Liz POV

"I've never really heard them in action before," I said to Danny after Mike and Carolyn got out of the car. "For a minute there, I thought maybe they'd let him slip away."

"That was the point," he replied. "Usually if you give a criminal enough rope, he'll hang himself. And no one supplies the rope better than those two."

"It's hard for me to think of Carver as a criminal. I never cared for the man, but I always thought he worked hard. Although it does sound like he has a very high opinion of himself."

"He got too caught up in it. He lost sight of what was right."

"So what happens next?"

"Next we hope that neither Logan kills him before the CPD shows up. Then we'll go to the station and give our statements. After that, we can probably go home."

"So that's it? What'll happen to Carver?"

"He'll go to jail," Danny replied simply. "Maybe he'll get by with probation, but he'll definitely be disbarred. Some lucky, unsuspecting ADA is going to get that DA's seat."

"Hopefully it'll be someone with a few morals," I said sadly.

I hated to think that the system was so damaged. I hated the idea that men who were supposed to be keeping justice in this country were actually perpetuating the downfall of the legal system.

What ever happened to the good guys?

Oh yeah, right.

They were on the fifth floor taking down a corrupt ADA.

"What do you think Mike will do to him?" I asked Danny as I watched expectantly down the street for the CPD.

I wanted to be sure to be able to give Logan enough of a warning so that he could cover up the evidence of whatever payback he was getting.

"It's not him that I'm worried about," Danny said. "It's her. Did you see the look on her face?"

"What do you think about her?" I asked him.

I was curious about his take on Carolyn. She was a mystery to me. Dedicated, tough as nails, smart, and yet she had a distance about her that made me wonder what kind of life she'd led.

She rarely let anyone see past her carefully constructed walls.

"She's spoken her mind to me a time or two," he admitted. "Let's just say that I like knowing she's on my side. It's much better than the alternative."

I thought about his response as I kept watch down the block. It had been several minutes, and I was curious as to what was happening upstairs.

I didn't like waiting. I liked doing.

"Oh, did you hear from the commissioner?" I asked him, remembering that he had left town without getting verbal approval for his time off.

"He's left me a few messages," he told me. "I haven't called him back yet."

"Danny, you can't just ignore him. Call him and tell him that you're tied up in a personal matter."

He was quiet for so long that I thought maybe he wasn't going to answer me and I wondered what was going on in his head.

"I'm not sure I want to go back," he said at last.

"What?"

"I'm serious Liz. I don't know if I want to keep doing the job."

"What are you going to do? Follow the Gorens and the Logans around the country while they work cases?"

I knew that I was being a smartass, but he'd taken me completely by surprise. And honestly, I didn't care if he wanted to quit the NYPD. Hell, I didn't care if he didn't want to work another day in his life.

I just didn't want him to make a decision that he'd later regret just because he was caught up in the excitement that inevitably followed those four.

"Of course not," he replied in a way that made me think he was thinking exactly that. "Maybe I'm just questioning how much good I'm doing where I'm at. We had a corrupt chief, he was replaced by a man who was only marginally more ethical, and now looking at what's going on out here…it's enough to make me doubt the system."

"And?"

"And nothing. I'm just questioning if I want to stay on with the NYPD," he said defensively.

"It's your choice," I told him. "You know I'm behind you either way."

Before he could respond, I saw a black-and-white come racing down the street.

"I see it," he said as I pointed my finger in the direction of the oncoming car. He clicked on his mike and announced that the cops were pulling up.

"You know, the Danny Ross I used to know would've never allowed Mike and Carolyn to go in there."

"I'm not the boss of them."

"You know what I'm saying," I insisted. "You helped arrange this whole thing. It's your ass on the line with Coulter, and potentially even back at home. If you had asked Mike to stay, he would have. He was waiting for your approval."

"What's your point?"

"You've changed. Maybe you shouldn't go back."

"And then what would I do? Like you said, I can't go chasing after the four of them."

"You're a smart man. You'll come up with something."

"So you're saying that you think I should quit?"

"I'm saying don't stick with the job just because you're not sure what else to do. You always have options on the table. We're not hurting for money. If you need some time to decide what you want to do, then take it. We'll be fine."

He was quiet again, and before long, two uniformed officers brought Carver out through the front doors, his hands cuffed behind his back.

"Something happened," Danny said.

"Why?"

"They wouldn't have cuffed him for subornation of perjury."

I watched as Carver argued with the cops. I couldn't hear what was being said, but the intent was clear. Carver thought that he was much too good to be placed in the back of a squad car.

The Logans and the Gorens came out another minute later.

"Oh for heaven's sake," I muttered when I saw Mike's face. He had fresh swelling.

"What?"

"Now I know why Carver's cuffed. I'm betting he's being charged with assault."

Bobby POV

It was done.

Carver had walked right into our trap and then he'd gone along with Logan's ruse as well. So now we had him on assault and subornation of perjury.

And it wasn't that I was happy about taking him down.

Okay, so I was a little bit happy about that.

The man had been a thorn in my side for years.

And then he had committed the ultimate sin, as far as I was concerned, and gone after Alex.

He'd gone after her hard.

I couldn't help but think that for that reason alone, I would never forgive Carver.

So while on the surface I felt a little bad about a man who was friends with Jimmy Deakins being hauled away in handcuffs, the truth of the matter was that he deserved to be heading off in the black-and-white.

He had basically sold out his own brother all for the sake of his career.

We'd come to town to find Derek Carver.

What we'd actually done was solve his murder, as well as another unsolved murder, and we had shut down a drug cartel which was headed by the district attorney.

No one could say that we hadn't gotten the job done.

"I knew it the minute I saw you," Liz remarked as the six of us sat around a table in the hotel restaurant. "But I still would've loved to see him lose control. He was always so smug and reserved."

We had spent the rest of the day at the precinct making sure that everything was taken care of. Sworn statements were given, evidence turned over, theories discussed.

At this very moment, Wilmouth and Carver were sharing a holding cell at the 11th district.

I had been tempted to announce their identities to the other occupants in the cell, but I'd abstained.

Barely.

I didn't know Wilmouth, but I wanted Carver to get a feel for what had happened with Logan. Although it was probably good that I hadn't said anything because even though Mike had been able to hold his own, Carver would've likely been beaten to death.

And so the fear caused by Logan's threat had probably been enough.

Ironically enough, Mike had been the one to talk me out of saying anything. Alex had joked about that. About the idea that maybe when I got Mike's blood, I'd gotten his temper along with it.

I knew she was only kidding, so I laughed it off at the time, but it didn't keep me from analyzing her statement. Was there truth in something like that? Scientifically, no, but just because it hadn't been proven didn't mean it wasn't possible.

Besides, I did know this much: what Mike had done for me by giving his blood was the single most generous, selfless act that anyone had ever done for me in my entire life.

We'd developed a bond between us before, but now it was different. Now there was no need to make the distinction between brothers by choice and brothers by blood.

We were both.

"Yeah, well I was hoping he would hit me instead," Carolyn spoke up in reference to Liz's remark. "Mike's face has taken enough of a beating."

And it had. He currently held an ice pack against his dark purple jaw, but he had a smile on his face.

"It was worth it," he said easily.

"How'd you get him to do it?" Ross asked Logan.

And I loved that he seemed curious rather than annoyed. He was starting to get Mike.

He was starting to get all of us.

"Well, it seems that Carver has a bit of a hang-up about being compared to his brother," Alex said.

She gave me a look when she made that comment, and I knew that she was afraid that Frank was on my mind. And he was a little.

But our talk the other day had freed me of some of my guilt about him. Alex was right, as usual.

I had good memories of Frank, and I had done what I could to help him.

I had to let everything else go.

"He has a lot of hang-ups," Carolyn corrected. "Don't get me started on him."

"So, how are you guys going to get paid for this thing?" Ross asked.

"His assets have been frozen. I turned in our expense report, and whenever his finances get out of the holding pattern that they're currently in, the bills will be paid. It might take a little while, but we'll get it. And the hotel and airline tickets out here were on his credit card, so it could've been worse."

"Sorry that you had to come out here for nothing," I told Rodgers. But she looked happy, so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing,

"It wasn't for nothing. I didn't come out here for slicing and dicing. I just needed to make sure that everyone was okay. Next time you guys take a field trip you need to keep us both in the loop, okay?"

I couldn't stop the laugh. Liz using a Ross-phrase was just too much.

"Tom's going to make sure that no charges are pressed against you for the jail house incident," Ross said to Logan, ignoring my laughter. Alex and Mike were chuckling, too, but no one asked.

"He was considering it?" Carolyn asked heatedly. "How could he possibly be considering it when it was…"

"Carolyn," Mike interrupted. He was calm and composed as he leaned back in his chair, one hand on his ice pack and the other resting on Carolyn's shoulder. "There won't be any charges. And I did send a guy to the hospital, so let's just be happy that it's over with, okay?"

"Okay," she agreed reluctantly.

"You know, you never did tell us why he owed you," Alex spoke up.

"Tom?" Liz asked and then she looked at Ross. "You didn't tell them?"

"No," he said quietly. "It's not a big deal."

"It is," she argued and I nodded my head in agreement.

"It definitely is," I added. "Your ties with him got us out of a jam, not to mention that his willingness to let us work this case helped us bring Carver down."

"I thought we were going to start sharing personal stories now," Mike said. "Remember?"

"I haven't heard anything from you, Logan."

"I think I'm already ahead of the curve. You've been reading the text messages from Rhonda, right? You know a secret from my past. It's your turn."

"That's not the same," Ross argued.

"No, it's not. Mine's worse."

"Oh, for God's sake Danny. Are you going to tell them or do you want me to?" Liz asked him, pinning him with her stare. I was reminded again why I liked her. There was no pretense, no bullshit.

"We walked a beat together in the Bronx," he said finally. "We got a call for a domestic dispute. Turned out the husband was holding his wife at gunpoint. The couple's kid let us in the apartment, and then the man turned the gun onto us."

I could easily picture the scene. Domestic disputes were always sketchy.

"So what happened?" Alex asked him.

"He took a shot at Tom. I shoved him out of the way."

"He took a bullet in the chest," Liz clarified. I looked at Ross in surprise. I had never heard that story, or anything remotely similar. And usually hero stories like that spread like wildfire around the department.

"So you saved his life," Carolyn stated.

"I…um…yes. I guess I did."

"In the chest?" Logan asked. "How long were you out?"

"It took me three months to get back to full duty. They reassigned me to a precinct in Queens. They'd gotten a bad reputation for an incident that had happened while I was on medical leave and so they thought that bringing me in might provide them with good press."

"How did Tom end up in Chicago?"

"He's from here. He went to NYU and then stayed in New York to join the force, but after a few years, he got hired with the CPD and worked his way up."

"So he never got the chance to pay you back."

"He didn't really owe me. He was my partner. It's what you do," he deflected.

I was seeing a whole different side of Ross and it was completely unexpected. Of course, I had enough trouble picturing him as a beat cop, but he'd saved the life of another cop? And he was playing it off, not using it to his advantage to climb the political ladder?

"So now we owe you," Logan said. His tone was serious, and I couldn't blame him. Ross had cashed in that kind of chip to get Logan out of trouble. Well, to help us all, but initially it had been Mike's issue with the cops that had prompted the action.

"I think it's safe to call us even," Ross argued.

"All of us," Alex added, her voice speaking the words that were in my head.

I knew that Ross felt like he owed us a debt of gratitude, but I didn't want that from him. I didn't want him to feel like he had to jump when we called because of some perceived imbalance of the scales.

"I don't know if that's really…"

"All of us," I repeated. "We're all even now, right?"

"Right," Carolyn agreed. "Well, except I think that maybe I still owe Alex…"

"And I owe Mike," Alex spoke up.

"Nobody owes anybody anything!" Liz said loudly, stopping the conversation. "Clean slate from here on out. Got it?"

We had it.

Any assistance that was going to be given from this point forward was because that's what friends did for each other.

Friends and family.

TBC...