Holding a hand up to stop me, he said grimly, “Raoul, man, he’s got a gun in his hand and he keeps pointing at her.”
I’d once had someone tell me that they’d felt like their ass had dropped into their balls after they’d heard bad news, and if I had to describe how I was feeling at that moment I’d be inclined to agree with that description. It was one thing apprehending someone who looked like he at three large pizzas on his own in one sitting, but it was another thing apprehending someone who was unhinged and armed. Fingers got twitchy, triggers got pulled, and innocent people died every day because of it.
Grabbing handfuls of my hair, I tried to think past the panic that was taking over. Remove emotion, look at facts, think rationally – that was the first rule of situations like this. But the problem was that we were a small town, so we didn’t have things like SWAT teams because we didn’t face that level of crime. If we needed them, we called out the nearest team from Belton but we didn’t have that time. The guy had been on the run for days now and he knew what he was facing, and this meant that he knew exactly what he wanted. Right now the adrenaline was pumping through him and ruling the show, and adrenaline made people unpredictable.
“Raoul, look at me,” DB ordered, shaking my shoulder to snap me out of it. “We also found something at his house when we went there earlier.”
“Wait, but he hasn’t been there for days,” Logan pointed out, as confused as I was by this information.
“That might be the case,” DB agreed, “but there were bottles of Durabolin in it with used needles and syringes.”
Trying to follow along with it, Logan asked, “Steroids?”
Nodding, DB ran a hand through his hair agitatedly. “He had it all. Durabolin, testosterone, HGH, and it looked like he was getting through a lot of it all.”
“It also explains why he had such an explosive temper,” I croaked, the worry reaching an almost explosive level inside me now.
Staring at the figure who was once again walking around in the house, Logan clarified, “HGH as in like growth hormone stuff?”
Both of us nodded grimly. Putting aside the fact that anabolic steroids were a Penalty Group 3 drug, if he was creating his own cocktail of them and injecting them into his body, the volatility of his mood was unpredictable. He was literally a ticking time bomb and he was waving a gun around my woman.
“Tell the others to hold back. We don’t know what he’ll do if he gets spooked, and I don’t want to take any chances with Rose in there with him.” Looking behind me, I saw my car parked in the drive, and this meant that Garrett had brought her home. Indicating for them to follow me, we hunched down and crossed the road, hunkering down behind the big ass bushes my neighbor insisted on having. “Has anyone seen my brother?”
Typing on his phone, DB mumbled, “No, and there was no sign of movement when I checked your house either.”
That wasn’t right – where was Ranger? It’s not like you could miss him with how big he was. “Let’s go inside,” I suggested quietly. “If we go around the back, we can use the door there instead of the one at the front. I want to see if Garrett’s inside because we need him in on this with us.” It was unlikely he was because it would mean leaving Rose on her own with a psycho, but I still needed to check. When they both nodded, I asked DB, “Have you told the others to keep their distance?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, “but just so you know, Ellis is pissed so I’d make this quick if I was you.”
Ellis could be as pissed as he fucking wanted to be, I didn’t give a shit. The only thing that mattered right now was that Rose was inside that house with someone who had large quantities of performance inducing drugs in his system - drugs he probably hadn’t had in days which would affect him even more, and he was holding a goddamn gun in front of her.
Shooting DB a look to communicate my current feelings on how Ellis felt, I almost smiled when he nodded and muttered, “Noted.”
Not hanging around, I led them to the back door of my house and went in, expecting to see Ranger waiting for me as soon as I did it. “Where’s my dog? Serious as shit, none of this makes any sense.”
A new voice talking behind us almost made me pull my gun. “Your brother came back, let the dog out to take him across to your woman’s house,” Alex relayed from where he was standing next to Jarrod. “He was walking up to the door when a guy almost as big as this one,” he pointed at Jarrod with his thumb, “hit him over the head with the glow in the dark rock from her garden.”