Angel waited nervously outside of Captain Banks’ door. She had an appointment with him at three that afternoon. It was already three-thirty, but his assistant told her that he was meeting with an agent of the FBI Since the platinum coin case was broken five months earlier, the FBI had been crawling around like vultures, picking the carcasses of the collars the Hanover PD had made.

She picked up a copy of Glamour magazine and thumbed through it. She smiled to herself as she wondered why on earth they’d put Glamour in the waiting room of a police captain’s office. Even she would rather thumb through a copy of Guns and Ammo than a perfume-drenched fashion brochure.

Her foray through the world of accessorizing and matching your lipstick to your shoes was interrupted by the click of the heavy office door. Captain Banks appeared in the doorway with another man. Captain Banks was in his forties, but from the neck down he looked as fit as any twenty-year-old on the force. His age, and probably a lot of stress from the job, was only apparent in the lines around his eyes and the thinning, gray hair on his head. He still carried himself with the presence of a young man, but in seconds he could transform from that into the stern disciplinarian parental type. Angel would never dare compare him to Dax Marshall out loud, but the truth was, they had a lot of similarities. Not in looks, of course. But they both had the ability to suck out all the oxygen in almost any room they were in. And like Dax, Captain Banks was loved by some, feared by others, but respected by all.

Everyone knew that the captain became a cop with the idea that someday he would run the department. It only took him fifteen years to get where he was today and he didn’t appear to have any plans on stopping. Every time Angel saw him she thought about Kyle and his aspirations for the chief of police job. She wondered how the captain would handle answering to a man like her brother. Kyle was as polite and respectful as he had to be toward the captain at this point in his career, but Angel knew how controlling and dominant he could be. The current chief was a much older man who seemed mostly weary of police work and the world and probably had a calendar he marked an “X” on daily, counting the days until he could retire. He was content to sit back and let the captain run the show and then he’d go to the mayor and take credit for anything that turned out well. The captain tolerated that, she guessed, just because he loved the autonomy it gave him in the meantime. That would drastically change if Kyle ever bypassed him for the chief job. It was an elected position in their county, so it was highly possible. She reckoned the two men would spend a lot of their time knocking heads.

“Brady! I’m sorry, I’m running behind. Special Agent Johnson, this is Officer Angel Brady. She was a key player in taking down Vince Miller.”

“Brady?” the agent asked as Angel stood up and he offered her his hand.

“Glad to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise. Are you related to the detective that was killed…?”

Angel felt that now familiar lump in her throat and tightness in her chest as she said, “He was my father.”

“Jesus,” the agent said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

She nodded. Stoically, because she didn’t reveal her emotions to many people, she said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Agent Johnson, I’ll have those files over to your office by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Captain,” he said. Looking back at Angel with sympathy on his face he said, “Take care, Miss Brady.”

“Thank you. You too.” She stood with the captain and they watched him go. Finally, the captain looked down at her and said,

“Come on in, Brady. Sorry about that.” She followed him into his spacious office and took the chair he indicated with a wave of his arm. After her father died, the captain had been very supportive and encouraged her to take some time off. She’d refused to do that, mostly because she needed Dax’s support more than anyone else’s. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “What does the F.B.I. want now?”

The captain made a face and said, “Agent Johnson wants everything we have on the Sinners.”

That wasn’t a surprise. The only surprise was that they’d waited so long to ask for it. Angel voiced that thought out loud. “Did he say why he’s only just now requesting it?”

The captain raised an eyebrow and said, “They’ve been watching the Skulls and the Sinners while this war was going on.” He shook his head. “I’ve lost count of the bodies and the collars. It’s insanity at its finest.”

“Yes, sir. From my perspective, the Skulls would like to not be in the middle of it at all.”

The captain frowned. He didn’t believe that any more than the task force did. “Well, we will agree to disagree on that one for now, Brady. So, what did you want to see me about?”

Angel took a deep breath. She thought she was ready for this. It had been so hard to tell Micah, and Kyle had completely gone off the deep end. She thought the captain would be the easy one. But now that his steely gray eyes were focused on her face, she was almost rethinking it. Maybe she shouldn’t tell him why she was leaving the force, just that she had to go.

“Um, this is hard for me, Captain. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past year and I’ve come to a very difficult decision.”

His eyebrow went up again. “Okay…”

“I’m resigning from the force,” she blurted out quickly, so she wouldn’t drag it out.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I just don’t feel like this is what I want any longer.”

“Is this about your father?” Angel was prepared for that.

“No, sir, not directly. I mean, I guess it factored into my final decision, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.”

“What about the investigation that you’re neck deep in right now?”

“Sir, it’s been over seven months since I infiltrated the Skulls and so far, we’ve got nothing major to bust them on. I just don’t see it happening and I’d like to get on with my own life now.”

“Doing?”

She was prepared for that question as well. “I think I’ll go back to school. I have my AA degree in Administration of Justice. In two more years, I can finish my bachelor’s and maybe go to law school.”

“Law school? You want to be an attorney?”

She nodded. “I’m thinking about it.”

“A prosecutor?”

Angel had given that some thought too. She didn’t want to be a prosecutor. She wanted to be a defense attorney. Most cops wouldn’t understand that. She didn’t want to defend just anyone the way Dax’s attorney did, but she would like to be a part of the system that kept innocent people from going to jail and provided some checks and balances where law enforcement was concerned. Somehow, her thoughts and feelings had changed. She wasn’t thinking just as a cop any longer, the way she’d been taught to think her whole life. She was seeing the world from a different perspective and beginning to understand a little about why people made the choices they did…even if those choices were looked upon as “bad” by others. But she wasn’t going to explain all of that to the captain. Instead she just said:

“I haven’t really thought that far ahead. But Dad’s life insurance left me a little cushion and I would like to use it to explore my options.”

“Do your brothers and Detective Ivanov know about this?” Angel sighed. She ached for the day when her decisions didn’t have to be approved or disapproved by her brothers in everyone else’s eyes.

“Micah and Kyle know. I haven’t spoken to David about it yet.”

“And what do Detective Brady and Ivanov have to say about this?”

“They’re not happy. But this is my life, sir.”

“Brady, if I did you a disservice by having you go undercover…”

“Sir, this is not your fault. It’s not anyone’s ‘fault.’ It’s about me deciding for my future. When I look into the future I don’t see myself as a detective like I used to in the past. I’ve lost my passion for the job and I just think that now is the time for me to go.”

The captain sighed heavily. “You know, I knew your father since I was a rookie on the force. He was my FTO for a while. He taught me so much and by all rights, he should have had my job. Hell, he should have had the chief’s job. But he refused to be a ‘desk jockey,’ he said. He craved the action out there on the streets. Personally, it was never for me.”

“Sir…”

“Let me finish, Brady, please. This work is tough, especially the type of work you’ve been doing. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. It wasn’t for me, but I knew if I waited it out and paid my dues, I could end up here. I’m forty-two years old and I can still be a cop without ever having to patrol the streets again, or get called about a murder at three a.m. What I’m trying to say here is that if you’re just tired of the bullshit on the streets or this gang life has gotten you burned out, there are other avenues for you, if you’ll just stick it out a few more years.”

She waited to make sure he was finished and then she said, “Sir, it’s really not any of that. Like I said, I’ve just decided that this life is not for me.”

“Well, I can’t stop you, as much as I’d like to. You’ve been an asset to this department and I’m going to hate to lose you. We’ll need to meet with the task force and figure out your exit from the club. Maybe we can have you introduce someone else, prior to your departure.”

Shit. She hadn’t even thought of that. She’d just assumed that after almost a year of nothing, the captain would be willing to give it up. The violence between the Sinners and Skulls was even in check, thanks mostly to Dax’s leadership and the arrest of about ten Sinners the day they collared Vince Miller. Grant Benning had since seemed to be taking the Sinners in another direction, dipping their toes into some heavy shit in the New York area. It got them out of the Skull’s hair, which was a good thing as far as she was concerned. The rivalry between the two clubs was more dangerous than anything either of them was involved with, in her opinion. Angel had given the information she had about the Sinners, which wasn’t a lot, to the task force. Micah and Sheriff Zandt had met with the leader of the gang task force in Queens and given that information to them. Best-case scenario, enough of them would get busted in New York to at least put the club on hold for a decade or two.

“Okay, sir,” she said at last. “But I’d like to do this as soon as possible.” She got another raised eyebrow in answer to that and then he said:

“I’ll talk to Detective Matheson and set up a meeting.”

Matheson was Chris Matheson. He had taken her father’s place as lead of the task force. It pissed Kyle off because he had expected to be lead. But Matheson had been working in vice for twelve years and the captain thought he’d be a better choice thanks to his experience on the streets.

“Thank you, sir.” Angel stood up and the captain followed suit. He shook her hand and walked her to the door and then said,

“Do me a favor, Brady. Before you do anything permanent, give this some more thought, please.”

“Yes, sir,” she said before going out the door. She knew that she wasn’t going to change her mind. Contrary to what anyone thought, she had given this a lot of thought; for months now it had been on her mind constantly. Then the day of the platinum coin fiasco…everything changed and her decision was cemented.