“What the fuck?” Stella shouted. “Ariel, are you all right?”

I turned just as Ariel started to fall. It took me a split second to get to her, but I was too late, she had already hit the floor. I lifted her and sat her in my seat, running my hands over her arms and legs, checking over every inch. Everly and Stella elbowed me out of the way and took over. Had it been anyone else, I wouldn’t have let her go. They were a first responder and a registered nurse, so I trusted them.

“She wouldn’t sleep with you, so you drugged her?”

I turned to face Brandon, and my vision bled to crimson. What the fuck.

“Did you say drugged?” I asked.

I saw his face change a shade before he steeled his shoulders and put his mask back on. Drugged. That motherfucker drugged her. How else would he know what was wrong with her before we did? Not to mention he had never set foot in Sixes before. Yet, he was conveniently there the same time that Ariel was drugged. It clicked. He was fucking stalking her. This crazy motherfucker was following her and had just upped his game in desperation.

“I don’t have time for you. Carter can handle this and your fucked-up, psychotic behavior, I need to take care of Ariel.”

“Watch yourself, Deputy. I think you’re in enough hot water as it is, don’t you?” Brandon asked, trying to bait me. “Did she refuse to have sex with you in exchange for not getting a ticket?”

“I’d advise you to be quiet. At this point, anything you say or do could be considered obstruction of justice,” Aiden said as he stepped between Brandon and me. “You and Carter need to stay out of this, both of you are on administrative leave. I’ll handle it.”

Stella was holding a bottle of water to Ariel’s lips, but it didn’t look like Ariel was drinking anything. From the corner of my eye, I saw Brandon stand to move toward Ariel. Aiden shifted with him, blocking his advance.

“Don’t fucking move,” Aiden ground out.

“Deputy. I think that I know the law better than you. Unless you have probable cause to detain me, then I believe that we’re done. Oh wait, except for the fact that he is probable cause,” Brandon said, pointing to me.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“You heard me. I want to know why you drugged my girlfriend?” Brandon asked.

This time, Carter and Aiden moved swiftly to block me. This man was delusional. I was going to take his ass out.

“Sit your ass down, Fagan. First, she is not your girlfriend. Second, I have a strange feeling that you are behind her attacks and that Ariel is afraid of you—”

“Has she filed a restraining order against me?” Brandon was trying to blow smoke, redirect attention away from him. Too bad for him, everyone knew his game. “If someone was in fear, wouldn’t that be their first line of action? Wouldn’t that be your first suggestion?”

“Shut up and let me finish,” I demanded. “Third, I was with Ariel and with all of these witnesses the entire time. Where were you? By the way, why are you here? This isn’t your normal place.”

“Watch your tone. Don’t you think that your fellow deputies have made big enough asses of themselves lately without your help?” Brandon paused and his lips twisted into a smirk. “Oh wait, all of the unethical, atrocious behavior has been by you and your cohorts.”

“Get the fuck out of my bar and never come back!” Vivian shouted, enunciating each word as tears rolled down her face. “You defended that man, that animal that killed my husband. Get out of here.”

I wrapped Vivian into my arms and turned my back on Brandon to shield her.

“Vivian, take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. We’ll get him out of here, but you need to let Aiden handle it.”

“I want him out of here now.” The tears were still flowing freely but her eyes were fierce.

“And we will. I promise.” I dropped my voice so it was a whisper. “Listen. I need you to start closing out tabs and getting people out of here. I also need all the video footage from the last six hours.”

She took a deep breath and pulled out of my arms. “Okay. But get him the hell out of my bar, Kayson. I don’t ever want to see him in here again.”

“We will.”

I watched her storm to the bar, say something to the bartender, and then disappear into the back. Once I was sure she wasn’t going to come back with a baseball bat, I rounded on Brandon, who was still standing there with his smug sense of entitlement.

“I’ve got things to do. You do not have reason to Terry stop me, and if you want to talk more, you know where to find me.” His eyes cut to me. “Perhaps your friends should start watching their backs when you’re around,” Brandon said and walked out of the bar.

Carter chased after him to give him the no trespass warning, and I was still amazed by the audacity of that man. How dare he insinuate that I would do anything to my friends, let alone anyone else.

When Carter came back inside, he was shaking his head. I would get the story later. He went over to talk with the bartender while Aiden spoke to our waitress, and I walked over to check on Ariel. She was out of it, she’d only had one drink but she was passed out as if she’d been on a drinking bender.

“I’m going to take her to ORMC and get her on a saline drip,” Everly said as she positioned her shoulder under Ariel’s arm.

“Let me carry her out to your car. I will come by Stella’s when this mess is all cleaned up. My phone is on me, call me if you learn anything, please.” I hated leaving her, but I knew she was in the capable hands of Everly and Stella. I fastened Ariel into Everly’s Suburban, before heading back into Sixes.

In Vivian’s office where we went through the video from today. “There. Stop and rewind forty-five seconds.”

Vivian backed up the video and replayed it in slow motion. I watched as our waitress walked up to the bar and told Danny, the bartender, our drink order. Something she said caught a man’s attention.

“She must have said the order was for your table, and he was listening for Ariel’s drink. We all know she always orders a Jack and diet.”

The man watched Danny pour my beer and then fix Ariel’s Jack and diet. When the drinks were set on a tray on the bar, the man’s fingers lightly skimmed the tray and turned it slowly. Once Ariel’s drink was near him, he dropped something into it and moved away from the bar. Right before he walked out, he shot a look over his shoulder. Fuck. Where was he looking? I leaned closer to the screen to see if I could see anyone else, but nothing. Then the man left.

“Have you ever seen him before?” I asked Vivian.

“Never.”

We asked the staff at Sixes if they had ever seen that man before, and no one recognized him. Vivian made a copy of the video for me, and I looked through the earlier feed as well. Brandon came in around four o’clock, talked with Gigi, and then left. Interesting, but not what I was looking for. The man that drugged Ariel’s drink came in around six o’clock and sat in a far corner. When Ariel and I came in, he moved to the bar. Obviously, he’d been waiting for us. Brandon came in a few minutes after the man left and stood by the door. He never took a seat.

Walking back out to the main bar area “You got this?” I asked Aiden when he nodded I strode for the door.

“Hey, before you go, I want to talk to you about what Brandon said,” Carter called out to my back, and I spun.

“When you followed him outside?” I asked.

“Yeah. He asked how we were going to restrain you once he and Ariel were married. And then he proceeded to enter into some fucked-up fairy world where he saw Ariel waiting for him to come home from work every night. He talked about her red hair and red lips, and then went on to tell me that she was all his. He kept reiterating that. He said that he would win because he always wins. Man, I think that dude has seriously lost it. Something isn’t right up there.” Carter circled his finger next to his temple.

“Thanks for the heads up.” I shook his hand and turned back to the door. After I was on the way to Stella’s, I picked up my cell phone and called my captain.

“Do you know what time it is?” Captain Getty answered.

“I do, sir, and I’m sorry. We had a little incident tonight at Sixes with Fagan.”

I finished filling him in on the details just as I pulled into Stella’s driveway. Moving the passenger seat all the way back and into a reclining position before I got out figuring that Ariel would need to sleep on the way home even though it was only a fifteen-minute drive. Everly answered the door, she looked exhausted and worn out.

“How is she?”

“We stopped by the ER, and they gave her an IV and ran her blood work for us.”

“Any clue what it was?”

“Yep.” Everly handed me a piece of paper from the hospital.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the toxicology report.”

“Shit, am I reading this right? Rohypnol? Some motherfucker gave Ariel roofies?”

“Yep. Good thing is we’ve flushed her system and she’s safe,” Everly said as always, trying to find the good side to everything. “You know anyone that would want to have sex with Ariel and if they didn’t succeed, leave you to hang for this crime?”

“Brandon.” We both said at the same time.

I headed over to the couch, scooped Ariel into my arms, and headed for the door. Stella and Everly followed me out and opened my truck door so that I could put Ariel in the seat. The emotions in me were like a jigsaw puzzle; nothing seemed to be fitting together at the moment. I was angry, then worried, then pissed at myself, then concerned for Ariel, and then livid. The only constant emotion was my love for her.

“Thank you for taking care of her.”

Everly nodded as Stella ran her hand over Ariel’s hair. “Just promise me you will get that fucker. I can’t even think about what would have happened if we weren’t all there.”

I couldn’t think about that. I just couldn’t. So, I promised to call her if anything else happened.

When we got home, I tucked her into bed and then ran downstairs and grabbed her a glass of water. When I crawled into bed and pulled her into my arms, her eyes fluttered open.

“You rescued me,” she whispered.

“My sweet, haven’t you figured that out yet? I’ll always rescue you.”

“I love you.” Those were her last words before I heard the gentle whistling sound that she made while she slept. She loved me.