Angel stepped out of her blue Jeep Cherokee in front of an old, brick building almost two weeks after she’d walked into the captain’s office. That two weeks had been filled with education about the local MCs…everything she needed to know, she was told. The background information came from her brother David and she got a lot of the inside information from Kyle and Micah. It was a lot to process in such a short time, but she was determined to do this and do a good job. She looked up at the big, neon green sign out front that said “Spirits” in two-foot letters. This was the bar where she was told the Skulls hung out when they weren’t partying at their clubhouse. The clubhouse was way out in the country and from what they knew, heavily guarded. If she was going to get in there, she would have to meet one of the members at the bar who wanted to invite her in.

Angel adjusted her short black skirt and pulled the right sleeve of the loose black t-shirt back up on her shoulder to cover her bra strap. She felt naked and not because of the clothes. She was missing her utility belt, and her holster, and her gun. In essence, a cop without a gun in a den of criminals was naked. But she couldn’t think about that right now. Right now she had to be a lady and she had to make one of those criminals want her badly enough to share his secrets.

Her long, blonde hair was curled in tight ringlets and hanging down to the middle of her back, and her make-up was thicker than she’d worn it since the first time that she tried to do it herself at thirteen. She slung her purse over her shoulder; it was another thing that felt odd. She never carried a purse. She’d learned from her father and brothers how to carry her wallet in her pocket and leave all that other shit at home. She was toddling like a newborn baby deer in the four-inch-heeled boots she was wearing. They were leather and came up over her knees and laced all the way up the front. They were hot and they would get her noticed…even if she didn’t face-plant right onto the floor in the middle of the bar because she couldn’t walk in them.

She was almost up to the door when she heard Kyle’s voice. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. There was a listening device inside the tiny little stud she had in her ear and a microphone inside the ring that she’d gotten pierced into her nose. Angel didn’t even know such things existed. It was new technology that she assumed cost a fortune. It would also only last for eighteen hours without being recharged so if she stayed around longer than that, she’d be on her own, without a gun. She reminded herself once more not to think about that.

“Please be safe, Angel.”

“You got it, Bubba.” She pulled on the skirt again, self-conscious about how short it was, and pushed open the door of the bar. As she stepped inside her imagination had everyone in the place stopping what they were doing and looking at her. A few guys with leather kuttes and big, gruesome, smiling skull patches on the backs of them were gathered around the pool table. There was another guy with the same kutte on out on the dance floor groping a girl that looked to be young enough to be his daughter. Three men sat belly up to the bar. One of them wore a jean vest with a big, round patch on the back that said “Prospect.” The other two wore leather kuttes and t-shirts. A few women sat at one table over in one corner and one sat on the lap of another biker off in the far corner. Angel rationally knew that most of them had barely glanced at her, but she still felt like she was on display somehow. Micah told her that it would be like that. He said that you always felt exposed on your first undercover assignment, like you were naked and wearing a sign around your neck that said “Cop.”

Angel cautiously made her way to an empty stool at the bar. The guy behind it had a yellow and red faux-hawk and several piercings in his face. He also had on a jean vest and his bare arms were colored with tattoos from shoulder to wrist. He gave her an odd look and said, “You lost?” Great, I’m already sticking out.

“Nope, just thirsty.”

He grinned. “Well then, I guess you’re in the right place. What can I get you?”

“A beer—whatever you have on tap is fine.” She watched as he grabbed a mug and started to fill it. From the corner of her eye, she could see the three men at the end of the bar watching her. When the bartender sat the beer down in front of her, she started to hand him a twenty, but her hand was suddenly covered by a huge, rough one. Startled, she looked up, into the dark eyes of a man about her father’s age. He had long gray hair that fell across his shoulders in thin strands and an ugly, puckered scar along one side of his face. He smiled at her and said:

“I got this, darlin’.” He handed the bartender a twenty while she searched for her voice.

When she found it she said, “Thanks, but I can buy my own drinks.”

“I’m sure you can, but I never let a pretty lady pay for her own beer—it just wouldn’t be right.” One of the women from the table in the corner walked by at just about that time. She stopped when she heard him, put her hand on her plump hip, and with a scowl that could have scared off a grizzly bear she said:

“Damn, Scar! I sat next to you and paid for my own drinks all night last Friday.”

The old guy ran his eyes down the length of her body and then, looking right into her eyes, he said, “I said a pretty lady. Now beat it, Tank.”

She flipped him off, but then, surprising Angel, she smiled sweetly at her before walking away. She shook her ample hips as she did and made Angel envious of how she was handling the five- or six-inch heels she was wearing. Scar slid onto the stool next to Angel and she could smell the faint aroma of weed. “So, where were we?”

Angel cleared her throat. “I was explaining to you that I could buy my own drinks.”

He laughed softly. It was a deep, rumbly laugh. “Well, I apologize if I overstepped, little lady. We just don’t get too many girls in this hole in the wall that look like you. I got excited and forgot my manners. Do you forgive me?” The bartender sat her beer down in front of her. She picked it up and took a sip and then, looking back at Scar, she said:

“I’ll try.”

He laughed again. “I like you…what’s your name?”

“Angel.”

“Angel. It suits you. What’s your last name, Angel?”

“No last name, just Angel.”

Chuckling again he said, “I reckon that’s not something I can argue with. Folks call me Scar…for the obvious reasons. Where you from, Angel? Heaven?”

She rolled her eyes and took another drink of her beer. “Originally,” she finally said with a grin. “But I live in Boston now.” Over the past two weeks a lot of preparations were made for her new identity. One of them was a driver’s license that gave her name as Angela “Angel” Davis. The address was a studio apartment in Boston down near the harbor. Someone from the department actually drove the hundred-plus miles every other day or so to make it look “lived in,” just in case. The department was going all out for this investigation, and Angel prayed every morning that she’d be able to handle it and make everyone concerned happy and proud.

“What are you doing way out here?”

She shrugged. “Just passing through,” she told him. “You live around here?”

“Here and there,” he said. Angel sipped her beer again and the jukebox switched from country music to Journey, belting out a love song from the eighties. “I love this song! Dance with me, darlin’?”

“No, thank you. I don’t dance.”

“Aw, come on, baby girl…” Just then she felt something like a shadow pass over her. She looked up into a pair of the bluest eyes that she’d ever seen. The man attached to them was about six foot four and it almost hurt her neck to look up at him. His blond hair was long to his shoulders and parted away from his face on both sides. His face had light brown stubble across the chin and jawline and his lips…God, those lips…. they were dark pink, plump, and they looked pillowy soft.

“Scar, let the lady alone. You act like an untrained dog sometimes.” Scar wasn’t a small man himself, but somehow the other man’s presence alone seemed to dwarf him. Without a word to the man or Angel, Scar got up and went back to his own stool. Angel turned her attention back to the big guy. His shoulders seemed at least four feet wide from one end to the other. His biceps bulged out from underneath a white t-shirt and a colorful tribal band was wrapped around one of them. His forearms were huge too and thick veins ran through them like cords of rope. He was smiling down at her and she felt her whole body begin to shake. She wasn’t sure if it was from nerves, the fact that she already knew who the man was, or both. “Hey there, beautiful.”

“The name is Angel.”

He laughed. “Of course it is.”

“It really is. I mean, well, my parents named me Angela,” she lied. “But everyone calls me Angel.”

He barely bent his long legs and sat down on the stool next to her. “Well then, I’m glad to meet you, Angel.” There was something about him that frightened and drew her in at the same time. He was gorgeous, in a scary, dangerous sort of way. His easy smile both set her slightly at ease and completely on fire. She had seen photos of him, but not a single one of them had done him justice. Her eyes went to the patch on the front of his black leather kutte. It was a black circle and in the center of it was embroidered a light blue, cursive “P.” He held out a gigantic hand and she hesitated before taking it. Somehow she sensed that once she touched it, it was going to leave her craving more. His hand was warm and rough, and shamelessly she wondered what those hands would feel like as they touched and massaged her body. “Dax,” he said. She pulled her hand away from his, albeit reluctantly, and said:

“Nice to meet you, Dax.” He slid onto the stool next to hers and the bartender placed a beer and a shot in front of him. He picked up the shot and downed it, chased it with a drink of beer, and then looked at her and said:

“I swear I’ve never said this to a woman in my life…but what’s a girl like you doing in a dive like this?”

Angel smiled. “I was just driving, trying to clear my head. I came up on it so I thought I’d stop in and have a drink.” She looked around her at the old license plates nailed up onto the walls and the beat-up wooden tables and scarred vinyl chairs and said, “It’s not so bad.” She wondered what had gone wrong with her outfit. She thought she looked a lot like the other women in the bar. What was it that was giving her away? Maybe she’d just already begun that process of looking like a cop. Every cop that she’d ever known in her life, especially the old veterans like her dad, looked like a cop. Maybe she did too.

Dax let his eyes glide slowly from the roots of her hair all the way to the tips of her high-heeled shoes. She suppressed a shudder, thankfully…but she couldn’t be sure that her face wasn’t as red as it was hot. “Well, I for one can’t say as I’m sorry that you did. Where are you from, darlin’?”

“Boston.”

He nodded. “Yep. One of those fancy bars in Boston with men in suits buying your drinks…that’s the kind of place I see you in.”

With a cocky look she said, “Why is it that all men think women need them to buy their drinks?”

He ran his tongue along the outside of his bottom lip. Jesus, he was killing her. “I’ll just bet there’s not much you do need a man for…is there, darlin’?”

She kept the cocky smile on her face as she said, “Besides the obvious?” She let her eyes take him in then and made sure he noticed her doing it. What better way to get inside the Southside Skulls clubhouse, than with the president of the charter himself? If she was being honest with herself, that wasn’t her only reason for wanting to get close to Dax. But she’d have to sort through all of that later.

Dax threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, darlin’, besides the obvious.”

“Then you’re right. I can take care of myself.”

“Doesn’t a girl like to be taken care of sometimes though? Even if she doesn’t need to be?” Something about the way he said “taken care of” was purely suggestive and sent another thrill racing through her body. She mentally chastised herself. It was one thing to flirt with him and get into his good graces. Falling for his good looks and smooth talking was an entirely different story. She was way too professional for that.

“Depends,” she said with a smile. She picked up her beer, downed what was left in the mug, and slid off the stool. “Well, Dax, it was nice meeting you.”

“You’re leaving so soon? We were just getting to know each other.”

“One beer is my limit when I’m driving.”

“Well then, sit down and have another and I’ll drive.” He winked at her. Damn, his eyelashes are like a foot long.

She laughed. “You don’t even know where I’m headed.”

He tapped the bar and the colorful bartender immediately started pouring another beer. “You can tell me while you’re having your beer.” She acted annoyed, but she sat back down. She was surprised. She hadn’t expected things to move this quickly. She was also a little nervous. Was she ready to be taken back to the clubhouse? If Dax took her there, what was he going to expect from her? She picked up the beer that was set down in front of her and took a sip. “So, where are you headed, pretty lady?”

“Hartford,” she said.

“What’s in Hartford that we don’t have right here on the south side of Bartholomew County?”

Taking another sip of her beer she said, “Colt.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a boyfriend or a husband…?”

She laughed again. “No, the gun. They have an opening for a production manager in their plant. I have an interview on Monday. I thought I’d go out early and take in some sights or check out the neighborhoods in case I decide to make the move.” He was staring at her with a small smile on his face. “What?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t see you putting guns together for a living.”

“Well, there’s a little more to it than that, I hope at least. I was working in a gun shop in Boston and that’s pretty much all I did there. I got bored. I’m looking for something new and hopefully exciting.”

“Exciting, huh?”

She giggled. “Yeah. You know, sometimes life gets a little stagnant. I’m trying to shake it up a little.”

“By becoming a…what was it? Production manager?”

She knew he was teasing her so when she felt her face begin to flush she didn’t even look away. “It’s a start,” she said with a grin.

“Hmm…so you don’t really have to be there until Monday?”

“My interview is Monday at ten a.m.”

“It’s only Thursday afternoon. How’d you like to really kick-start your new life?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

“Trust me?”

She laughed. “I don’t even know you.”

He stood up and held his hand out to her. “I intend to change that.”