A Father's Wrath by Phil Nova Page A

continued to
the end of the hall. There was an emergency exit door, but it had
an alarm. If the kid had run out this way, the alarm would have
gone off . . . unless it wasn’t working.
    Joe braced himself for the loud blast, but it
never came. He opened the door and stepped into the cold concrete
staircase.
    Across from the stairs was another emergency
exit door. Just as Joe was about to go through that door, he heard
something. He listened closely while moving closer to the
staircase.
    The sound of a whimpering child came from
above. Joe knew it had to be that woman’s kid. Damn kid got lost
and now he’s scared.
    When he reached the landing above, Joe saw the
kid curled up in a fetal position, crying. The kid’s shirt was torn
and stretched. His pants were around his ankles along with his
underwear.
    Joe picked up his radio and called for an
ambulance, then the precinct.
    When he noticed blood, and what looked like
shit, on the kid’s inner thighs, Joe knew someone had raped
him.
    His stomach twisted. He felt like crying for
the boy, but at the same time, he felt like killing someone . . .
killing the scumbag who could do something like this.

CHAPTER 2
     
    Outside the hotel, shivering from the cold,
Richie Carson finished his cigarette, then stomped it out on the
icy sidewalk and hurried back into the lobby.
    Inside, he stomped out the snow and salt on the
rubber mat before sloshing across the highly polished marble floor.
The doorman looked down at the mess Richie was making, but he
didn’t say anything.
    A family with too much luggage approached the
revolving door. The doorman stepped over to a glass door next to
the revolving door and opened it. The cold wind blew in and made
the girl behind the counter stop texting and look up.
    The doorman continued holding the door while
the family thanked him and dragged their wet luggage
inside.
    Before returning to the fundraiser, Richie
sprayed two shots of Binaca into his mouth.
    Inside, a crowd of people was gathered at the
end of the hall, near the bathrooms. He wondered what was going on,
but what he really wanted was another drink and some more of those
delicious appetizers.
    Just as he was about to make his way toward the
back where the food and drinks were, he heard a woman scream—a
woman that sounded a lot like his wife, Gail.
    Richie pushed his way through the crowd, which
at 6’5” and 280 pounds, wasn’t hard to do. As he got farther down
the hall, he could hear his wife crying. Between the alcohol, his
high blood pressure, and the adrenaline, his head felt like it was
about to burst.
    At the end of the
hall, Richie saw the same cop he’d just seen in the lobby. He
remembered the name on his badge, J.
Martello . The cop stood with the staircase
door open.
    As Richie approached the door, he saw Gail
sitting on the stairs, crying, and holding their son Taylor who was
also crying.
    The cop tried to stop Richie from entering the
staircase.
    Richie looked down at him, he didn’t care if he
was a cop, no one was going to stop him from going through that
door. “That’s my wife and son.”
    The cop stepped to the side and let Richie
pass.
    Richie approached his wife and asked, “What
happened?”
    Gail didn’t speak. She just looked down at
Taylor, who had his face buried in her hip.
    Richie squatted down, “What happened,
buddy?”
    Taylor didn’t answer, he didn’t even look at
his father, he just kept crying and hiding his face, clinging to
his mother.
    Richie asked Gail, “What the hell’s going on?
Where’s Chelsea?”
    The cop said, “Your daughter is with the other
children in the playroom, sir. She’s fine. The program director is
with them.”
    Richie noticed something on the floor . . .
drops of blood. The veins in his balding head began to throb even
more. He turned around and yelled at the cop, “What the fuck
happened?”
    The cop said, “Your son was assaulted,
sir.”
    “Assaulted? What do you mean
assaulted?”
    Gail finally caught