Page 135 of The Devil of Downtown

The moment she turns, the sight of her face stops me cold. Tears streak down her cheeks, her expression torn betweenfury and something far more fragile, like she’s holding herself together through sheer force of will.

My heart stutters, then lurches painfully in my chest.

“What’s wrong?” I ask the question coming out rougher than I mean it to be, already expecting the worst.

Her laugh is short, hollow, nothing like amusement. “It doesn’t concern you anymore.”

The words hit like a blow.

“You made that very clear yesterday.”

The corridor suddenly feels too narrow, the ceiling too low, as if the building itself is pressing in. “Sloane,” I say, stepping closer despite myself, “talk to me.”

She turns away again, stabbing the elevator button once, then again, then a third time, as if pressing it harder might make the doors arrive faster—or keep something from breaking loose inside her.

A flash of anger burns through me. “If this is to do with Ivy, you don’t get to shut me out.”

That’s when she finally snaps.

She lets out a brittle, furious laugh and swings back toward me, eyes blazing. “I don’t get to shut you out?” Her voice trembles, but it doesn’t weaken. “That’s rich.”

The elevator indicator flickers, still stubbornly red.

Then she says it.

“Brody’s dead.”

The world tilts.

I don’t process it—not at first. The words don’t land. They hover, meaningless, waiting for context.

“He crashed his car into a tree,” she continues, each word clipped, brutal. “And Ivy was in the car with him.”

My vision narrows violently, as if someone has pulled a lens tight around the moment.

“I don’t know where she is,” Sloane says, her voice breaking now despite her obvious effort to keep it together. “I don’t know if she’s alive. I don’t know if she’s—”

I reach out blindly and brace my hand against the wall.

The marble is cold. Solid. The only thing keeping me upright.

My heart is pounding so hard it hurts, each beat loud enough to drown out thought. Blood roars in my ears. I feel seconds away from blacking out, from collapsing right here in the corridor like a man who has just lost everything and doesn’t yet know how to breathe through it.

The elevator dings.

The doors slide open.

Sloane steps inside without looking back.

I try to follow, driven by instinct more than thought.

“I’ll drive you,” I say. “Wherever you need to go. The hospital. The station... anywhere.”

To the ends of the fucking earth, if that’s what it takes.

She doesn’t turn her head. “No.”

The doors start to close, the gap between us shrinking