The apartment became painfully quiet after that night.The kind of silence that slowly destroys people from the inside.Rain still covered Velmora almost every evening now, turning the city beyond the massive glass windows into blurred shadows of gold and black. Days passed inside the secured apartment like a strange prison made from grief, guilt, love, and distance.And Rafael stayed through all of it.Every second.He never left her alone.Not even once.
But somehow… Aria had never felt farther away from him.The first morning after the truth came out, Rafael woke before sunrise automatically.
For a few seconds, he simply sat at the edge of the bed in silence, staring toward the faint gray light touching the curtains while exhaustion pulled heavily beneath his eyes.
He hadn't slept.Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her crying again.
"My parents died because of you."
The sentence still felt lodged somewhere inside his chest like a knife twisting deeper every hour.
