Gunned down in the Bronx after FaceTime convo with girlfriend

A devoted father of two gunned down in the Bronx over the Fourth of July weekend had FaceTimed with his girlfriend minutes before he was killed.

Victor Fertides, 37 (photo), was shot twice in the torso and once in the leg on Ogden Ave. near W. 171st St. in Highbridge about 2:20 p.m. Saturday, cops said

“I still can’t believe it,” his stunned 35-year-old girlfriend told the Daily News. She asked that her name not be used out of fear for her safety with the killer still on the loose.

“I had literally just spoken to him five minutes before. I had FaceTimed him. He seemed normal. He just seemed like he hadn’t eaten anything and was tired. It was hot and muggy. I asked him ‘Do you need anything for the house? Cause I’m ordering stuff.’ ”

Fertides died later in the day at Lincoln Hospital, leaving behind an 8-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son from a previous relationship.

“The kids were his world,” the girlfriend said. “He would see them every day. His kids are his heart and soul. He had so many plans for the future. He told me everything: ‘All the things I do is to better my kids. Everything that I do is to give them a better life.’ ”

He shared an apartment in Harlem with the girlfriend, who wept recounting their final morning together.

“The one thing that hurts me is every time before he leaves the house I always give him a kiss, tell him, ‘Be careful. You know these streets are crazy.’ That day I didn’t even give him a kiss — I was in the shower. I replay that in my head,” she said.

“I’m so mad at myself because usually I wake up before him and I make him breakfast, make him coffee. That day he woke up before me.”

Neighbors in the area of Highbridge where Fertides was killed knew him as a friendly face who was a regular on the corner.

“I was upstairs and I heard the shots and I came running downstairs,” said a woman who gave her name as Tina, 34. “He just looked like there was no life in him.”

Fertides’ girlfriend said the shooting may have resulted from a neighborhood beef and that he’d gotten into an argument with a woman days before he was killed. She thinks the woman’s boyfriend retaliated.

The NYPD has not established a motive in the case.

“He wasn’t a violent individual,” the girlfriend said. “Everyone is reaching out. He maintained 20- to 30-year friendships. He still talked to people he was friends with at 5 years old. He was genuinely loved by everybody. And everybody is heartbroken.”

She described Fertides as an “entrepreneur” who recently got his Taxi & Limousine Commission license and was looking into starting a trucking company. He loved dirt bikes, cowboy movies, documentaries and detective shows.

“He had just applied to get his passport on Wednesday,” she said. “He wanted to go to DR [the Dominican Republic]. He wanted to start buying land so that he could build. He had relatives there. He wanted to build a house.”

Fertides met his girlfriend about six months ago.

“From the moment we got together we literally were inseparable,” she said.

“I haven’t been able to sleep. Every day I would wait for him to go to sleep. I would wait for him every day. And he wasn’t the type that would be out partying. He came home everyday.”

Fertides’ two kids live with their mother, whom he split up with a couple of years ago. His current girlfriend had yet to meet his ex and their kids, but that, like everything else, changed after the shooting.

“They’re forever altered,” the girlfriend said of the children. “My priority is to get him justice, and his children.

“His children are my main priority, that this doesn’t traumatize them forever. I actually met them yesterday. Beautiful kids. His daughter, what a smile.”