Page 2 of Sinner
But he felt like there was one burning question he now knew the truth of.
“She was wrong,” the words whispered off his lips, the only sound aside from the furious clicking of keys as he scrolled.
As close as Juri and Branwen were, as deeply rooted their connection clearly was, there was no indication that there’d been even a whisp of romance between them.
Nothing at all.
Juri confided in her and trusted her with his deepest, darkest thoughts and emotions. He’d told her about his past, his hatred toward the system, and the things done to his brother.He’d explained why Yejun and the rest were evil, how they needed to be taught a lesson.
But not once had he ever expressed feelings for Branwen.
Even messages about their meetings sounded casual, the type of things one would say to a close friend.
Serendipity:Thanks for meeting in the library. I really needed to get that off my chest.
Serendipity:I can’t believe Yejun fell for that. You’re a great actress! You have him eating out of the palm of your hand. No one would believe it if I told them.
Serendipity:Lim asked me to go with him. Maybe I’ll see you there. If we get a moment to sneak off, I want to hear all about how it went at the Roost today.
Nix reread some of the random responses Juri had sent, noting that none of them came off the way one would expect if the two had been in a relationship. The mention of Lim, especially, the name of the guy who’d apparently been sexually assaulted by Rase, leading to Yejun publicly humiliating and blinding the guy.
According to what he’d been told, Juri had broken his own code and asked for a favor from Yejun after Lim had been accosted. He’d hated having to do it, hadn’t hidden that fact from June, but had wanted help making Rase pay more than keeping his pride.
All of that went down while Branwen was still locked up at the Roost. If she’d heard about it, heard that Juri had asked Yejun for help for someone else, after everything she’d done because he’d insisted the Demons were evil…She must have felt abandoned.
But why lie about the two of them dating?
Unless…she really believed that?
How could she?
Nix ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.
Was his cousin delusional, or was he still missing something important? He needed the rest of the chat, but no matter how hard he searched, it was clear Juri hadn’t kept them.
He closed the messages and clicked on another folder, pursing his lips when seven videos appeared. The footage was of the hallway in Dew’s dorm, the videos all showing specific times Juri visited. In all instances, he didn’t stay long, was mostly in and out.
What reason could he have for deleting this?
Nix pulled up his chat history with Dew, scrolling through a whole lot of nothing for a while before he gave up and typed in the exact dates from the videos.
Dew:Yo, I got the new batch. Stronger, like you asked.
Juri:Thanks. Be there in ten.
Dew:Hope you know what you’re doing.
Juri:Talk when I get there.
What he’d been doing was slipping drugs to Branwen so she could dose Yejun and, later, West. So Dew was the supplier. That helped tie in his involvement and answer why he might have thrown himself off the building when Nix had gotten too close to the truth.
Had he done it to protect Juri, the same way Branwen had taken her own life to keep him safe?
Even after feeling like he’d betrayed her, she’d still taken his identity to the grave. Why? Because she’d known writing out what she’d done was too risky? But then why send Nix all the way here to solve this shit on her behalf? Had she thought maybe there was a chance Juri hadn’t abandoned her after all?
“What a shit show.”
He couldn’t find any evidence in his talks with Dew that they’d changed the plan from knocking out Yejun to poisoning West. Nothing. He combed through everything for any hint of a clue, but as far as he could tell, their end goal had never altered.
