Roz pressed down the side window, pointed that bazooka out of the vehicle, and fired. It was so powerful that it caused her entire body to fall backwards as she fired.
But it was enough. It blew a hole into that wall.
But Duke was panicking. “It’s not big enough, Ma,” he said, looking back at his father. They had to get him some help! “It’s not big enough to drive through!”
Roz crawled across seats to get to the arsenal again, but she couldn’t find another IED. And that was when she saw another group of cars coming around that corner and headingtheir way. “Oh Lord,” she cried and Duke turned and looked too. And that was when he saw even more patrol cars. “How could this tiny town have that many cops?” Duke said out loud.
But this time Duke knew he had to act. He turned his SUV back around, facing that brick wall, and didn’t hesitate. He did what his old man would do and he floored it.
“Duke!” Roz cried out, but Duke was unstoppable. He let that hole his mother had blown in that wall be his guide and he drove straight into that brick wall and the little opening that IED had given to them.
And it worked. The wall crumbled down just enough for Duke to drive through. But those cop cars had gained too much ground on them.
And then Roz finally found another IED. “Press down the back windshield again, Duke!” she cried out. “Press it down!”
This time Duke just did it when he saw that those patrol cars also drove through the now-gaping hole he left in that wall and was determined to stay on their tail.
And as soon as that windshield went down, Roz fired that last IED into their path, dropping backwards as she did.
But it did the job: All of those cop cars began to swerve and slam on brakes. But it was too late. They lifted up. They dropped down. They were incinerated too.
Duke pressed the back windshield back up and fled. But he couldn’t stop looking back in his mirror at his father. How could he be down like that? How could he be down?!
Roz felt the sting of just seeing Mick down too. She dropped that heavy-ass bazooka, and went to Mick and held his head in her lap. He was in and out of consciousness, but he was groaning in terrible pain.
And Duke was panicking. “We need to call 911, Ma!”
“No hell we don’t,” Roz said. “Not here. This wasn’t no accident. All them cops? These fools tried to assassinate him.They were waiting on him. We ain’t calling shit here. Get him away from this town first!”
“But I’m calling Teddy,” Duke said. “Dad said if anything went down, I was to call Teddy right away.”
But as soon as he attempted to make a phone call, he realized there still was no signal. “Dammit, still no signal!” he cried out and then he threw his phone across the front seat. And then he wasn’t playing. He floored it. He was flying out of that crazy town.
But Roz was crying as she held Mick’s head in her lap. It was then did Mick wake up and look up at her. And that was when she saw the terror in his hard, green eyes. Which mortified her. Because that never happened. No matter what they went through, Mick had that confident look that always let her know everything was going to be alright.
But not this time.
Even he knew he was in trouble.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Why not modeling?”
“Are you joking? My mother will kill me if I went home and told her I was getting a degree in modeling.”
“But why not, Jackie? You got what it takes if you stop dressing like some nineties baggy clothes-wearing female rapper and get yourself some designer pieces. Girrl, you got what it takes.”
“I’m saying,” said another one of her roommates. “If I had that figure, and that face, I wouldn’t be hiding it. But that’s Jackie S. She wants a degree in finance and business administration. So boring!”
Jacqueline Sinatra wasn’t thinking about either one of her roommates as they made their way to their off-campus apartment. She was going to run her father’s corporation one day and she was determined to be prepared. And to make her parents proud. That was her goal. She went to college for a reason.
“Look y’all.” One of her roommates was pointing at a convoy of SUVs that were flying down the street toward them.
“Must be some dignitary who don’t give a damn about speed limits.”
But as soon as Jackie saw those SUVs flying, she somehow knew they were coming for her. Her bodyguards, who were walking a few feet behind her and her roommates, immediately hurried to her and separated her from her friends as the SUVs stopped at the curb. When the back passenger doorflew open and Charles “Big Daddy” Sinatra stepped out, Jackie knew something was terribly wrong.
“Big Daddy, what’s wrong?” she asked him as her bodyguards hurried her toward the SUV. “Is it Mom?”
