Page 129 of The Devil of Downtown

He turns then, slowly, and the impact of his gaze knocks the rest of the words out of me.

Not cold. Not warm. Something steadier, worse—hurt fused with control, a storm held inside iron walls.

“Safe,” he repeats, a bitter twist pulling at his mouth. “You were thinking about ‘safe.’ Meanwhile, I spent my morning thinking you were honest. Thinking you trusted me. Thinking I understood the woman I—”

He cuts himself off abruptly, jaw clenching hard enough I hear his teeth click.

The silence that follows is brutal.

“Dane... please,” I whisper. “I was trying to do the right thing. I gave Brody twelve hours to go to the police. And I was going to go if he didn’t. I just—”

“Needed time,” he finishes quietly. “Time to decide how much of the truth I deserved. Time to curate the version that made you look better.”

“No,” I breathe. “I wasn’t thinking about myself; that’s the last person I was thinking of.”

He looks at me then—like he’s scraping out my insides and finding nothing good—and it shreds the last scraps of hope inside me.

There’s nothing soft in his eyes. No warmth or hunger. No trace of the man who reached for me like he couldn’t help himself.

Just cold, brutal certainty.

“The truth,” he says quietly, “should never have had to be dragged out of you. You should’ve told me the moment you found out.”

His voice doesn’t rise, not even close.

And that’s what terrifies me.

“I know,” I murmur. “But I panicked. I thought if I confronted him first, if I pushed him—”

“You made a decision,” he interrupts, soft but surgical, “and it wasn’t me.”

The words sink like a stone in my chest.

“I wasn’t choosing him,” I say, the words tumbling out raw. “I was scared, and I was trying to protect everyone, and ended up protecting no one. I should have told you—I know that. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t choose you.”

The moment hangs, stretched thin.

“You can go now, Ivy. There’s nothing else left to say.”

I step forward, desperation scratching through my ribs.

“What about us?”

His expression doesn’t change.

Not even a flicker.

“There is no us. There never was.”

I flinch. Something inside me splits clean in half.

“But I thought—”

“Well,” he says, each syllable deliberate, final, “you thought wrong.”

It feels like being carved out from the inside. The edges of the room close in, suffocating me with everything he refuses to feel.

My voice splinters. “So even after all this time... you’re still protecting her.”