How to execute a subshell directly

I have this: timeout 25 bash -c ' for i in {1..9}; do if read line < "$my_fifo"; then if test "$line" != "0"; then exit 0; fi fi done ' I don't really like that bash can't do this: timeout 25 (...) I don't understand why () is not considered a program by itself. Just an anonymous program... anyway.. my goals is to achieve the above but without the need to use bash -c 'xyz' since I won't get syntax highlighting in the quotes etc. Is there a workaround for this?