BOSTON – The text message was sent way back on July 5, 2013. It was, at some point, deleted.

Perhaps because its sender, Alexander Bradley, realized it held unwanted power, like the capability of impacting his immunity deal in an Aaron Hernandez double murder trial, let alone rocking the entire case altogether.

In a plea deal, Bradley, however, gave authorities full access to his phone, including deleted and otherwise privileged communication with his lawyer. That includes a text that suggests Bradley actually has no idea if, contrary to his repeated testimony here this week, Hernandez shot him in the face in February of 2013.

“Now u sure once I withdraw this lawsuit I wont be held on perjury after I tell the truth about me not recalling anything about who shot me,” Bradley wrote to attorney Robert Pickering.

View photos Alexander Bradley (L) battled in court with defense attorney Jose Baez over the meaning of a text message in Aaron Hernandez’s double-murder trial on Wednesday. (AP) More

“The truth,” Baez emphasized to a now rapt Room 906 of Suffolk Superior Court in downtown Boston, during the most dramatic moment of the trial thus far. He then promptly asked Judge Jeffrey Locke if he wanted to take a break for the trial’s traditional 1 p.m. lunch. Locke agreed. Fueled by Red Bull all morning, an on-point Baez had deftly timed the reveal perfectly, leaving the jury time to digest that bombshell with their sandwiches.

Hernandez, the former New England Patriots star, is being tried for murdering Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado in the 2012 drive-by shooting in Boston’s South End, after a brief encounter earlier at a nightclub. Bradley was driving Hernandez’s Toyota4Runner that night. Hernandez is also charged with witness intimidation for allegedly shooting Bradley in the face after a night of partying in South Florida in February of 2013.

Bradley has testified in great detail here this week that Hernandez was the triggerman for both attacks. He previously filed a civil litigation alleging Hernandez shot him, which is the lawsuit he refers to in the text. For Hernandez, the stakes of the trial are relatively low since he’s already serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for the June 2013 murder of Odin Lloyd, the boyfriend of his fiancée’s sister. Still, he is waging a vigorous defense.

For all the complexities of evidence and testimony over this case, which is now in its third of its expected six weeks, it mostly boils down to who do you believe: Bradley or Hernandez (via Baez, since it’s highly unlikely Hernandez will testify)?

The former best friends are accusing the other of shooting Abreu and Furtado. Bradley, meanwhile, is claiming Hernandez shot him in February 2013 in what the state claims was an attempted silencing of a witness. There is scant forensic evidence in either case.

It’s a zero-sum game, which is why Baez has tried to paint Bradley as a crazed potential killer, not to mention a liar. He needs to find only reasonable doubt within the jurors.

Bradley is, at the very least, a plausible alternative theory for Baez to sell. He is a two-time convicted felon and an acknowledged long-time drugs and guns dealer. He is currently serving a five-year stint in Connecticut for the 2014 shooting of a bar in Hartford. From the witness stand he has not shied away from text messages and previous comments that speak to a life of mayhem and violence.

While the case can be boiled down to simple terms, the relationship between Hernandez and Bradley remains complex and serves as Bradley’s explanation for the text. Bradley says that he didn’t want Hernandez criminally charged with shooting him in the face because he, Bradley, is anti-police and preferred to settle it a different way – either through a civil suit or retaliatory violence against a buddy he believes betrayed him.

“I know you wanted to kill him,” Baez said on Wednesday.

“Yes,” Bradley agreed.

“Because you are a killer,” Baez followed, before sustained objections struck the comment from the record.

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