5 YEARS LATER
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"Babe she just wants to be rocked to sleep. Rock her." Aaliyah said seeing as it had been nearly 10 minutes since the baby had started crying and Vinnie insisted he could get her stop.
"She wants a bottle." Vinnie said, walking out of the room with his daughter Janelle, who they called Nelly, cradled in his arm.
Nelly continued to cry loudly as Vinnie made the bottle as fast as he could.
"Nelly daddy is trying to hurry." Vinnie said, his head turning quickly when he heard snickers coming from the living room.
He found Jett and Jack sitting at the table in the kitchen eating cereal. That was when he realized when it was 7:30 in the morning.
"You look a bit different in this setting boss." Jack snickered at him as his eyes were aimed down at Vinnie's hot pink boxers.
"And I can guarantee if you keep laughing at me you'll look a lot different in a casket." Vinnie answered back as he took the barely heated bottle from the microwave and walked up stairs with his daughter.
He reached the top of the stairs to find his wife waking their children for school. Nelly was the baby having been born 5 months before.
"Daddy's taking you back to bed baby." Vinnie cooed, laying his daughter back in her bassinet next to Aaliyah's side of the bed.
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Aaliyah walked into the house, finding it odd at how quiet it was. She shrugged it off and put the food she had bought for her and Vinnie to eat for breakfast on the counter.
Normally she would find her husband in the kitchen drinking his coffee and holding Nelly, waiting for her to come back with breakfast after dropping their kids off at school. But not this morning.
A nervous feeling arose in her stomach. Had someone come to hurt him while she was gone? Was her daughter okay? But her fears faded when she saw Jack round the corner of the kitchen, stopping in his tracks with wide eyes.
"Oh uh- hi ma'am." Jack said.
"Hey, I hope your having a good morning. Where is Vinnie?" Aaliyah asked.
"Upstairs ma'am." Jack said, sighing when Aaliyah politely nodded and headed up the stairs.
The further she got up the stairs the more she could hear creaking and moaning. When she reached the door of her husbands office she was nearly in tears.
The only things that could be heard on the upper level of there home was the loud sound of a woman moaning, a squeaking office chair, and her newborn screaming from their bedroom down the hallway.
She decided to get Nelly first, wanting to make sure that her baby was okay. When she reached the room she found Nelly laying in her bassinet with a dirty diaper and crying loudly. She wiped her tears and sweetly smiled down at her daughter which seemed to have had an effect seeing as Nelly had stopped crying.
"Daddy must not changed you, I guess he got busy huh?" Aaliyah asked as she layed her baby on the changing table.
One thing she vowed to herself was that she would never degrade Vinnie in front of their children no matter how angry or hurt she was. Her mother had done that and in result she hated her father for it. He died and she never learned the truth about how good of a man he actually was until after he was gone.
Once she was finished with Nelly, she called Jett up to come get her so she could now deal with Vinnie.
"Where would you like me to take her ma'am?" Jett asked.
"You can call me Aaliyah, if you'd like you can take her diaper bags to the car and put her in the car seat for me. Just sit with her in the car until I get there." Aaliyah said, smiling even though she wasn't happy.
"Alright Aaliyah." Jett answered and took the bags and the baby to the car.
Aaliyah quickly fixed her makeup and changed her outfit to business professional, she too had to go to work today but for her it was now "bring your child to work day" because there was no way in God's green earth she was leaving Nelly here with Vinnie after he let her lay there for an hour in a dirty diaper while he fucked a woman who wasn't his wife.
She gathered her bags for work and walked down the hallway, slamming the door open to find this woman still on top of her husband as they made out and she continued to ride him.
"I see you went for round three." Aaliyah answered, as she picked up the woman's clothes on the ground and walked around the desk handing them to her.
"Get dressed and please leave my home, the bathroom is across the hallway." Aaliyah said, watching as the woman scrambled out of the room with her belongings.
Vinnie quickly buckled his pants up and stood to be next to Aaliyah, who was now turned and facing a wall.
"Honey-"
His mouth hung open in amazement seconds after her hand met his face. He looked down at her, the feeling to throw up becoming present at the sight of her glossy eyes. He'd felt guilty in life but never this guilty.
"I can't believe you." Aaliyah whimpered.
"Baby-"
"No. You don't get to call me that anymore." Aaliyah slammed the side of her fist against his chest.
"Please let me explain what happened." Vinnie said.
"I don't wanna hear it Vinnie." Aaliyah said, backing away from him seeing that he was becoming visibly stressed.
"I need to explain." Vinnie said, sitting back down in his chair. He felt dizzy and he knew it was because he was getting angry.
He didn't want to get angry. He had no place to be angry right now. This was his doing, his infidelity that lead to this.
"Maybe we should talk when we're both calm." Aaliyah said.
"No we're gonna talk now. I'm calm." Vinnie answered, looking at his feet.
"I don't want to stir you up anymore but you aren't calm Vinnie." Aaliyah said, his face was so red and fists clenched.
This was the first time she could say that she was scared of him. She'd never been scared of her husband but right now she was.
"I said I'm fucking calm." Vinnie yelled, now standing feet from her with his hand raised in the air.
Aaliyah's throat stopped up like someone had just put a cork in her mouth. Her breathing slowed as she stared up at him, certain he was gonna hit her.
But he didn't. Instead his face contorted into pure fear and regret. Sadness even. Sadness because he had the woman he loved scared, back pressed against a wall, and silent tears running down her cheeks.
"I-I'm-" Vinnie spoke but couldn't say anything else.
"Please don't hit me." Aaliyah whimpered.
"I'm not gonna hit you." Vinnie said, his hand lowering back to his side.
"Please let me leave. Nelly is in the car with Jett right now and I just need to see my baby." Aaliyah said, gulping down saliva that had formed in her cheeks.
"R-Right." Vinnie stepped away from her, watching as she rushed to the door of his office.
"I'll bring the kids back after school." Aaliyah said, watching him nod slowly.
She didn't stick around after that. Rather she made a beeline for the door, ready to get the hell out of this house.
