Point of View

As I typed the last words of the manuscript, the boarding ticket arrived at my cellphone. My hands were sweaty. There was no turning back. My agent had landed the publishing deal and now I would have to live with the consequences. I should have known better than to splash my confession in a book. There was a stupid part of me that believed that I could be a writer. Time has proved me wrong. Being an assassin is a full-time job. You can’t be a cook and an assassin; an actor and an assassin; a writer and an assassin. 

“Robert this thriller is amazing,” my agent had said. “I guarantee it’ll be a bestseller,” he had insisted as I faked my best smile.

Maybe it would. It was raw, honest. A true story that was born through a necessity. I needed the confession to be done by my rules. My words, my questions, my chapters. No police interrogations, no violence, no hidden cameras. Just me and the keyboard to tell my story the right way.

Cause when the accident happened, there was no one there to judge me, to put me in the right track, to prevent me from killing that guy. But what could I do? The man that had stolen all my savings in that stupid investment project had attended the same event as I had. I was no one and yet he was the multimillionaire guy who had won the best prizes and awards. I was the stupid unknown man that had accepted the opportunity his manager had offered to me.

“It’s simple,” his manager had said. “Frederick owns several investment funds with the best companies in town and he can triple your savings,” he told me through the phone on a desperate December morning. It took me only three days and a meeting with his manager to lose all my money. It disappeared after twenty years of working every single day of the week to get a better future.

I knew nobody would listen to me, but they would listen if Frederick was dead.

Eventually they would know. Sooner or later, my agent would know my story was no fiction at all; the police would connect the dots; the FBI would go and capture me even If I found the safest hidden place on earth. They didn’t bother to capture Frederick when I told them he had robbed me and destroyed me. They didn’t trust me when I tried to make the things the right way, and I’m sick and tired of the truth being shut down.

So, I took the liquid I was keeping in my pocket and poured it inside his glass.

First drop, for the dream house I was saving for.

Second drop, for my kids’ college. The best one I could afford.

Third drop, for my wife asking for a divorce after being so stupid to let all the savings of our lifetime disappear.

Frederick died instantly. He dropped to the floor as the whole party turned to assist him. They would know what a tragedy looked like. They would experience it by themselves. The police and the ambulance got faster than I expected, reassuring my decision.

***

“Are you sure this is real?” I ask my agent as I scroll the site. There are at least eight articles about the crime.

Frederick Enterprises fraud discovered through bestseller author Robert Mas, reads the title of the first one.

But the news don’t grab my attention. It’s the infinite line of comments and support groups towards me that shock my eye.

“As real as it gets. The FBI wants you to declare in exchange of freedom. They know they can’t put you in jail forever with all those supporters. You are like a hero to them.”

I look out the window, the words running through my mind. It’s the same corrupt system all over again. My agent thinks I’m a hero just because his pockets are full. I don’t believe in him, or the police, or the supporters. I never have. I’m the only one that has had the guts to take the matter into his own hands, to risk the little dignity I had left. Now my words have found justice and the whole story starts again. History looks for another hero and another criminal. The tables have turned.

“You should take the deal,” he insists. “Come on, Robert. It won’t get better than this.”

I end the phone call and put on my flip flops to make one last stroll on the beach. I chose the Caribbean because of its heat. That suffocating fog that sweats your thoughts away and makes you forget everything.

As my feet mingle with the sand, I realize I don’t want to forget, and neither should the world. I run towards the crashing waves, seeking one last bath under the burning sun before I see the darkness.

***

As I walk into my cell, the camera man shouts at me trying to make me smile. He is not the only one in the corridor. I can count at least six reporters and four more cameras apart from the line of cops that assist the event. I’m not doing this for them. And I’m not doing this for me either. Of course, I prefer to be free, to live my life as a normal person who hasn’t committed any crimes. But I’m here to teach justice to the world. To teach that an action deserves a reaction. A crime deserves a punishment.

Frederick was a fraud and a multimillionaire, and he is dead.

I’m a killer and a bestseller author, and I’m in jail.

I settle on the minuscule bed as I stare at the ceiling. The paper and the pen are placed on the small table beside my bed, as I asked for.

I lean towards the wall, pressing my back on the cold cement and take the paper and pen into my hands, ready to write my second bestseller.