And when his own son, Daniel Stockton, finally put the pieces together—when he realized what his father had done, what hewas—the dean didn’t hesitate.
By the time we were finished with Scott-Evans and Delaney, there was no room left for doubt.
We had confessions. Written and signed. Detailed enough to make anyone sick. We had corroboration. Timelines. Communications. Financial trails.
And proof—irrefutable proof—that when Daniel Stocktonthreatened to go to the police, his father murdered him to keep the truth buried.
Just like he’d buried everything else.
Sheriff Morris hadn’t died by chance, either.
He’d been getting too close. Asking the wrong questions. Circling the truth about the third man in the car the day Missy Hale died.
The dean ended him too. Because the third man had always been him. The realization landed like a final blow.
It was the dean who had stalked her. The dean who wore the ridiculous disguise—Mr Bunny—outside my club, watching her like a possession he’d misplaced.
He had known who Rowan was long before she ever set foot on campus. Because he had orchestrated her scholarship. He’d pulled strings and signed off on paperwork to make sure she ended up exactly where he could keep eyes on her.
He wanted to monitor her and control the variables. Because she wasmaking too much noise.
In the end, there was no grand mystery. No shadowy outsider or misunderstood accomplice.
Just a powerful man who believed his position placed him above consequence—and used every system available to protect himself while destroying everyone who got too close to the truth.
And when it all finally came apart, when the narrative he’d built collapsed under the weight of its own lies, there was nothing left of Dean Stockton but the thing he’d always been beneath the titles and tailored suits.
A monster who mistook silence for absolution. And paid for it in full.
The only thing he hadn’t orchestrated was the attack on Rowan in her apartment.
That had been Scott-Evans.
He’d known from the very first moment he saw her at Legacy House. The resemblance wasn’t obvious to anyone else—but to him, it was unmistakable. Something in the eyes. The bone structure. The quiet defiance that didn’t ask permission to exist. Missy Hale’s sister, standing right in front of him, breathing, living, untouched by the fate that should have swallowed her too.
And instead of fear, it had sparked something else.
Interest.
He welcomed the chase. The audacity of it. The idea that he could circle her without consequence, test boundaries, prove—to himself more than anyone—that he still had control. She wasn’t just a reminder of the past. She was a dare. A challenge he fully intended to win.
Until she poisoned him and the power shifted without warning.
Until the girl he thought he could break reminded him—violently—that she was not her sister, and that she would not be broken.
Titan wipesa hand down his face, exhaustion etched into every line of him.
It’s the kind of fatigue that doesn’t come from lack of sleep, but from carrying too much for too long. From living in a constant state of readiness. Of restraint. Of violence barely leashed.
He opens an arm without a word.
Lily steps into him like she’s always belonged there.
No hesitation. No fear. Just instinct.
She presses her forehead to his chest, her hands curling into the fabric of his shirt, and something in his posture finallyloosens. Not all the way—men like Titan don’t unravel that easily—but enough. Enough to tell me she is his center of gravity now. His safeguard.
Once upon a time, that simple movement would have struck me like an iron baton to the chest.
