Chapter 433 Dream Murmurs
Chapter 433 Dream Murmurs
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Julius‘ steps halted so abruptly it felt like the floor had jerked beneath him. He stared at Quinn
in astonishment.
<i>Was </i><i>she </i><i>not </i><i>rejecting </i><i>me </i><i>in </i><i>that </i><i>dream </i><i>at </i><i>all</i>, <i>but </i><i>begging </i><i>me </i><i>to </i><i>stay</i><i>? </i>
“What were you dreaming of, Quinn?” he whispered. “What am I like in your dream?”
The silence answered him; only the hush of the room remained.
By the time Quinn finally stirred, twilight had draped the windows in bronze.
She blinked at the burnt–orange sky, then at the time glowing on her phone, only to realize she had slept for hours straight after their lovemaking.
However, her skin felt freshly washed and had no trace of clinging sweat, which meant Julius must have tended to her.
The bedroom stood in perfect stillness, empty of everyone but her.
<i>Huh</i>? <i>Where </i><i>has </i><i>Julius </i><i>gone</i><i>? </i>
Quinn rose carefully, braced on her crutch, and made her slow way out of the bedroom.
The living area was silent as well, and Julius was nowhere in sight.
She moved from the spare bedroom, through the dining room, and atst stopped before the study room door.
The moment she pushed the door open, a wall of smoke mmed into her, harsh and unexpected.
The acrid air wed at her throat. She coughed twice, lifted her eyes, and saw Julius lounging in the leather armchair, long fingers cradling a cigarette while he stared at the floor–to–ceiling window.
No lights were on. Only the dying sun seeped through the ss,ying a faint bronze across his shoulders and dragging a single, elongated shadow over the polished floorboards.
Quinn stepped inside. The ashtray on the side table overflowed with stubs, and her brow tightened. “Your body is still healing, and you’re chain–smoking like this? How many cigarettes have you gone through?”
Chapter 433 Dream Murmurs
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Back when they were dating, she’d rarely seen Julius smoke. Even if he did, it was at most one or two cigarettes, and only on nights when sleep refused him.
Now, however, the sheer number of crushed cigarette butts made it impossible to count.
Julius finally turned toward her. He drew deep and released a smooth ring of smoke that drifted toward the ceiling. “Ah, you’re awake.”
“Yes, I’m awake,” Quinn said. “But what about you? Why drown yourself in smoke?”
He rose, ground the half–burned cigarette into the mound of ashes, and straightened slowly, as though bracing for a weight only he could feel. “Tell me, Quinn… Do you have any idea what kind of man my father really is?”
Quinn’s brows knit in puzzlement. She had met Joaquin Whitethorn only a handful of times, enough to catch a glimpse of the cold ambition in his eyes, yet not enough to chart the darkness beneath. “I’ve crossed paths with him here and there, so I have some sense of what he’s like. Where is he now? Have the authorities caught him?” she answered.
The ze that had gutted Whitethorn Group’s annual g—the inferno that nearly took their lives–had been orchestrated by Joaquin.
Monthster, Quinn still could not untangle the motive. Had the man truly gone to such monstrous lengths merely to give Serena Fane a clear shot at eliminating her, so that he could torment Julius in the aftermath?
The thought alone felt too senseless, too cruel, yet cruelty seemed written into every step of Joaquin’s n. <fn794f> Th? link to the orig?n of this information r?sts ?n find~novel</fn794f>
“Not yet,” Julius said, voice t. “Although my father was excluded from the Whitethorn family’s core by my grandfather a long time ago, he is still a member of the Whitethorn family. And since he was once the family’s second–inmand, he had quite a few people under him. I’ve only dealt with the followers who supported him openly, but as for the hidden pawns he nted in the dark, I have no idea how many are still left.”
Naturally, Quinn understood Julius‘ worries. Even a sly fox kept more than one escape hole, so how much deeper would a man like Joaquin burrow?
If the mastermind had intentionally set the fire, he would have already nned an escape
route.
“But why would he do any of this?” she asked, frustration sharpening every syble. “None of his actions benefits him in the least.”
Julius closed the distance between them, footfalls measured, almost ceremonial. “Perhaps he
<b>16:26 </b>Sat, Sep 27 B…
Chapter 433 Dream Murmurs
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wanted proof that I’m cut from the same rotten piece of cloth,” he said. “Before my father met my mother, he and I were alike–uninvolved, adrift, with nothing in the world capable of holding our attention. Life was a game, but the game bored him until she appeared.
Quinn listened, silent, as he searched for words that tasted of rust.
“After falling for my mother, obsession took root. He locked her inside the house, ringed the ce with guards, and crushed every door of escape just so he could have her all to himself. In the end, she died there, and the loss shattered him. Grandpa caged him afterward–to keep me safe–but during all those years, he kept repeating how I am his son, and therefore I am destined to follow in his footsteps. He hated Grandpa for locking him up for my sake, but more than anything else, he hated me. Because to him, I was merely the tool he brought into this world to keep my mother by his side, though in the end, he still didn’t seed. As a result, he wanted me to suffer like him–to be denied the one I love, to turn into a madman just like he did,” Julius said mockingly.
His tone remained eerily calm, as if recounting a stranger’s tragedy, but the wordsnded on Quinn’s chest like bs of granite, pushing the breath from her lungs.