Page 127 of The Devil of Downtown

“I’m calm,” I say, even though the words vibrate with something feral.

“Promise me you won’t—”

“I’m done with promises,” I cut in, sharper than I intend.

“She didn’t know,” Julian tries again.

“We don’t know that,” I fire back. “Just because Brody walked out on her doesn’t mean she was blind.”

Julian drags a hand through his hair, shoulders sagging under the weight of everything neither of us has said.

“Why are you suddenly being so reasonable?” I demand. “You wanted names. You wanted answers. You pushed for this.”

Something in him buckles.

“I’m trying not to lose it, Dane.” His voice goes raw, splintering around the edges. “Do you think I don’t want to take this guy and smash him from this side of the city to the next? I do. God, I do. But that won’t solve anything.”

And there it is—a fracture in him I haven’t seen since the night we buried Mom.

My anger pauses, not disappearing, just... redirecting.

Because ifIlose it, he will too. And one of us has to stay upright.

The realization settles heavily in my chest: I need to be the calm one.

Not calm as in gentle—calm as in controlled enough to keep Julian from detonating.

But the fury doesn’t fade; it refines into something more contained, something colder.

“Call Dad,” I say, steady now.

Julian nods once, still shaking, and heads for the door. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he mutters before leaving.

The silence after he’s gone feels glacial, brittle enough to shatter with one wrong breath.

A breath seizes in my chest. I brace my hands on the desk, head bowed for a moment—not to steady myself, but to drag the fury inward, pack it tight where it won’t spill onto the only person who still has my back.

Julian has asked me to stay calm.

Fine.

I’ll be calm.

Calm is easy when you’ve hit a point of impact so deep that nothing moves anymore. Calm is easy when you’ve learned to weaponize it.

But the truth sits hollow in my chest. For the first time, I’m no longer sure I can trust the woman I want more than my next breath.

Chapter twenty-eight

Ivy

By the time rehearsals finish, I’m so strung out I can’t think straight. Jennie’s pale face as she showed me the headline is still burning behind my eyes. The moment I saw it—those awful words, the twisted fragments of truth laid out for the world—I knew I had to go to Dane. I couldn’t sit with it another second. I couldn’t let him suffer alone, wondering, spiraling, believing the worst.

My pulse stays frantic and uneven for the entire cab ride, every stoplight dragging like punishment. All I can think about is him—how he must be suffering, how the news must have gutted him, how he must feel betrayed from every angle.

When I finally step inside the lobby of Black Capital, I’m not sure my legs will carry me far enough to reach the security desk, let alone him.

Two guards look up as I approach. One of them straightens slightly.