Page 2 of Powerful Deception

The only man that ever gave a shit about me, the one man that was my constant and would brighten every single one of my dark days, is in a fucking box.

At least he’s with Mama because I’m a fucking orphan, no matter if the definition applies to me or not.

Mama died when I was twelve. A car accident took her, and her death was not something that I wanted to relive. Yet here I am. Reliving it.

It happened last Friday. We were supposed to grab some dinner after my shift at the bar ended. Poppa was supposed to meet me at the bar like he always did, and we were supposed to walk to the restaurant he always picked from there.

Dad was always on time, the detective in him not knowing how to relax.

So, him not showing up ten minutes before my shift ended was out of character. It threw me off that he wasn’t there when I expected him, but I let it pass and waited. It was fifteen minutes after I had clocked out that I started to get worried.

Where was he?

I called his cell, no answer.

I called the house phone that he refused to get rid of, no answer.

I even called one of his closest friends, Tommy, to ask if he had heard from him. His response, he had no clue where my poppa was.

That right there made me worry even more. So, I went straight to my childhood home.

I moved out of the house when I was nineteen. All because I wanted independence. But the second I walked through the front door; I wish I hadn’t.

Maybe if I hadn’t moved out, the scene that was staring back at me wouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Maybe if I was living there, I would have stopped whatever tornado had passed through.

The Chicago brownstone that my parents bought before I was born, was in shambles. Every picture frame that was on the mantel or on the walls, was broken. There were bullet holes scattered all over the drywall, their casings scattered on the floor.

Nothing was in its place, and it looked like someone had broken into the house and robbed it.

And that’s what I thought had happened, until I reached the living room.

I thought that I could handle anything. I thought that after I had witnessed my mother die in an accident, nothing would destroy me as much as that.

I was wrong.

So damn wrong.

The second that my foot crossed the threshold between the foyer and the living room, I stopped breathing. A sob formed in my throat at the sight before me.

My father occupied one of the dining room chairs. The very ones that I spent countless hours sitting in. His head was bowed, his body slumped and every inch of him was covered in red.

Blood.

Dark blood. Not an inch of his olive skin was showing.

I held in my sob as I walked over to him. I called for him, I whispered for him to respond. Yet nothing happened. Not even a single pin hitting the floor could be heard.

When I was only a foot or two away from him, that’s when I let out a scream.

My father’s beautiful face was beaten in.

His eyes were open and bloodshot, and his legs and arms were tied to the chair.

My father was tied down and beaten to death and all I could do was scream and cry.

After running to the garage and finding something to cut him free, I held my father’s beaten body as tightly as I could, wishing that he would wake up. I wished that he would open his eyes and tell me that he was going to be okay.

---