Page 23 of Powerful Deception

Tonight, I fantasize about my father’s possible killer, tomorrow I will come up with another plan to take the fucker down.

7

I look at the time on my phone screen and see that it’s just over five in the morning.

It’s almost time.

Finishing up the last of my run, I power off the treadmill, sliding off the conveyor belt and head to the fridge I have down here for some water.

As the cold water travels down my throat, I check the time again and see that it’s getting closer.

I chuck the empty water bottle into the recycling bin and make my way out of the home gym I have in my basement and head upstairs.

The second floor is completely silent when I reach it.

Once I step onto the threshold, I stand there, unmoving, like I do every single morning and wait for the call to start up.

Like clockwork, right at five seventeen, the cries sound out.

Angel, my nine-month-old son, is awake.

Letting out a sigh, I head over to his room, the one that is next to mine and across from my daughter’s. Walking in, I see his little body is already up and standing and when I turn on the light, I see the tears that are running down his full cheeks.

I waste no time going over to his crib and picking him up before grabbing a blanket and taking him over to the rocking couch in the corner.

Grabbing the fresh bottle, I placed in the warmer when I woke up an hour ago, I feed him and silently hope that he goes back to sleep.

This is a routine that we have been doing for the last seven months. Ever since my wife died in a car accident.

A car accident where our two children were in the back seat.

It was just after the new year when it happened. Angel was born two months before and Angelina was taking him to his doctor's appointment.

There had been ice on the roads from the night before. I had told her to reschedule the appointment or at the very least let one of our security guards take her since I couldn’t.

She was a stubborn woman, always saying how I needed to let her keep her independence. I think that day she said something along the lines of not smothering her more than she was. So, I conceded.

I let her go to the appointment by herself and because Alessandra, our daughter, never left her mother’s side, she went too.

I was at the club, dealing with a new liquor distributor, when it happened. The second I got the call all the blood in my body drained and I felt as if my world had just ended. I didn’t even let the person on the other end of the call finish speaking before I was rushing to the hospital.

For an hour, I didn’t know what the actual hell was happening. All I knew was that someone was dead when the paramedics had arrived at the scene and I didn’t who that was.

I argued with countless nurses and doctors until I was let back to see my family. That’s when I was told that Alessandra was in surgery to repair a bone in her leg, Angel came out just fine and Angelina was the one that had died.

My parents had died when I was twenty-three and now my wife was gone thirteen years later.

The feeling I felt when I heard those words, isn’t a feeling that I had ever felt before. And it was something that I never wanted to feel ever again.

I was told to mourn, but I couldn’t. I had my children to take care of.

Alessandra not only had a broken leg, but also a cut that went the length of her face. I had to make sure that she was taken care of on top of Angel’s needs.

I gave myself until the day after the funeral to mourn and then I had to get into the headspace of raising two children by myself.

At first it was a struggle. I was used to depending on Angelina when it came to things like the kids' schedules, what type of diapers and formula to buy and now that she was gone, it felt like I had to learn everything again from the very beginning.

For the most part it has only been the three of us, with Evelyn popping in and out on occasion, but as the days go by and the club busier than ever, I realized I need help.

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