she said to him. “You and I don’t do one on ones,” she said to him.

Daniel didn’t speak, he just quietly watched her for the longest moment. Just watching her, green eyes of his settling on her so eerily that it made her shift in her seat.

The bartender approached, and Olivia ordered a gin and tonic without looking at the menu. When the man walked away, she exhaled sharply, “Well? What’s this about?”

Daniel swirled his drink, the ice clinking against the glass. Then, finally, he lifted his gaze to hers, “Do you feel guilty at all?” He said a quiet seething rage behind those words.

She raised an eyebrow looking at him for a moment. She noticeably became stiff, fingers curling into fists, “What the hell are you talking about, Daniel?” She asked eyes darting back and forth from him to the door.

Daniel leaned forward slightly, his voice steady, deliberate. “Do you feel guilty, Olivia? At all? For what you’ve done?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific, asshole,” she said.

Daniel let out a short, humorless chuckle. “Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.” He tilted his head, watching her. “You’re a lot of things, Langley. A calculating bitch, a spoiled brat who slums it in rebellion against her daddy’s money, but dumb? No. You’re too sharp for that.”

Olivia’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Look I don’t know whatever conspiracy you’ve cooked up in that pea brain of yours but-“

“I know, Olivia,” the words were calm, but final. A **** sentence.

Olivia went completely still. For the first time since she walked in, she didn’t have an immediate comeback. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

Daniel watched her reaction with measured patience, letting her sit in the weight of what he had just said. He could see the calculations in her head, the way she was already thinking of ways to talk her way out of this.

“I don’t know what you think you know,” she said after a beat, her voice controlled but sharper now.

“Shut up.” Daniel didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t get the luxury of raising his voice. He just reached inside his jacket pocket and retrieved his phone. Olivia could have left then, she could have just walked away, but a morbid sense of curiosity and dread compelled her to stay. To watch the footage, the unmistakeable image of her and Samantha, bodies entwined, their hands tangled in each other’s hair, their mouths pressed together.

“Jesus, Daniel,” she muttered, rubbing her temple. “What are you spying on your wife now? That’s pretty damn pathetic.”

Daniel leaned back, watching her with unsettling calm. “What’s pathetic,” he said smoothly, “is fucking your your best friend, and thinking no one would notice.”

Olivia’s jaw clenched, but she **** a smirk. “You must be really **** if you think this is the way to handle whatever issues you and Samantha are having.”

“Deflection won’t work here, Olivia. You and I both know what this is.” He gestured to the photos. “So let’s skip the part where you try to act like I’m imagining things.”

The bartender returned, setting Olivia’s gin and tonic in front of her. She ignored it.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Olivia tapped her fingers against the glass, considering her next move. She was good too good at keeping her expression neutral. But Daniel knew better.

She wasn’t rattled yet. But she was thinking. Which was good.

“So what now?” Olivia finally said, crossing her arms. “What’s your grand plan, Daniel? Confront me in a dark bar and hope I break down crying? Hope I beg for forgiveness?” She shook her head. “Let’s not waste each other’s time. I’m not sorry. If anything I’m pretty damn proud. You’ve been cuckolded, and the only thing you can do about it is sit here and stew in it.”

Daniel didn’t react. He just took another slow sip of whiskey. “What about Marissa?”

The shift was instant. Olivia’s smirk faltered, her posture tightening. For the first time that night, her confidence didn’t look so bulletproof. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table, grip tightening just enough to betray her.

Daniel leaned forward slightly, his voice quiet, almost curious. “Does she know?” He tilted his head. “Or is she just as blind as I was?”

Olivia’s jaw clenched. “Don’t.”

Daniel smiled, slow and sharp. “That’s what I thought.” Daniel smiled. “This isn’t about making you feel guilty. It’s about consequences. And trust me, Olivia, this is just the beginning.”

Olivia exhaled through her nose, the muscle in her jaw twitching. “What do you want?”

Daniel tilted his head. “We’ll get to that. But first, I just wanted you to know that I know.” He gestured to the photos again, tapping them lightly with his fingertips. “And that you don’t control how this plays out anymore. I do.”

For the first time that night, Olivia didn’t have a comeback.

And Daniel savored the silence.