His Revenge, Her Freedom

Chapter 9- 'We're both unhappy'

"This song is dedicated to my mama

Who taught me how to put on my pajamas"

Louis POV

"Harry, could you do me a favor?"

I wasn't surprised when he was a little hesitant to answer. By the way that I was shaking and unknowingly whispering death threats to Josh, it wasn't hard to tell that was a tad unstable. I was trying my best to remain calm and not let my anger consume me.

But, I was losing that battle by the second.

"Uh, sure?" Harry said, "What do you need?"

"I need you to hold me back because if someone is not restraining me in 30 seconds, I can't promise that I won't attack him."

Harry immediately stood up and walked over to me but kept his hands at his sides. He was probably thinking the same thing that Josh was thinking. No matter how big I wanted to talk and ball my fists, everyone in this room knew that I didn't stand a chance against Josh.

He was a trained fighter, a former gang member, and quicker. But, I was pissed and no matter how bad the odds were against me, I had about 8 seconds of self-control left in me.

"Louis, let's not start something that we both know you can't finish," Josh said, nodding at Harry to sit back down, "We can talk this out like grown men."

"Can we though?" I asked him, "Can we talk this out like men? Can we when you've been keeping something as big as my wife being alive a secret? I doubt it to be perfectly honest. I'm having trouble looking at you right now so even something as small as having a conversation with you seems taxing."

Harry was watching us like it was a tennis match, and we probably were pretty interesting. For the past 4 years, Josh and I had been on pretty good terms, so us coming to blows like this was pretty unexpected.

But it is what it is.

"Yes, we can," Josh continued after holding his hands up in mock surrender and sitting in the chair opposite me, "We can talk. I want to talk."

Fine. If he wants to talk, so be it.

"You have 90 seconds."

"Excuse me?"

"You have 90 seconds to try to convince me that letting me believe Reagan was dead was a good idea. If not, you and I will have a repeat of 4 years ago and we'll fight long enough to break some furniture."

"Lou, I don't really feel like fighting you."

"Then, I guess you'd better make these 90 seconds good."

"Fine," he huffed when realizing that I wasn't kidding, "If you want to be a child about this, fine. Yeah, I knew that Reagan was alive. Yes, I knew it for the majority of the time. But, you know me well enough to know that I didn't do it out of malice. I didn't do it to be the guy that you used to hate. I had a very good reason."

"Really? And how do I know that you and Reagan didn't plan this whole death thing just so you two can run off together?"

"That says more about what you think about your ex-wife than what you think about me. If you honestly think that she hates you enough to leave her children for 4 years, then you should be ashamed of yourself."

"If that's not the case, then why did you she 'die'? What's the real reason?"

"I really hate to say that this to you, Louis, I do, but I can't tell you that. I really am sorry, but it's not my place to say. If it was, I would've told you the truth way before now, but it's just not my business. And I won't be held responsible if anything happens."