There Will Be Freedom

24. Caged

Justin's POV

From the second I woke up this morning, I just knew it was going to be a bad day. I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that was telling me to stay home. I rolled out of bed after a horrible night of sleep with my back hurting and a long list of things that needed to be completed even before lunch. I stepped on Francis on the way to the bathroom, and he yelped at me, pissed. That woke Maddie up, and she wasn't very happy about it at all. We fought our way through breakfast, and I left the house already pissed.

As of now, I was riding the elevator up to the forty floors towards my office. My ears popped, and I yawned to open them again. My coffee was bubbling in my hand, providing me with some sort of relief, but not much. I took a long sip, letting it flow down my throat and warm me up.

"I hate Mondays," a man said next to me. We were the only two in the elevator at this point.

I nodded in agreement.

He got off on the thirty-third floor, and I went up seven more.

My bad day continued when I stepped out of the elevator. A twenty-something-year-old punk knocked into me. My coffee spilled on my shirt, his papers went everywhere, and he fell to the ground.

"What the...?" I grunted.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Bieber." He started to gather up his things.

I bit my lip, to stop myself from saying anything. I almost fired him on the spot. I really wanted to, but just bunched up my fist.

"Get the fuck away from me," I snarled. "Get away from me!"

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"I don't want your fucking apologies!"

Jane came to my rescue, rushing forward, almost slipping on the tiled floors. "Mark, get your stuff and leave. Today is not the day for mistakes."

"Yes, ma'am." He scurried off.

"Has everyone gone crazy?" I started to wipe myself down and stalked towards my office.

"Justin, we have problems." Jane caught up to me.

"Tell me something I don't know."

"There was a security breach last night."

I stopped. "What?"

"Someone was on the computers after hours and it wasn't one of our people. They didn't have a security code, so they broke in."

"Did they take anything?"

"We're not sure yet. The I.T. people are searching through computers now."

I waited until I was in my office and Jane had shut the door before I cursed loudly. She just stood there for a minute, letting me vent.

"What else?" I set my briefcase down.

"Monthly staff meeting today in the conference room, you and Maddie are invited to about a dozen different events over the next month, and the new interns start today. They aren't here yet, but Mario will keep track of them. Oh, and you have a meeting with Robert Brown in a couple of hours. I didn't schedule that."

"No, I did." I pulled a hand through my hair and ripped my suit jacket off. "Get me a clean shirt."

She ran over to the large closet on the other side of my office and picked something out. "Everyone's waiting in the conference room."

"Alright, alright, I'm going." I took off my other shirt and replaced it while walking out of the office. She debriefed me on everything I had missed in the past hour since the morning started.