Write Your Own Song

Chapter 33

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

Any other day, Jack would gloat about being right – maybe not to Bobby's face since he wasn't stupid, but he'd definitely feel a little surge of pride at figuring out the shit that his brother claimed to be such an expert at. Problem was, Bobby was so wrong this time that if they made it out of this fucked up mess alive, he would never in a million years tell him he told him so.

The car hit another pothole and he bit back a groan as it rattled every bruise, cut and bullet wound he'd received that week. His wrists were wrapped in duct tape and they'd thrown a piece over his mouth. Sofi was lying behind him, tied up and gagged, though it wasn't hard to make out the impressive string of curse words she was unleashing behind the duct tape.

They were trapped in a trunk, headed to God knows where and the asshole who was driving seemed to be aiming directly for every pothole in Michigan.

Jack just wished he was a tiny bit surprised by the latest turn of events, but he wasn't. On the plus side, they were more or less in one piece and the car hadn't been set on fire or driven off a cliff yet. But the night was still young.

He was supposed to keep Sofi safe, and to say he fucked that up was an understatement.

They were doing exactly what Bobby had ordered them to do – staying out of the way, hiding out in a crappy hotel in Flint. They were bored out of their minds, watching the Food Network as Sofi paged through wedding magazines, when the door was suddenly broken down. Next thing he knew, Jack was waking up in a trunk with a splitting headache, tied up and confused.

One thing was certain – Bobby was going to be pissed when he found out what happened, he just hoped he was alive to see it.

XxXxXxXxXx

Jerry never felt more self conscious than he did at that moment, standing at the door of an abandoned restaurant, wearing a wire even though he had no idea what good a wire was going to do in a situation that was more than likely going to end in gunfire.

There was no turning back once he pushed open that door and he hated that part of him actually considered running off into the night. If he knew without a doubt that Sweet wouldn't come after Camille and the kids, then he probably would have taken them and gotten the hell out of Detroit once and for all. But there were no guarantees with this, and as far as he knew, Sweet wouldn't be happy until every Mercer was dead and buried.

Stepping through that door was like signing his own death sentence and he hoped like hell Bobby and Green knew what they were doing and that their plan worked.

Jerry glanced at the name stenciled in gold across the frosted glass window. Victor's. Seemed fitting in some sick way that the place it was all going to end was named after the creep who started it all.

Saying a silent prayer, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

XxXxXxXxXx

Angel hated hiding. It felt like the cowardly thing to do, waiting it out in a coat check closet, waiting for his brother to give the signal. He hated even more that Jerry was the one they were sending into the direct line of fire. Jerry was his brother and a survivor like the rest of them, but he knew how he got sometimes under pressure and you couldn't get more under pressure than they were at that moment.

He and Green were huddled over a high-tech, FBI-issued piece of equipment that was picking up the signal from the wire Jerry was wearing. Angel held the headphones next to his ear, listening in as Roy Sweet greeted his older brother in a tone of voice that was menacing in its calmness. He had a gun in his other hand, and he tightened his grip on it, waiting for just the right moment to drop the headphones and storm into the other room.