There Will Be Freedom

40. End

Justin's POV

I sat behind the wheel of my silver Aston Martin, smoking out of the window, tapping my foot on the floor. Dare I say it... I was nervous. Just a little.

I was parked across the street of a kind of shitty part of town, but that didn't matter to me. I just wanted to make sure it was isolated. There were an abandoned grocery store and a couple of empty shops around, none of which would be missed very much.

I sat and waited.

My phone rang a couple of times and Maddie's name flashed on the screen, but I didn't bother picking up. I didn't want to speak to her right now because I wasn't in a pleasant state. She was mad at me for pulling that stunt at the baseball game, but her anger had subsided over the past few days.

I smoked four cigarettes before a black car pulled into the grocery store parking lot across the street. I perked up a little when I saw Robert Brown get out and look around. He seemed calm and collected, not the least bit worried about what his future held. He trusted me too much. It would be his downfall.

I got out of the car and slammed the door shut before walking across the pavement.

"You better have a good reason for calling me out here at nine in the morning on a Saturday. I was sleeping." Brown crossed his arms.

I shrugged.

"You look like shit," he demanded with an aggressive tone that I wasn't all too pleased about.

"So do you," I said, even though he really didn't. While I was wasting away, he was getting even more muscular and menacing.

"Is there a reason why I'm here? I haven't heard anything about you in a couple of months. They're lying low, leaving you alone."

"I'm not here to talk about business." I leaned against his car. "This is more of a personal conversation."

"Oh?" He raised an eyebrow.

"We never got to discuss what happened a couple of years ago and I felt like now would be as good a time as any."

"What are you talking about?"

"How you treated Maddie and my family. I never got a chance to give you a fucking punch for it."

"That was just protocol, Justin. You know that. We had information and I was required to bring Maddie in."

"No, you didn't. You wanted me and couldn't find anything so you decided to shit on the most important thing in my life. Admit it." I stood up a little straighter.

"We're not teenagers. I had a job to do. I can't help it if your feelings were hurt."

"You took her from me and then proceeded to drag her through the mud in front of everyone. Maddie didn't deserve that."

"Then you should have given yourself up. This is just your fault as much as it is mine. Okay, yes, maybe I had some personal thing against you, but don't make me out to be the bad guy. You were a coward and you should have come out of hiding."

"I couldn't do that!" I slammed my fist against his car, and it made a loud bang.

"Then you really should be mad with yourself," he said smugly. "If you want to bring up all this old shit, then you need to come to the realization that I was just doing my job. You brought her into this life and now she can't leave."

"I love her and by some miracle, she loves me. She shouldn't have been thrown into some jail because of my mistakes. You took out your anger on her and just piled everything on at once."