Page 47 of Sinner
Nix went silent.
Grady didn’t last long through that, tossing a pair of boxers into the top drawer of his dresser with more force than necessary before spinning on Nix. He glared. “Look, I get that you feel bad, and from the sounds of it, it wasn’t your fault this time either, but…I just…I can’t do this right now, okay?”
This time.
Right.
“They were my best friends, and everything was going well until…” Grady stopped himself.
“Until I came along,” Nix finished for him.
“No, I didn’t mean…Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Khloe dropped out. Did you hear?”
Nix shook his head.
“Her parents are too freaked out by everything that’s happened. We were close to both Juri and Dew for years, they’re afraid she knew all along what type of people they were and ignored it.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I know,” Grady agreed. “Khloe isn’t like that. I’m not like that. If we’d had any clue…” He pursed his lips. “I knew Dew was getting himself involved in something shady, but Juri…He was always the voice of reason in our group, you saw that for yourself. Nix…You were there that day. Was he really trying to make a claim on the throne?”
For safety purposes, the full story hadn’t been released to the public, and no one aside from Nix and the Demons knew the parts that involved poison. They’d gotten the coroner to announce that Juri had died from a rare heart disease that had gone unnoticed and untreated, but the High Council obviously suspected foul play.
Unfortunately, the poison used on Juri was the same as the one used to kill the emperor and deceased Royal Consort, meaning it’d left no traces behind. Lake was waiting until afterhe’d been crowned to reveal everything they’d gathered about the situation.
But Nix couldn’t tell Grady any of this. Couldn’t deviate from the agreed-upon plan. The Demons trusted him, and as much as he wanted to believe in Grady’s friendship, Nix was admittedly a bit jaded in that department, all things considered.
So, while he felt a pang of guilt at having to twist the truth, he found himself easily slipping into the half-lies.
“He was,” he said. “It was weird. He was acting really out of character. But he had DNA tests to prove that he shared a parent with Lake. When there was pushback from the Order, he got worked up, and the next thing I knew—” Nix tightened his fists at his sides, trying to fight off the images of Juri dying in his arms.
Juri was a lying shithead.
He’d also been Nix’s first real friend. That sort of attachment was hard to will away, no matter what kind of scummy things he’d done at the end.
“It was awful,” he stated.
“Dew was fucking an Essential,” Grady laughed humorlessly and dropped down onto the edge of his bed, “And Juri discovered he was Lake’s half-brother. And I had no idea. They never gave anything away. Some friend I am.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. Clearly people don’t find me trustworthy.”
“I’m sure they were just trying to look out for you. This isn’t exactly the type of thing you want to find yourself a part of. If they were messing with the club and—” His other odd comments finally registered in Nix’s mind, and he paused abruptly, frowning. “Hold on. What do you mean, Dew was sleeping with an Essential?”
“I wasn’t sure whether or not to tell you,” Grady glanced at him sheepishly, “which is why I kept quiet all this time. Itdidn’t seem right, you know? To talk about his secrets with him dead and all, but fuck it. At first, I didn’t even remember. Not until you asked me about your cousin and mentioned she was supposedly sneaking around with someone at the library.”
“What? What does this have to do with Branwen?” How much did Grady know about the secret King account and Dew’s involvement with it?
“Nothing,” he said, shooting down all of the tension that’d been growing within Nix. “But I caught him once. It was an accident, but Dew kissed the professor in his classroom. If either of them had been caught, he would have been in serious trouble, so I kept my mouth shut and never even bothered confronting him.”
“Why do you think only he would get into trouble?” Wasn’t a professor sleeping with a student worse? They were meant to be the person of authority, after all.
“Because it was Beck Bardin,” Grady replied, missing how Nix paled at that revelation. “Beck is considered part of the Imperial family even though he doesn’t have a title, and he’s in line for the throne. He’s close to Demitrious Corleone, and both he and his father are members of the Order. Are you kidding? If they were caught by anyone, there’s no telling what Beck would have done to keep his secret.”
He was right. Even though Nix had never personally had any problems with Beck, and both Yejun and West trusted him, he also wasn’t naïve enough to believe a guy raised by Hendrix and Demitrious would ever allow himself to be brought down by anyone.
But…
