Author's Note: It was really fun to collaborate on this and you can probably expect to see more collaborations from Riley and I at some point. The major character death also includes me because writing this killed me (thanks a lot, Riley).
This fanfiction was inspired by 'Cops and Robbers' by The Hoosiers and I definitely recommend giving that song a listen. 3 Katrina
So I totally forced Katrina to write major character death. No regrets… See how our fanfiction relationship goes: I plan the fic (including gut-wrenchingly heart breaking moments) and I then force her to write them in vivid detail and I greatly enjoy the emotional torment it puts her through. I hope this fic emotionally torments you in a good way… I think. -Riley
Michael Jones.
Notorious mobster boss and gang leader.
Some had even gone as far to call him the OG of the assassin gangster business. He was basically the King when it came down to his work.
The feds had been after him for years.
But three cops had been working on this case harder and longer than anyone; Geoff Ramsey, Jack Pattillo, and Ryan Haywood. Geoff had been on the case for six years, while Jack and Ryan had been assisting him for four and three years respectively.
It was rainy Friday night and they had reached yet another dead end - something to do with the mysterious deaths of Lindsay Tuggey and Kerry Shawcross, but nothing more than basic records had turned up. The chief of police was one failure away from relocating them and Geoff was about to grab his coat and head home. He was going to re-read the shamefully small amount of files on Michael Jones over his weekend until his eyes bled and he was going to drown himself in coffee in the hopes that he could find something in those small pieces of information.
Well, that had been his plan up until the front door to the police station burst open and a young man stumbled through, dripping rain water all over the floor. One look at his face immediately gave away his identity to Geoff.
This guy's name was Simon Cole. Renowned for arson and armed robbery, he was also known to be Michael's partner in crime.
Geoff rushed to Simon's side but didn't touch him, for the young gangster had bruises and cuts and other various injuries all over every visible patch of skin the eye could see. He didn't want to risk injuring the man even more, so he stayed silent and allowed Simon to grab onto his arm.
The boy was able to mutter one sentence before collapsing in a bloody and wet heap on the once-pristine floor of the police station; "you give me immunity, you wipe my slate clean, you take me off the radar… and I'll tell you everything you want to hear about Michael Jones."
After slinging Simon's arm around his neck, being watchful of the more visible injuries, Geoff called Ryan over and the two of them hauled the young man through the police station and into one of the more secluded interrogation rooms.
Once there, Ryan handcuffed the young criminal's hands to the table in the typical fashion and they waited for him to awake.
Jack had brought the three of them coffee after seeing Geoff and Ryan bring the dripping wet kid through the station.
Luckily the kid was a light sleeper. Because not ten minutes after he passed out, he was rousing again. He coughed throatily a few times before shaking his head to rid his hair of some rainwater and to clear his vision of his dirty black hair. But when he heard the tell-tale rattle of handcuffs, he visibly slumped back down in the chair in resignation.
"We're gonna take you up on your offer, don't worry." Geoff said, pulling out a chair to sit on the opposite side of the table to Simon. Meanwhile, Ryan leaned against a wall while Jack paced, too jittery to stay still for more than a few seconds.
"The fuck am I cuffed for then, eh?" Simon snarled, yanking on the handcuffs to make them rattled loudly.
"It's standard procedure." Ryan said with a smirk.
"Let's cut the small-talk," snapped Geoff, maintaining his usual cold and stoic expression as he stared Simon down. "Tell me everything about Michael Jones."
"Jeez, I'm not like his keeper or anything." Simon scoffed with a humourless laugh. "I don't know everything about the guy, but I can tell you what I know about him and where you could find him."
"Go on." Geoff prompted, taking the notepad and pen offered to him by Jack, and as Simon spoke, reeling off everything he knew about Michael, Geoff wrote it all down. And if his hand ached like a bitch by the end of it, he knew it was worth it.
From that fruitful interrogation, Geoff was made aware of numerous useful things about Michael.
As it turned out, the deaths of Lindsay Tuggey and Kerry Shawcross had actually been linked to Michael Jones. Lindsay had been Michael's fiance while Kerry had been Michael's best friend and right-hand-man. They had been Michael's crew and the three of them had been almost unstoppable.
'Almost' was the key word there.
"If you want to get him, get him now." Simon had said, a determined glare on his face. "He's got two lives down and one life left."
Only now did that make sense to Geoff.
Geoff thought angsty teenagers held grudges well until he met Simon. The guy had aspired to be like Michael, following in his footsteps and working his way up the criminal ladder. But Michael had claimed that he was getting too power-hungry, too reckless, too dangerous, too much of a liability. So Simon had been kicked out of the crew.
As a result of that, Simon had been enraged. He was furious that his idol had cast him aside without so much as a 'have a nice day'. So he took an AK-47, broke into Michael's base of operations where Lindsay and Kerry were staying, and he unloaded two clips - one into Kerry and one into Lindsay - while Michael was out buying ammo.
"As long as I'm safe, you could put a bullet in Michael Jones' head." Simon had assured, a devious toothy (and extremely dirty and in need of a desperate brush) grin on his face.
Most of the other claims Simon made would need further investigation, but Geoff wasn't about to waste a single second dawdling.
The first thing he was going to do was head straight for Michael.
A day ago this would have been a useless attempt because no matter how hard they tried, Michael continued to stay under the police's radar. He used fake names, had a new phone every other week, never stayed in one place for too long. In short, Michael Jones was an expert at not being caught.
It seemed as though the mobster boss had thought of every single potential outcome under the sun. But what he hadn't counted on was one of his own essentially handing him over to the police.
After detaining Simon - they needed to do so to keep him with them, no one trusted him to stick around and they were likely to need him again - Jack, Geoff and Ryan had armed themselves with bulletproof vests and their gun holsters before piling into one of the station's unmarked police cars.
The drive was silent, but it wasn't like anything needed saying. The three men had waited years for this moment, no one wanted to break that peaceful silence.