going on?” Razor drawled, sitting back in his chair and giving them both a knowing look.
Reyes held up the note. “You’re being set up to take the fall for Senator Robins’ murder. There are eyes and ears everywhere. Be careful. Please don’t hate me. It wasn’t all a lie.”
Sunny sucked in a breath and Duke reached out, drawing her back into his arms.
“Who wrote this?” Reyes asked.
“Her name’s Betsy,” Ink said. This next part was gonna be hard. If there was one thing he hated, it was looking like a fool. “Met her at Fringe. I should have known the whole thing was a set-up. There’s no way Angus would ask me to mentor a new sub. I need to speak to him. Find out what he knows.”
“I don’t know,” Razor told him. “You’ve got a soft spot for women. You’re protective and gentle with them. He could do a lot worse than asking you.”
Ink ground his teeth together. “Appreciate the pep-talk, but obviously my soft-spot for women is a weakness that I need to work on.”
Sunny made a distressed noise and he turned to her, giving her a smile. “Not you, Sunny-girl. You’ll always be my first love.” He winked at her while Duke gave a fake growl.
Sunny still looked sad.
Ink ran his hand over his face then sat in his chair. “She wasn’t even my type. I don’t know what I was drawn to about her. Maybe it was because she was a Little. Or I thought she was a Little. Guess that was faked too.”
“Tell us,” Reyes urged.
He quickly summarized their nights at Fringe.
“Then tonight we went on a date. Our first one. Everything was going well,” he spat out, “then something happened and she rushed to the bathroom, upset. I followed her inside. She hugged me and told me she was sorry and that not everything was a lie then she fled.”
“What upset her?” Sunny asked.
“She told me something about how her father left when she was young. Probably all lies. Then I told her how beautiful and kind she was and how that asshole fucked up leaving her. She nearly burst into tears. She never cries, not even when I spank her…”
There was silence and he looked around. Whoops. He hadn’t meant to divulge that much.
“So obviously, I’ve been an idiot and taken for a ride. Found this note in my pocket when I got home.”
“I don’t understand,” Sunny finally said. “How can you be set up for the senator’s death when we know that…” she trailed off, not wanting to say it.
That the Fox murdered the senator.
“The note said he’s being set-up for the senator’s murder. So my guess is whoever is behind this wanted to plant some evidence that makes it look like Ink killed him,” Spike said. “And likely were using Betsy to do it.”
Ink nodded. It’s what he figured too.
“But you all have alibis,” Sunny protested. “The Fox made sure of it.”
“Except for me,” Ink stated.
They all looked at one another.
“You have an alibi,” Duke told him.
The cops had got some grainy images off one of the neighbor’s security cameras of Jason and Razor outside the senator’s house. They’d been suspicious, but they’d had nothing to go on.
Ink’s alibi wasn’t as good as the others, though.
“I clocked in here and I appear on the camera briefly. But that could be picked apart. And even though Brody saw me here, he spent most of the time in a different office from me.”
Brody was his tech specialist.
“Have you got Brody looking into this Betsy?” Duke asked.
“Called him before I called any of you. He’s in his office now, doing a background check on her.”
God knows what he would find.
“Why would anyone set you up for the murder?” Sunny asked.
“Maybe it’s whoever hired the Fox,” Spike mused. “But why bother? The Fox isn’t going to give him up. And the cops have no idea that the Fox even killed the senator.”
Ink growled. “Damned if I know.”
“Language,” Duke growled. He was trying to get them to watch their swearing around Sunny. It wasn’t exactly going well. “Well, there’s one way of finding out. The girl. We get to her. Question her.”
His hands clenched into fists at the idea of seeing her again. Talking to her. He wasn’t sure he could question her without getting mad. And he didn’t like the idea of anyone else questioning her.
He didn’t want them to frighten her.
Yes, he was aware he was a mess of contradictions. He was furious with