St. Patrick's Day [Friday night - part 2 of 2]
Warning: This entry is cut for length, language, and violence(x3).
Continuing from here:
“...you goddamn bastard!”
That had been the only part that seemed to register as he felt yet another kick on his stomach. He hadn’t bothered to start counting, but he didn’t need to; the way his body seemed to curl within itself was enough to let him know that he had had enough.
After he had regained consciousness, he had found himself in one of the old offices the warehouse had in the second floor, where the floor was so dusty that the dirt was simply a second layer upon it. Most of it was probably now all over him, he guessed, and all over his jeans and t-shirt. Good thing I wore old stuff, he thought to himself as he tried to find some sort of good point in the situation. Two of Jack’s bodyguards had taken turns at kicking him around as they showed him the way that traitors were treated. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the sort of treatment that was received and to be expected - after all, he had been the one doing the punishment at a certain point in time - but now that he was on the end of it...
Michael hadn’t given them the pleasure of begging them to stop. If anything, with each of their taunts he had simply answered with a smartass comment, or a smirk, but never with a complain. Maybe a groan here and there could be heard, but he never complained or begged them to let him go.
As both men, both towering over him since they had him on the floor with his hands handcuffed behind his back, walked over to the door to see what Jack wanted them to do next, Michael tried to keep back a cough that wanted to be let out. The taste of blood in his mouth suddenly returned, and for a moment he just closed his eyes to think of a way out. There was always a way out - there needed it to be.
Minutes later, footsteps came in the room and he groaned mentally as he tried to prepare himself for what was probably coming next with his eyes still closed. Jack would probably talk, followed by a gunshot or two, most likely... However, instead of voices, the sound that suddenly filled the room was the sound of a small click, and the handcuffs being taken off. With a deep frown, Michael opened his eyes and saw that Eddie was kneeling next to him, smiling slightly at him despite his black eye and cut up lip. “Eddie, what the...”
“C’mon, we have to get out of here. Stephen’s coming.”
The name caused all of his anger to suddenly come back at once, and Michael stood up. “What, to kill us?”
Eddie frowned and Kyle, who had been watching Michael carefully, shook his head. “He didn’t set us up,” he explained. Michael was about to argue that point, but Kyle started talking before Michael could even start. “Yeah, he set us up once and you almost got killed - we get it. We do. But, believe it or not, he changed.”
“Bullshit.”
“A long time ago, Mike,” Eddie said quietly, still frowning. “You just never wanted to hear it. And now you don’t want to believe it. If there’s someone who you really shouldn’t trust, it’s not my brother. You know Evan, right? Our ‘buddy’? The fourth one in the group? Yeah, well, Evan ratted us out. He was Jack’s fucking inside man, not Stephen. It’s just fucking easy to mess with your head, don’t you get it?”
“He was the one who knocked you out,” Kyle explained as Michael leaned against a wall, taking everything in. “I shot one of Jack’s guys, and when I turned around he had already knocked you out, and Eddie was being dragged away by some fucker.” Kyle shook his head and passed a gun to Michael. “We need to teach the little prick a lesson in loyalty, don’t you think?”
The sudden smirk on Kyle’s face as he said that, as sadistic as it looked, somehow made Michael smile. One was out, now only three were left within them. His head was still throbbing with pain, either from the hit that had knocked him out or from the information that he had just learned, or perhaps both. “How’d you two get away?”
“We’ve got our ways,” Kyle responded simply, and suddenly his smirk seemed to falter. “Mike, there’s...something else.”
“There’s more?”
“Jack, he... He’s got Lauren’s little girl. The bastard’s sick, he just...”
But Michael didn’t hear him anymore. All he could concentrate on was the gun he was holding, his eyes locked into it. When Michael had walked out of the apartment, he had left it with the mindset that he’d do anything to stop Jack but, while standing in front of him, it had been more than just a fear of getting killed that had stopped him from killing him. He had stopped because, when he had left New York almost four years ago, he had sworn he wouldn’t get his hands any dirtier with spilled blood. He wouldn’t hurt others how he had been used to do. Sure, he had started again in December, but it had been nowhere close to how he was.
Now, it was time to change. It was time to break some promises; maybe more than one. I’m sorry, he thought quietly, his grasp on the gun tightening.
“I don’t care what you do to Evan,” Michael finally said out loud, turning to both Kyle and Eddie. “You two just leave Jack to me. I have a feeling we need to settle a few things before I end this whole thing with a bang.”
_______________________________________
It’d been easy to find him; almost too easy. And, as Michael approached Jack’s office in the fourth floor, he knew that he was waiting for him. Eddie had complained against it, asking him to just wait it out until Stephen came in since they had managed to call him through the cell phone of one of Jack’s dead bodyguards. Except, he couldn’t wait; not anymore. Jack looked up from his spot on the desk of his chair, looking almost businesslike as Michael closed the door quietly even if he looked as if he was about to slam it shut. “Careful, Michael. Who knows whose life you’re risking now if you try anything.”
“You know, I’m getting really tired of you talking right now.”
But Jack ignored him, and he stood to walk over to where the liquor cabinet was set up. “I was remembering the day when you first came in here. Right through that very door, remember? When you wanted this job. I thought you’d be great. You were young enough for molding into the person we wanted to make you be, but you were always a stubborn bastard who wanted things done his own damn way.”
Michael’s eyes kept darting over to a window that led to an annexed office next to Jack’s, but he couldn’t see if Lauren’s daughter was there. “That hasn’t changed much, if you couldn’t tell.”
“How much is he paying you?” Jack asked, turning to Michael. Michael, at the question, turned to him with a frown as he momentarily forgot about Lauren’s daughter. Jack smirked. “How much is Stephen paying you to kill me?”
“He’s not paying me. Killing you is a perk of the job.”
“I don’t believe that. Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll pay you double so you’ll kill him. And, if you want a perk in all this, I’ll forget about all this and that it happened.”
Michael’s frown deepened. “The cops are coming, you’re pretty much screwed.”
“I’m a very powerful man, and you don’t need me to remind you of that. And the money’s always what leads you to do everything, all I have to do is guess the right price.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, it isn’t?” Jack almost looked amused. “So you’re here because it’s the right thing? You’ve never been about doing things regarding a moral code, have you? All you’ve done has fallen pretty much under the ‘wrong’ category.” He took a drink of his whiskey and sat at the edge of his desk. “But...wait, your family has money, don’t they? Your father’s money, your brother’s money... I bet you wish your brother could die already so you can get your share for being the ignored son all these years.”
Those words pushed Michael off the edge he’d been trying so desperately to hold onto, and without blinking he shot Jack. The bullet barely grazed his arm, since he still needed Jack to tell him where the little girl was, but it had done what Michael wanted it to do; it had caused him to drop the glass of whiskey but most importantly it had shut him up. “Where’s Amanda? Lauren’s daughter, where is she?” No answer, and Michael’s anger kept rising. “Where is she?”
“Michael-”
“I swear, you asshole, if you touched her...”
“She’s not your kid. She’s Lauren’s kid. And Stephen’s kid.” Michael’s glare seemed to falter as he took in the news, but he quickly recovered as Jack kept talking, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
The small hint of fear was something that Michael found himself enjoying, and he wasn’t ashamed of admitting it. “Where...is she?
But Jack didn’t answer. Instead, the sound of the office door opening caused Michael to turn to look at Evan walking in, looking triumphant as he pushed Eddie inside. “Look who I found still here. Kyle got stuck outside, so you shouldn’t be expecting him to drop by to save you any time soon.”
Eddie kept doubling over, his arms over his stomach even if Evan kept trying to make him stand straight. “Why are you doing this?” he spat out, and it was then that Michael suddenly saw the blood in his hands. Eddie was bleeding, he...had been shot. The confusion of it all caused Michael to lower the gun he was holding, forgetting about Evan and even Stephen. No...
Evan let Eddie fall, his triumphant smile suddenly vanishing. “You thought I was going to be waiting for you idiots to get us in here and get us killed? I knew Stephen wouldn’t have the balls to take down anybody, even if he tries to think he’s Superman. It’s easier to pick the winning team. It pays better.”
That was enough explanation for Michael, and in order to show that he aimed his gun at him and shot. Twice, right in the same spot where Eddie seemed to be wounded. Michael didn’t watch as Evan seemed to stumble back, an expression of surprise and pain twisted into one on his face, but instead turned to Eddie, who was starting to fade. Just as he was about to move, however, a small click brought Michael back to reality; the reality that Jack was in the office, and very much alive as he suddenly shot Michael on his side. “I’d suggest you put that down, Michael, before my finger slips and pulls the trigger again.”
But Michael didn’t lower the gun. He stumbled a little, but the adrenaline that had been coursing through his veins didn’t allow him to fall. Not just yet. His free arm unconsciously reached to cover where the wound was, though, just how Eddie was doing. “I could say the same thing to you. Drop the gun, Jack. Your aim pretty much sucks - you could have killed me without even me trying to shoot you back.”
Before either of them could do anything, Stephen rushed inside the office. For a moment he seemed out of place, simply standing at the door as he took in the scene of his brother laying on the floor almost unconscious while Jack and Michael aimed at each other. Kyle was quick to follow behind him, limping and bleeding from a cut on his forehead while his left eye was starting to swell.
They were almost there, Michael finally realized. They were almost done.
“What do you say, Beck?” Jack asked, ignoring as Kyle rushed to Eddie to help stop the bleeding and Stephen aimed his gun right at Jack. “It’s not too late now. You can just turn the direction of that gun towards them, wouldn’t that be easy? We could make up something, surely make Stephen the bad guy here, and kill them in the process. I’ve still got deep pockets, Michael, don’t forget that.”
Silence. Absolute silence.
At least, that was until Michael shot Jack in the chest without even flinching. Two more shots followed, fired by Stephen, and Jack fell back against his desk; the contrast of the crisp white papers against his blood almost making Michael smile. It was over...
Michael watched as Kyle picked up Eddie as best as he could and led him outside, probably down to where the ambulance was parking outside since he could now hear the sirens. He watched as Stephen rushed into the other office, and saw him pick up Amanda from a corner of the room and soothed her as she cried into the crook of his neck. As he watched them, Stephen turned to look at him after a moment and nodded a little, his eyes saying all the thank yous that Michael already knew would come after Amanda was safe back with Lauren. Michael nodded slightly back, a faint smile telling him not to worry; that it was fine. They were even. He had helped to get him out, even if he was now bleeding, and Stephen got his daughter.
After a moment Michael allowed himself to lean against the wall completely so he could manage to keep standing for at least a moment longer. There was a lot of commotion coming from downstairs - yelling, mostly - but it was all starting to sound distant as he slowly slid down to the floor so he could sit.
He was tired. He hadn’t been sleeping properly for weeks, he hadn’t been eating properly, either, and he had been running away for so many years; of course he was bound to be tired. His eyes turned towards the gun that he was still holding and noticed the way his hand had started to slightly shake. Not wanting to keep feeling the weight of it in his hand, he set it down next to him and closed his eyes, suddenly smling a little to himself even if he felt himself start to lose his battle against unconsciousness.
They had won, and he was free; that alone made everything suddenly worth it.
Continuing from here:
“...you goddamn bastard!”
That had been the only part that seemed to register as he felt yet another kick on his stomach. He hadn’t bothered to start counting, but he didn’t need to; the way his body seemed to curl within itself was enough to let him know that he had had enough.
After he had regained consciousness, he had found himself in one of the old offices the warehouse had in the second floor, where the floor was so dusty that the dirt was simply a second layer upon it. Most of it was probably now all over him, he guessed, and all over his jeans and t-shirt. Good thing I wore old stuff, he thought to himself as he tried to find some sort of good point in the situation. Two of Jack’s bodyguards had taken turns at kicking him around as they showed him the way that traitors were treated. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the sort of treatment that was received and to be expected - after all, he had been the one doing the punishment at a certain point in time - but now that he was on the end of it...
Michael hadn’t given them the pleasure of begging them to stop. If anything, with each of their taunts he had simply answered with a smartass comment, or a smirk, but never with a complain. Maybe a groan here and there could be heard, but he never complained or begged them to let him go.
As both men, both towering over him since they had him on the floor with his hands handcuffed behind his back, walked over to the door to see what Jack wanted them to do next, Michael tried to keep back a cough that wanted to be let out. The taste of blood in his mouth suddenly returned, and for a moment he just closed his eyes to think of a way out. There was always a way out - there needed it to be.
Minutes later, footsteps came in the room and he groaned mentally as he tried to prepare himself for what was probably coming next with his eyes still closed. Jack would probably talk, followed by a gunshot or two, most likely... However, instead of voices, the sound that suddenly filled the room was the sound of a small click, and the handcuffs being taken off. With a deep frown, Michael opened his eyes and saw that Eddie was kneeling next to him, smiling slightly at him despite his black eye and cut up lip. “Eddie, what the...”
“C’mon, we have to get out of here. Stephen’s coming.”
The name caused all of his anger to suddenly come back at once, and Michael stood up. “What, to kill us?”
Eddie frowned and Kyle, who had been watching Michael carefully, shook his head. “He didn’t set us up,” he explained. Michael was about to argue that point, but Kyle started talking before Michael could even start. “Yeah, he set us up once and you almost got killed - we get it. We do. But, believe it or not, he changed.”
“Bullshit.”
“A long time ago, Mike,” Eddie said quietly, still frowning. “You just never wanted to hear it. And now you don’t want to believe it. If there’s someone who you really shouldn’t trust, it’s not my brother. You know Evan, right? Our ‘buddy’? The fourth one in the group? Yeah, well, Evan ratted us out. He was Jack’s fucking inside man, not Stephen. It’s just fucking easy to mess with your head, don’t you get it?”
“He was the one who knocked you out,” Kyle explained as Michael leaned against a wall, taking everything in. “I shot one of Jack’s guys, and when I turned around he had already knocked you out, and Eddie was being dragged away by some fucker.” Kyle shook his head and passed a gun to Michael. “We need to teach the little prick a lesson in loyalty, don’t you think?”
The sudden smirk on Kyle’s face as he said that, as sadistic as it looked, somehow made Michael smile. One was out, now only three were left within them. His head was still throbbing with pain, either from the hit that had knocked him out or from the information that he had just learned, or perhaps both. “How’d you two get away?”
“We’ve got our ways,” Kyle responded simply, and suddenly his smirk seemed to falter. “Mike, there’s...something else.”
“There’s more?”
“Jack, he... He’s got Lauren’s little girl. The bastard’s sick, he just...”
But Michael didn’t hear him anymore. All he could concentrate on was the gun he was holding, his eyes locked into it. When Michael had walked out of the apartment, he had left it with the mindset that he’d do anything to stop Jack but, while standing in front of him, it had been more than just a fear of getting killed that had stopped him from killing him. He had stopped because, when he had left New York almost four years ago, he had sworn he wouldn’t get his hands any dirtier with spilled blood. He wouldn’t hurt others how he had been used to do. Sure, he had started again in December, but it had been nowhere close to how he was.
Now, it was time to change. It was time to break some promises; maybe more than one. I’m sorry, he thought quietly, his grasp on the gun tightening.
“I don’t care what you do to Evan,” Michael finally said out loud, turning to both Kyle and Eddie. “You two just leave Jack to me. I have a feeling we need to settle a few things before I end this whole thing with a bang.”
_______________________________________
It’d been easy to find him; almost too easy. And, as Michael approached Jack’s office in the fourth floor, he knew that he was waiting for him. Eddie had complained against it, asking him to just wait it out until Stephen came in since they had managed to call him through the cell phone of one of Jack’s dead bodyguards. Except, he couldn’t wait; not anymore. Jack looked up from his spot on the desk of his chair, looking almost businesslike as Michael closed the door quietly even if he looked as if he was about to slam it shut. “Careful, Michael. Who knows whose life you’re risking now if you try anything.”
“You know, I’m getting really tired of you talking right now.”
But Jack ignored him, and he stood to walk over to where the liquor cabinet was set up. “I was remembering the day when you first came in here. Right through that very door, remember? When you wanted this job. I thought you’d be great. You were young enough for molding into the person we wanted to make you be, but you were always a stubborn bastard who wanted things done his own damn way.”
Michael’s eyes kept darting over to a window that led to an annexed office next to Jack’s, but he couldn’t see if Lauren’s daughter was there. “That hasn’t changed much, if you couldn’t tell.”
“How much is he paying you?” Jack asked, turning to Michael. Michael, at the question, turned to him with a frown as he momentarily forgot about Lauren’s daughter. Jack smirked. “How much is Stephen paying you to kill me?”
“He’s not paying me. Killing you is a perk of the job.”
“I don’t believe that. Whatever he’s paying you, I’ll pay you double so you’ll kill him. And, if you want a perk in all this, I’ll forget about all this and that it happened.”
Michael’s frown deepened. “The cops are coming, you’re pretty much screwed.”
“I’m a very powerful man, and you don’t need me to remind you of that. And the money’s always what leads you to do everything, all I have to do is guess the right price.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, it isn’t?” Jack almost looked amused. “So you’re here because it’s the right thing? You’ve never been about doing things regarding a moral code, have you? All you’ve done has fallen pretty much under the ‘wrong’ category.” He took a drink of his whiskey and sat at the edge of his desk. “But...wait, your family has money, don’t they? Your father’s money, your brother’s money... I bet you wish your brother could die already so you can get your share for being the ignored son all these years.”
Those words pushed Michael off the edge he’d been trying so desperately to hold onto, and without blinking he shot Jack. The bullet barely grazed his arm, since he still needed Jack to tell him where the little girl was, but it had done what Michael wanted it to do; it had caused him to drop the glass of whiskey but most importantly it had shut him up. “Where’s Amanda? Lauren’s daughter, where is she?” No answer, and Michael’s anger kept rising. “Where is she?”
“Michael-”
“I swear, you asshole, if you touched her...”
“She’s not your kid. She’s Lauren’s kid. And Stephen’s kid.” Michael’s glare seemed to falter as he took in the news, but he quickly recovered as Jack kept talking, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
The small hint of fear was something that Michael found himself enjoying, and he wasn’t ashamed of admitting it. “Where...is she?
But Jack didn’t answer. Instead, the sound of the office door opening caused Michael to turn to look at Evan walking in, looking triumphant as he pushed Eddie inside. “Look who I found still here. Kyle got stuck outside, so you shouldn’t be expecting him to drop by to save you any time soon.”
Eddie kept doubling over, his arms over his stomach even if Evan kept trying to make him stand straight. “Why are you doing this?” he spat out, and it was then that Michael suddenly saw the blood in his hands. Eddie was bleeding, he...had been shot. The confusion of it all caused Michael to lower the gun he was holding, forgetting about Evan and even Stephen. No...
Evan let Eddie fall, his triumphant smile suddenly vanishing. “You thought I was going to be waiting for you idiots to get us in here and get us killed? I knew Stephen wouldn’t have the balls to take down anybody, even if he tries to think he’s Superman. It’s easier to pick the winning team. It pays better.”
That was enough explanation for Michael, and in order to show that he aimed his gun at him and shot. Twice, right in the same spot where Eddie seemed to be wounded. Michael didn’t watch as Evan seemed to stumble back, an expression of surprise and pain twisted into one on his face, but instead turned to Eddie, who was starting to fade. Just as he was about to move, however, a small click brought Michael back to reality; the reality that Jack was in the office, and very much alive as he suddenly shot Michael on his side. “I’d suggest you put that down, Michael, before my finger slips and pulls the trigger again.”
But Michael didn’t lower the gun. He stumbled a little, but the adrenaline that had been coursing through his veins didn’t allow him to fall. Not just yet. His free arm unconsciously reached to cover where the wound was, though, just how Eddie was doing. “I could say the same thing to you. Drop the gun, Jack. Your aim pretty much sucks - you could have killed me without even me trying to shoot you back.”
Before either of them could do anything, Stephen rushed inside the office. For a moment he seemed out of place, simply standing at the door as he took in the scene of his brother laying on the floor almost unconscious while Jack and Michael aimed at each other. Kyle was quick to follow behind him, limping and bleeding from a cut on his forehead while his left eye was starting to swell.
They were almost there, Michael finally realized. They were almost done.
“What do you say, Beck?” Jack asked, ignoring as Kyle rushed to Eddie to help stop the bleeding and Stephen aimed his gun right at Jack. “It’s not too late now. You can just turn the direction of that gun towards them, wouldn’t that be easy? We could make up something, surely make Stephen the bad guy here, and kill them in the process. I’ve still got deep pockets, Michael, don’t forget that.”
Silence. Absolute silence.
At least, that was until Michael shot Jack in the chest without even flinching. Two more shots followed, fired by Stephen, and Jack fell back against his desk; the contrast of the crisp white papers against his blood almost making Michael smile. It was over...
Michael watched as Kyle picked up Eddie as best as he could and led him outside, probably down to where the ambulance was parking outside since he could now hear the sirens. He watched as Stephen rushed into the other office, and saw him pick up Amanda from a corner of the room and soothed her as she cried into the crook of his neck. As he watched them, Stephen turned to look at him after a moment and nodded a little, his eyes saying all the thank yous that Michael already knew would come after Amanda was safe back with Lauren. Michael nodded slightly back, a faint smile telling him not to worry; that it was fine. They were even. He had helped to get him out, even if he was now bleeding, and Stephen got his daughter.
After a moment Michael allowed himself to lean against the wall completely so he could manage to keep standing for at least a moment longer. There was a lot of commotion coming from downstairs - yelling, mostly - but it was all starting to sound distant as he slowly slid down to the floor so he could sit.
He was tired. He hadn’t been sleeping properly for weeks, he hadn’t been eating properly, either, and he had been running away for so many years; of course he was bound to be tired. His eyes turned towards the gun that he was still holding and noticed the way his hand had started to slightly shake. Not wanting to keep feeling the weight of it in his hand, he set it down next to him and closed his eyes, suddenly smling a little to himself even if he felt himself start to lose his battle against unconsciousness.
They had won, and he was free; that alone made everything suddenly worth it.