Page 63 of I See You

"Why did you cheat, Braxton?" Her voice cut through the air like a blade—calm, distant, but demanding an answer.

The admiration on his face disappeared in an instant. His expression shifted, his lips parting as he sighed, dragging a hand over his jaw. "I’ve been stressed, Sev. I—"

"Did you not trust me enough to come to me when you were stressed?" Her voice cracked, just slightly, before she quickly pulled herself back together.

"No… yes." Braxton stumbled, flustered, his usual confidence slipping.

Sevyn mugged him, her patience wearing thin.

"It’s just… Sevyn, you’ve been working a lot. We both have, but you’ve been taking more clients, spending more time at the office than usual. And now, with you trying to build your own clinic, I felt like you were just drifting further and further away from us." His voice was laced with frustration, like his cheating was somehow her fault.

Her expression hardened.

"Braxton, you work more than I do. You don’t come home until damn near midnight, sometimes one, two in the morning, because of work." Her voice was sharp, cutting through his excuse.

And then her mind went back to what Ariel had said over lunch, days before she found them.

"That’s because of this case—"

Sevyn laughed, but it wasn’t out of humor. It was sharp, bitter, devilish.

Andthen,beforeshecouldstopthem,tearsfell.Unwilling.

Unwanted.

The sight of them made Braxton’s heart drop. But it was too late. He had messed up beyond the point of no return. Because in that moment, Sevyn put the pieces together.

And nothing he said now could fix it.

First Ariel talks about how busy Sevyn’s schedule is, how she’s not spending enough time with Braxton. Now Braxton is sitting here, telling her the same exact thing, as if his cheating was her fault. These niggas had been plotting on her.

"How long have you been fucking Ariel?" The tears wouldn’t stop, burning down her cheeks, but her voice was sharp, slicing through the space between them. Braxton opened his mouth, but she saw it in his eyes—the hesitation, the lie forming before he even spoke.

"You betta not fucking lie, either." Her tone was low, but there was nothing calm about it, her patience running razor-thin.

Braxton exhaled, running a hand over his face like it would somehow fix what he had done. "Sevyn—"

"How long?" Her voice was steady, but the storm inside her was anything but.

He hesitated. She knew why. If he told the truth, she’d snap. Ifhe lied, she’d snap worse. His grip on his desk tightened, his body locked in place like he was bracing himself. The silence between them stretched, suffocating, pushing the air out of her lungs.

"HOW FUCKING LONG?!" Her voice cracked through the office, raw, splintered, her fury seeping into every syllable.

"A month."

Her world stopped.

Everything around her, the room, the air, even the weight of her own body, collapsed in on itself. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything but the burn in her chest. Her heart shattered, and every single piece left inside of her sliced through her like glass.

"A month?!" The disbelief choked her. She stood so fast herchair scraped against the floor, the sound ringing through the room. Braxton stood too, hands slightly raised like he really thought he could calm her. "Sev, calm down. We at the office."

Sevyn’s head snapped toward him, her expression darkeninginto something he had never seen before. He was standing in frontof her, telling her to calm down, after betraying her for a month with someone she called a sister? She wanted to rip him apart, wanted to drag his ass through every layer of hell he had thrown her into.

"Fuck your fucking office!" Her breathing was ragged, her body trembling, but no matter how many times she tried to steady herself, her rage kept climbing, swallowing her whole. She squeezed her eyes shut, forced herself to take the same calming breaths she had spent years teaching her clients, but nothing worked. She needed to release, needed to feel something other than this heartbreak crawling through her veins.

Then she saw it.

The bat. It stood in the corner of his office, leaned against the wall like it was waiting for her.

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