[Evelina's POV—Vinter Mansion—The Night After the Truth]
Sleep didn't come.
It hovered.
Close enough to feel, distant enough to deny.
I lay awake on the edge of the bed, the documents Rowan brought spread across my mind like an autopsy report. Names. Dates. Decisions made by people who never planned to take responsibility for the blood that followed.
Cassian Vinter.
A father who hunted his own child. A brother who turned inheritance into a death sentence.
A family where love was leverage and children were collateral.
And Theo Vinter—the man who stepped into hell and decided to stay there so Alina wouldn't have to.
I closed my eyes.
So this is the man the creator deleted.
Not because he was weak.
Not because he was unlikable.
But because his existence broke the rules.
