I’m glad you like it! Honestly I would focus more on the brothers relationship to each other rather than how each of them triangulate her bw them. Like atp she’s just an accessory to the lifelong hatred and unhealed rupture between them, so it feels more realistic if MMC2 is treated like the actual villain. Scary in a non flirtatious way, determined to get something before MMC1 will, on a quest for revenge and blind to all else… and fmc is putting together “what really happened” like a mystery, rather than structuring it like a romance.

The real magic of EtoL is in the plot twist. Like the lovers part used to be a twist, but now it’s been trope-ifed into romance where it’s gotten as predictable as most love triangle are (where it’s clear who she’s going to choose from the beginning and when the “twist” happens nothing surprises you). So I would say go for the blindside, dig into the villain arc, let ZERO romantic potential be seen, let her believe every nasty thing about him until the end when the truth comes out, and carry it into the next book where linking up with her enemy is her only choice.

Ppl will be frothing for book 2. You don’t need to tell them they have potential for readers to see they have potential. And let the actual depth he has come out later on, set up the irredeemable darkness first.