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Chapter 577
Chapter 577:
“It fits his logic entirely,” she said, her voice carrying no inflection whatsoever. “As long as he achieves his objective, he doesn’t care whose rules he breaks or whose lives he destroys p>
Sloane stopped pacing and looked at her. A sharp ache of sympathy moved through her chest — but it was June’s next movement that caught her completely off guard.
June’s gaze had shifted. Her eyes had narrowed and fixed, not on Sloane, but on Sloane’s phone lying screen-up on the corner of Easton’s desk. A notification banner had just lit the display — a preview from a secure messaging app, sender listed as Julian — and the visible text, though fragmented, was enough.
…can’t believe he fought C over you in CA… entire market is burning…
The words were cryptic to most. To a mind like June’s, they assembled instantly. CA. C for Crawford. The market eruption. A fight. Over her.
The pieces locked together with horrifying speed. Crawford’s sudden recall to New York. The market war that had ignited out of nowhere. Julian’s desperate visit to Sloane that morning. Every thread connected to the same point.
“Sloane,” June said. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through the air like a blade. “What happened in California p>
Sloane’s blood went cold. She looked at her phone, saw the message, and every drop of color left her face. She snatched it up with trembling hands.
“Nothing — it’s just Julian rambling,” she said, shoving the phone into her purse. “He’s on painkillers. For his ribs. He doesn’t know what he’s p>
“Don’t lie to me.” June took one slow, deliberate step forward. The pressure of her presence pushed against Sloane like a physical wall. “He fought Crawford. Because of me. Tell me everything. Right now p>
Sloane looked into those sharp, unblinking eyes and felt every one of her defenses collapse simultaneously.
𝖰𝘂𝗮𝗅i𝘁𝘆 t𝘳а𝗻𝘀𝗅𝗮𝘁𝘪oո𝘴 𝗈𝘯 ѕ.𝘤𝘰𝘮
She let out a long, defeated exhale. Her shoulders dropped. And then, like a dam giving way, she told June everything.
Julian appearing at the gallery that morning. The bloody, animalistic brawl between Cole and Crawford in a private club. The market catastrophe currently dismantling New York’s economy — all of it originating from Cole’s conviction, after seeing an Instagram video, that something had happened between June and Crawford on the West Coast.
June listened to every word in absolute silence.
Sloane watched her face nervously, bracing for the moment it would crack — for the sight of old wounds reopening.
Instead, a soft sound broke the silence.
A laugh.
A low, quiet chuckle at first, then growing sharper and louder, edged with the most cold and unapologetic sarcasm Sloane had ever heard from another human being.
“He genuinely believes throwing tens of billions of dollars at a trading screen proves his ownership over me?” June said, her laughter laced with frost. “He thinks crashing the market cancels out bailing out murderers p>
The laughter stopped as cleanly as it had started. Her eyes went flat.
“He doesn’t love anyone,” June said, delivering the verdict with the detached finality of a coroner. “He only loves his own pathetic, fragile need for control p>
The office door slammed open.