“Listen, cut to the chase. Are you behind this?” he asked.
The man shook his head.
“I think we’re being framed.”
That befuddled him, because he wasn’t sure who the‘we’was in this situation.
“And I don’t like it. Am I an angel? No, but I’m not the Devil either,” Rodrigo said.
Ethan was watching him, and the man didn’t appear to be lying.
“I’m not killing cops or anyone for that matter. My partner and I are legitimately running businesses.”
Blackhawk was curious.
“Esmeralda is your business partner?” he asked, taking a wild stab at it.
Gene glanced over.
Where did he get that one from?
That was the big question.
“Yes,” Rodrigo said. “Someone is trying to frame her,” he said. “Essie, come out.”
When the bathroom door opened, in came a woman all in black. She had sharp dagger nails, midnight black hair, and more tattoos than Ethan.
She was also delicately boned, and barely five foot two.
This woman wasn’t lifting dead bodies or breaking their bones.
That was for sure.
“Someone is framing me,” she said. “I don’t know who, but all I know is I’m not doing what’s being done. I wanted to come to you both and talk to you, but I wasn’t sure how to do it.”
Rodrigo pushed his chair back, and she sat in his lap, wrapping his arm around her back.
“So you’re a couple?” Gene asked.
They both nodded.
“I own a stake inPapi’s,” he admitted. “When Jaden found out I was having a relationship with his woman, he fired her, and she moved on to open her own business.”
And that made sense.
“So you didn’t kill him, but you were banging his lady behind his back?”
Esmeralda sighed.
“We weren’t official. Jaden was a good guy, but he liked to do things dirty.”
What was this?
That had their attention.
“Like?” Gene asked.
Surprisingly, she told them.
