Page 117 of I See You

Jules stood, the weight of his warning heavy in the room. Hassan rose too, though his body felt heavier than it had in years. His fingers were still trembling—he kept curling them into fists, trying to hold onto some form of control.

“Don’t let these new-money, green-ass niggas be the reason you get taken out,” Jules said, staring him down. “I didn’t raise you for this shit to end in handcuffs or a coffin. You smarter than that.”

They dapped up, and just like that, Jules was gone. But the room didn’t feel empty. Not to Hassan.

The silence was thick with memory. The pictures were still sitting on the desk like a curse. The image of his mother’s lifeless eyes, her body crumpled beside the man she died for. The man who made that choice for her. The rage that turned ten-year-old Hassan into a killer. Now it was coming full circle. His ghosts weren’t staying buried anymore. For the first time in his life, Hassan didn’t know if revenge hadbeenworththecost.Andforthefirsttime...hewasthinkingit might be him paying the final price.

Hassan’s blood boiled hotter with each breath, the smoke pouring from his lips doing nothing to calm the storm inside him. The blunt trembled between his fingers, useless against the explosion bubbling in his chest. His bipolar was slipping past the leash he fought so hard to keep tight. His pulse roared in his ears like a warning, his vision tunneled in rage. Then—just like that—they appeared.

Two boys sat across from him in silence. Identical in the eyes, the jaw, the build—only different in age. Six and ten. Both of them were him. Or what used to be him. One soaked in his parents' blood, wide- eyed and blank. The other bathed in the crimson of the man he’d torn apart piece by piece. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t blink. They just stared.

“Not you getting weak,” the ten-year-old said flatly, his voice as cold as a freezer door left cracked open. His dead, ice-blue eyes drilled into Hassan’s. “I handled that nigga for us, and you sittin’ here shakin’ like some bitch.”

Hassan inhaled deep, trying to drown his fury in smoke. But it didn't work. It never fucking worked.

“I watched our parents get dropped—execution style—and didn’t even blink,” the six-year-old added, voice eerily hollow. “And you out here lookin’ like you seen a ghost.”

“Weak ass nigga,” they said in unison.

The words hit Hassan like bullets to the chest. His jaw flexed so hard, it hurt.

“I ain’t never been weak in my life,” Hassan growled, his voice sharp enough to slit throats.

The older version of himself snorted a cruel laugh. “Nigga, please. Harper tougher than your scary ass. And she got abandoned too—but she livin’. You? You stuck. Soft. Broken.”

That last word broke something in him.

“I’m not broken,” Hassan bit out, but his voice cracked, and his hands betrayed him—trembling like he was standing in front of that blood-soaked living room all over again.

The six-year-old giggled—mocked him.

“You broke, nigga. Always been. You just know how to dress it up nice.”

Hassan snapped. The glass in his hand sailed across the room, shattering against the office door with a violent crash. The sound echoed like a gunshot. The two boys didn’t even flinch.

They just laughed. Laughed like the world hadn’t ended for them already. Like they hadn’t both died that night—along with their parents.

And Hassan? He stood there, chest heaving, knuckles white, staring down ghosts that wore his face.

And for the first time in a long time…

He didn’t feel like Ice. He felt like a boy who never made it out that night alive.

Hassanneededanescape.Notthekindsexcouldoffer.Not the numbing silence of weed, or the noise of business. He needed something deeper. Real. Grounding.

He needed her.

He stared at the two bloodstained versions of himself still lounging in his office—the six-year-old shaking with his mother’s blood, the ten- year-old cloaked in the gore of revenge. They watched him, judging.

With a clenched jaw, Hassan grabbed his phone and ignored them.

“This weak-ass nigga callin’ a bitch now,” the younger version scoffed, laughter bubbling between them. “Soft as hell.”

But Hassan didn’t flinch. He tapped her name. FaceTime. He needed to see her face before he spiraled any further into the abyss.

The screen lit up, and there she was. Sevyn.

Darkness behind her, club lights flickering like neon starlight across her flawless skin. Her face glowed—half-lit, half-shadowed— but it was enough. Enough to make his chest tighten and his dick twitch in his jeans.

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