Chapter 25 #2
And that’s exactly where Hassan struck back.
Celine. His granddaughter by blood—something Braxton could never claim. Family meant legacy, and Celine was legacy. Braxton was a wildcard. A liability. A mouth that talked too much and a bloodline only borrowed through marriage.
Hassan had watched men crumble under pressure, but watching Carlos blink, jaw tight, cornered in a seat he usually owned—that was something else.
“What do you want?” Carlos asked finally, his words stiff, forced. Hassan didn’t flinch.
“I told you what I want.” His voice was graveled steel. “But this doesn’t have to end with both of y’all in a fucking body bag.”
He leaned forward now, slow, eyes dark and hollow like a graveyard.
“I need my wife. Unharmed. Breathing. And in my arms. You get your granddaughter back the second she’s safe. No games. No double backs. You fuck around, and I make sure the next generation of DeVilles don’t see daylight.”
Carlos stared at him, quiet. Measured. And after a long, heavy beat, he nodded.
Just enough.
Hassan sat back in his chair, the silence wrapping around the room like smoke. This was war—but he was finally holding the board. “But I’m not just here for revenge,” Hassan said, his voice low, steady. “I’m here to close the book. My father owed you. I’ll pay it— with interest.”
Carlos studied him, his expression unreadable.
He didn’t respond right away, and Hassan didn’t rush him.
This wasn’t just about leverage anymore—it was about legacy, and Hassan was done letting his father’s sins stain his future.
He didn’t know if he’d still be worthy of Sevyn once this was over, but if he chose love, he needed to make sure his past wouldn’t haunt her. Not again. Not ever.
Losing Sevyn broke him in a way nothing else ever had.
Not even watching his parents die had hollowed him out like this.
Maybe it was because he was too young back then to fully feel it.
Maybe it was because Sevyn was different.
Maybe it was because she made him f eel something other than rage.
She was his calm. His fire. His saving grace.
Even now—lost, out there somewhere—she still saved him.
She came to him in dreams during the brief moments he passed out from exhaustion, held him in the shadows of his mind, whispered to his soul like she knew how close he was to breaking.
Her absence wrapped around him like a noose. Her memory kept him breathing.
He looked at Carlos, unblinking. “You’re willing to clear a dead man’s debt?” the older man asked, skeptical.
Hassan leaned forward. “You love your wife?”
Carlos scoffed, almost insulted. “Hell yeah. I’d take any bullet for her.”
Hassan’s jaw flexed. “Then you get it. The woman your great- nephew has chained up like she ain’t got people—she’s mine. My woman. I’d lay my life down for her, no hesitation. Kill anybody who touches her. Hell, I almost killed myself over her.”
The room went still. Roman looked up. Jules blinked. Von froze.
Hassan didn’t look at anyone. He kept his eyes on Carlos, voice steady but thick with everything he’d been burying.
“I hate guns. Haven’t touched one since I watched my mama bleed out.
But after I hurt Sevyn, I put one to my head and pulled the trigger.
That bitch jammed. I know it was my mama saving me…
again.” He swallowed hard. “But that woman—my woman—she pulled me back before the trigger ever did. And now… I’m not just trying to bring her home.
I’m trying to build a world where she’ll never be in danger again.
A world where I can hold her and know she’s safe. ”
He leaned back, exhaled slow. “So yeah, I’ll clear my father’s debt. I’ll pay whatever price I have to. Just know—if you get in the way of me bringing her home, you gon’ be in the ground with every other nigga who thought I wouldn’t go that far.”
No one said a word.
Roman, Von, and Jules sat stunned. They’d never seen this version of Hassan before.
A man cracked wide open. A man who bled love the way he used to bleed violence.
And yet—Carlos didn’t look surprised. Because that kind of love?
The kind that pulled a man back from death?
Carlos knew that love. That was the same love he held for his wife.
And now… he understood exactly who, and what, he was dealing with.
“What you got in mind?” Carlos asked, voice low, intrigued now.
“I’ll bury the past to build the future,” Hassan replied coolly, pulling another folder from the desk.
“What I’m offering is bigger. We take that cleared debt.
.. that trust... and flip it into legacy.
Real business. Global. Casinos, offshore accounts, ports, product. Your reach. My infrastructure. ”
Carlos watched as Hassan slid the file across the table.
Inside was the blueprint of an empire—a billion-dollar operation penned by Hassan himself.
Vittorio and the Marino family had already agreed to expand the partnership, offering Hassan more international land than ever before.
Now, Hassan was laying it on the table: a three-way syndicate.
Carlos would get underground port access for his product.
Vittorio would supply top-tier goods and global distribution.
And Hassan? He’d launder and multiply it all through his casinos—his empire.
With Carlos’ tech folded in—his software, his data systems—they’d dominate online gambling, bitcoin, stock manipulation, even digital laundering.
It was ruthless. It was genius. And it would be unstoppable.
Carlos flipped through the file slowly, brow furrowing in grudging respect. “A billion-dollar partnership… built on blood.”
Hassan leaned back, the faintest smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. “All the good ones are.”
A beat passed. Silence thickened. Then Carlos closed the folder, his movements measured, thoughtful.
“Give me the name of the safehouse you’re holding Celine in,” he said, looking up. That was his answer. His agreement. His buy-in.
But Hassan just smiled, slow and lethal.
“Not until Sevyn is in my arms. You help me take Braxton out— quiet, clean. No fuck-ups, no noise. Once she’s back safe, we move forward. Ironclad loyalty. No cracks.”
He reached for the Henny, pouring two glasses like he already owned the outcome. Carlos watched him, then picked up his glass.
No words. Just a quiet lift. And then, finally… he drank.
“I can’t see how you’re your father’s son,” Carlos said with a low chuckle, shaking his head. “Smarter. Colder. More dangerous.”
There was a flicker of something like pride in his voice—but Hassan didn’t flinch, didn’t blink.
“And I don’t miss,” he replied, flat and emotionless.
He didn’t need the compliment. He wasn’t looking to impress Carlos. The only thing he ever shared with his father was a name— and even that felt like a burden he’d been dragging through hell.
A long pause followed. Then Carlos slowly extended his hand. Hassan didn’t hesitate.
They shook—grip firm, eyes locked. The past, buried. The war, redirected. And in the cold silence of that office, a deadly partnership was born—one built on betrayal, blood, and the promise of vengeance.
???
Sevyn sat slumped in the back of the black Escalade, her head resti ng limply against the window, her body hollowed by the drug they’d pumped into her veins.
She couldn’t move anything from the neck down, but they still cuffed her wrists and pointed a gun at her like she was a threat.
Braxton sat in the passenger seat, giving smug instructions to the driver while Nova hovered beside Sevyn with a steel gaze and shaky hands gripping the pistol.
They changed her clothes—Nova’s hands rough and cold against her skin as she dressed her in a black sweatsuit like she was preparing her for burial.
The numbing agent didn’t knock her out like the others.
No—this one forced her to feel everything emotionally, even as her body refused to respond.
Her arms were dead weight, her legs unmovable, but her mind was racing.
She knew they were transporting her. Moving her out the city. Out of reach. Far away from anyone who could save her. And it was in that moment—watching the world blur past the window in a sea of darkness and streetlights—that Sevyn accepted the truth: no one was coming.
Maybe Hassan didn’t know she was missing. Or maybe... he knew, and stopped looking. Maybe she was just a chapter in his story he decided not to finish. Maybe the love she felt, the kind that lit her soul on fire, wasn’t enough to save her.
A tear slipped from her eye, silent and slow, soaking into the collar of her shirt.
She didn’t get to say goodbye—to her parents, to Dorian or Harper, to the patients who relied on her. She would never open the doors to her own clinic, never sit in Dorian’s shop laughing over wine and secrets, never dance in her kitchen again.
And worst of all... she’d never be in Hassan’s arms again.
She could still feel them around her—strong, warm, steady—when he let the ice melt just enough to love her.
Her thoughts ached for the sound of his voice, that deep velvet tone that somehow made her feel safe even when it sounded detached.
She missed the way he looked at her like she was his anchor, his calm.
The man who’d once held a gun to his own head over the pain of hurting her.
The man who said he didn’t deserve love, but loved her anyway.
If only he could see her now. If only he knew she was still holding on. Still waiting. Still believing.
But even that hope was starting to die.
Her eyes fluttered shut as more tears slid down her face, unseen, unwiped. If this was the end—if she was never going to be Sevyn Love the healer, the sister, the fighter again—then she just prayed that somewhere, somehow...
Hassan would feel her pain... and come for her.