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Vegas remembered the first time his dad hit him, but he didn’t remember why.
He remembered the shock of it, the sting, staring wide-eyed at his father’s angry face and reeling even if it probably hadn’t even been that hard. He remembered blinking, eyes burning with the start of tears.
He didn’t remember what he’d done wrong, but he did remember his dad saying useless boy! I expect better from my firstborn.
It stood out in his memory for two reasons, other than the fact that no one had hit him before. The first reason was the sudden awareness of the fact that his dad didn’t particularly like him, which he hadn’t seen until then. The second was the realization, when Tankhun poked his reddened cheek and demanded what happened to your face?, that he couldn’t tell anybody else. Not only would it be humiliating for him, they’d get the wrong idea about his dad.
None of your business, Vegas said, swatting his cousin’s hand away. What happened to your face?
He’d just have to do better in the future, he remembered thinking, so Papa didn’t have to do it again.
One thing his father had always been very clear about was the importance of appearances, and keeping them up. Trading partners wouldn’t respect someone who showed up for a meeting underdressed and disheveled. Projecting confidence could get you halfway to a good deal on its own. Whatever part you were playing, you needed to look it.
Vegas always knew what part he was playing.
He was the minor family’s heir. He was the main family’s attack dog. He was strong and capable and in control and never good enough.
You’d think he’d get used to it.
When Vegas was fifteen his papa caught him going down on one of the servants in a corner of the library.
“Get out,” he said. Vegas started to get up and his father cut him a sharp look. “Stay there,” he snapped. To the red-faced, stammering boy Vegas had just had in his mouth, his father said, “you have an hour to pack your things and get out of this house. Don’t come back.”
Vegas’s face was hot as flame. He stayed where he was, on his knees on the floor. His mouth tasted like dick. He kept his mouth shut, pretty sure anything he said would just make things worse.
As soon as the servant was gone his father turned and backhanded him.
“What do you think you’re doing,” he said. Before Vegas could find an answer, he went on, saying, “on your knees like a whore? How many of the staff have seen you like this?”
“Nobody else,” Vegas said. His father’s mouth twisted.
“Am I supposed to believe you?”
Vegas felt stupid. Dazed. The corner of his mouth was throbbing where his father’s ring had hit. “Papa,” he said.
“Disgraceful,” his father spat. “Do you think anyone will respect you after you play the slut for them?” Vegas’s shoulders locked up and his throat closed.
When he could say something again he said, “I don’t think it’d matter that much, would it? I’m still–”
“Of course it matters,” his father said. “Stupid boy.” He grabbed Vegas by his hair and yanked him to his feet; Vegas swallowed a yelp. “Are you my heir or a cheap whore? At least under this roof, it had better be the former.”
He used the belt on Vegas for that one until his back was all welts and he couldn’t sleep on it for two days. It was the middle of summer, but Vegas didn’t go swimming for a week, until he was sure all the marks were gone.
The bruise the ring left was harder. People noticed. Vegas could feel them looking at him and it felt like they knew everything about why it was there, shame withering him up inside.
A little bit of internet research and a couple tutorials later, Vegas bought a small batch of supplies that he added to the first-aid kit in his bathroom.
What clothes couldn’t cover, makeup would.
When Macau got old enough to start really being a brat, Vegas got ready to run interference, but it turned out he didn’t have to as much as he’d feared. His dad didn’t like Macau that much, but he didn’t seem to feel the need to correct him the same way he did Vegas. Most days Vegas figured that was the privilege of being firstborn and it just meant his dad had more staked on his performance. Macau could get away with little screw-ups because he wasn’t, in Papa’s eyes, as important, and he got more leeway with his temper because he was younger. It made sense, and mostly Vegas was relieved that Macau managed to stay clear of the wrong side of Papa’s temper.
Other times he thought he got it worse because he was just more of a fuckup.
Vegas assumed that Macau didn’t know until the time he walked in on him icing his arm, his face still hot from the crying jag that had just stopped. Macau stopped and stared at him. Vegas clamped his teeth together, his hand tightening reflexively where he was holding the ice, squeezing bruised tissue.
“Fuck,” he hissed, and glared at Macau. “Can you knock?”
“The door was open,” Macau replied in English, eyes flicking over him from Vegas’s face to his arm and back up to his face. He shifted his weight. Before Vegas figured out what he was going to say to answer the question Macau hadn’t asked, he said, “did Papa do that?” tipping his head at Vegas’s arm.
His stomach lurched. Whatever expression was on his face made Macau grimace at him. “I’m not stupid,” he said. “I know he hits you sometimes.”
Vegas’s face heated, but if he was flushing at least maybe it’d cover the blotchiness from crying. “You do?” he said stupidly. Macau looked away and shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve known for a while.” He edged forward a little. “How bad is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Vegas said, taking the ice off and wiggling his fingers to demonstrate the lack of real damage. “Just a bruise.” Macau didn’t look satisfied, coming forward to inspect it for himself. It was fresh enough that there wasn’t much to see, though based on the feeling Vegas could tell it was going to darken to something spectacular tomorrow, even with the ice. “It’s not that big a deal.”
Macau gave him a sort of funny look and reached out like he was going to poke Vegas’s arm. Thankfully he seemed to decide against it. “What’d he get so mad about?”
Vegas shrugged. “It’s not important.”
“If he hurt you about it then it seems like it should be important,” Macau said doggedly. Vegas punched his shoulder lightly.
“Okay, then it’s not important to you,” he said. “I’ll sort it out. Stuff just hasn’t been going as well as he’d like, that’s all.”
“That’s not your fault,” Macau objected. Vegas couldn’t help but be warmed by the defense, even if it was both unnecessary and not entirely true.
“It is, sort of,” Vegas said. “I’m his second-in-command. He lets me take on a lot of responsibility. That means when things go wrong, it’s on me.” Macau didn’t look satisfied. Vegas reached out and gave his shoulder a little shake. “Don’t worry about me. Okay? You focus on school. Have you done your homework for tomorrow?”
“Get off my back, jerk,” Macau said, making a face at him, though his face fell when his eyes dropped back to Vegas’s arm. Vegas rolled his sleeves down like that’d make him forget and chased Macau out of his room, making sure to close the door this time.
He tried to ignore the hot, aching feeling where his dad had squeezed too hard, chewing him out for the third time this week about the missing cargo in the last shipment, never mind that he’d found the damn shit and was closing in on reclaiming it from the small-time street gang that’d tried to sneak off with it.
Vegas pushed his frustration down like the filter of a French press and went to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. If he had to cry about this shit, he’d thought more than once, it’d be nice if it at least didn’t ruin his face worse than his dad ever did.
Vegas was seventeen when he officially became his father’s hands, though he’d been doing the work unofficially for a few years before that. Sometimes the family needed someone to hurt, to make a point or for information; Vegas was good at hurting people, and he wasn’t squeamish about it. Whatever else that made him, it also made him useful, valuable. His father or Uncle Korn pointed him at someone and set him loose like a well-trained attack dog to do what needed to be done.
It was a rush, a thrill, a turn-on. And if his papa sometimes looked at him blood-spattered and triumphant with a faint expression of disgust, Vegas knew he appreciated it.
Just after Vegas turned eighteen, a prisoner Vegas had been working on managed to escape. One of the guards caught him and shot him down before he got away, but any value he might’ve had died with him.
The prisoner was Vegas’s responsibility, which meant his escape was Vegas’s fault, his dad told him. What was the point of him if he couldn’t handle such a simple task? What good was he as an heir, as a son?
He took the beating his father gave him, went back to the safety of his room, and collapsed. His back, he could already tell, was going to be a mess of bruises.
He told himself he’d make up for it. Think of something that would compensate for his mistake, that would raise the minor family up, bring them wealth and respect and prestige. He just had to do better.
He slept on his stomach with an ice pack on his back to keep the swelling down, but there was nothing he could do about the bruises.
He dreamed he was locked in downstairs, chained to the wall and watching himself come closer, ready to pull him apart. His father was standing there watching. In the dream Vegas knew he’d given the order and he was going to die, slowly and painfully, but he had to do it to himself.
A deal with the Russians blew up in Vegas’s face. He managed to salvage it, mostly, and casualties were minimum, but of course that wasn’t good enough. All that mattered was the mistake, and that he hadn’t pulled it off without his cousin getting involved, the way he should have.
Like that part didn’t stick in his craw enough.
“It’s not my fault,” he said, sitting in front of his father’s desk and trying not to feel like a kid called to the principal’s office. “I could’ve handled it, but Kinn just–”
“Don’t blame your cousin for your own shortcomings,” his papa interrupted, his voice hard. “If you hadn’t bungled the situation to begin with, Kinn wouldn’t have had the opportunity to step in and show you up. Again.”
Vegas’s jaw tightened and he tried to force it to relax. “I know I screwed up,” he said, “but I–”
“That’s enough,” his father said, rising and coming around his desk, staring down at him. “No more excuses, Vegas.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Vegas said, anger slipping into his voice as he stood as well.
His father’s full-armed slap knocked him sideways so he had to catch himself on the desk. He hadn’t been ready for it even though he should’ve been. Vegas pushed himself straight again, slowly, a sour taste filling his mouth. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.
“Don’t talk back to me, boy,” his father said. Vegas stiffened.
“You’re not listening,” he said. “I did everything I could, everything you told me to do, but the only thing that matters to you is what I didn’t pull off.”
“Watch yourself,” his father said. Vegas’s hands curled into fists.
“Or what,” he said. “You’ll hit me again?”
He knew the second he said it that he shouldn’t have. His stomach plunged and it wasn’t fear that hit him so much as it was shame, as sharp as a knife. Idiot, he thought savagely, who do you think you are? The blood drained out of his face.
“Papa, I’m sorry, I didn’t,” he started to say.
His father wrenched his arm behind his back and slammed his face into the desk. His cheek, so it didn’t break his nose, but he felt his shoulder joint pop and then go – wrong. He screamed, short and sharp.
His dad let go immediately. Vegas’s arm fell limply; he didn’t move otherwise, crying silently, pathetically. The wood of the desk felt cool on his face. His shoulder throbbed, the pain breathtaking, overwhelming.
His dad pulled him up and he flinched away, gathering up his useless arm and holding it to his body.
“Do you need a doctor,” his dad said. He didn’t sound angry anymore. Vegas shook his head.
“I got it,” he said, his voice hoarse and kind of weird, like it was coming out of somebody else. His father frowned, but Vegas said again, “I’ll handle it, Papa,” because the idea of seeing a doctor who would look at him and his shoulder and know he’d fucked up again made him feel sick.
“Let me see,” his father said. This time Vegas managed not to flinch when his father took his arm and tried to rotate his shoulder. Something clicked and then crunched, pain stabbing all the way up his neck into his skull, but Vegas swallowed the sound he wanted to make.
“It’s not dislocated,” his papa said. He sounded relieved, and Vegas was relieved, too. “It should be fine in a few days.” Vegas nodded and his father released him, stepping away. “Go put some ice on it.”
“I’ll do better next time,” Vegas said.
“I know you can,” his father said. “You’re my heir, aren’t you?”
Vegas went mechanically through the motions of digging out an ice pack and binding his arm up in a sling that he hopefully wouldn’t need for long. He told Macau it’d happened on a mission but he wasn’t sure he believed him. There was still a simmering anger in his stomach that kept trying to say it’s not fair that he kept trying to stomp down.
He owed his father his respect. He owed him his life. If he’d just kept his stupid mouth shut…
Testing the range of motion in his shoulder, spectacular bruising already starting to spread out from the joint, Vegas fantasized absently about dying in a blaze of glory, maybe saving his father’s life or something, and then his father would finally realize how much he cared about him, that Vegas was better than he’d realized, a good son, a worthy heir.
It was pathetic, a child’s fantasy, and it’d just put Macau in Vegas’s place. Vegas didn’t want that for him. Not that his brother didn’t know the world they lived in, but he didn’t have Vegas’s mean streak. He wasn’t designed to hurt people, kill people. Not the way Vegas was.
He popped a couple painkillers, flexed the tingling out of his fingers, and splashed some cold water on his face.
Back to work. He had things to do. Plans to make. Not all of them needed two working arms.
Kinn couldn’t win every time. Vegas just had to find the right weak spot to target, and he was pretty good at finding weak spots.
Sometimes when things were going well there’d be periods of months where his dad didn’t hit him. When profits were flowing and Uncle Korn wasn’t getting too much in their business and the work was running smoothly.
Something always went wrong eventually, though. His dad’s temper got short and Vegas would set him off somehow and end up hurting for it.
Today it was a deal with the Italians that’d fallen through at the last minute and a nasty bruise close to the corner of his eye. His vision was blurry and it hurt bad enough that he checked to make sure there wasn’t an orbital fracture. Pain spiked through and around his eye and the movement wasn’t great, but he was pretty sure nothing was actually broken.
So that was good.
Staring at himself in the mirror, at the redness starting to darken to purple, Vegas pressed his fingers down again, slowly increasing the pressure until it hurt too much to sustain, then stopped. There was a weird sort of satisfaction in it – not like it felt good, but satisfying.
He made himself drop his hand and pick up the ice pack he was supposed to be using, drifting over to his bed and collapsing onto his back, covering the right side of his face. Sometimes he wondered if Uncle Korn ever beat his sons. He didn’t think so. Maybe he was just better at hiding it, but he was pretty sure nobody had ever laid a hand on Kinn, at least who hadn’t paid for it later. Maybe it’d explain Tankhun, but Vegas was pretty sure that his cousin had always been a little weird and the rest was down to the kidnapping incident. And Kim…
Vegas had no real idea what Kim’s deal was.
There was a bitter taste in Vegas’s mouth. Just another way they had it easy. Another way things got handed to them that Vegas had to fight for.
He pulled the ice pack away and tried looking to one side and then the other. Still blurry, and moving his eyes to the right he couldn’t go very far, but that might be the swelling. He decided to wait and see what it was like tomorrow morning; if it wasn’t better then he’d see a doctor about it.
All of a sudden he felt very, very tired.
Vegas hauled himself up, took a deep breath, and went to see if he could fix his face enough to show it without coming up with an explanation.
An edifice of plans, built carefully over more than a year. He’d dedicated so much time to setting up the pieces, cultivating the right assets, playacting a relationship he didn’t want and making extravagant promises he didn’t mean. Porsche had been an unexpected wrinkle and an unexpected opportunity.
He should’ve known it would all fall apart. In the aftermath it almost seemed inevitable.
His father slapped him in front of four guards and his prisoner, shouting at him for his failure, his fuckup. He felt sick with the humiliation, his eyes burning, the savor of playing with Pete ashes in his mouth. He felt small and pathetic and weak and could feel the eyes of witnesses watching like they were touching him.
He wondered if Pete was enjoying this. Enjoying seeing him humiliated.
When Vegas left the room, his father had shut himself in his office. Vegas went to his bedroom to pull some shit together for his banishment. (Temporary. It’ll be temporary, just for a little while, until things calm down.) His face still hurt. Nothing but a slap, but it’d had the full force of his father’s arm behind it, all his anger and disappointment channeled into one blow.
Vegas pulled out a weekender, packed two pairs of pants, and then sat down on the bed staring into space.
Clean up your mess, his father said, voice dripping with disgust, pressing a gun into Vegas’s hand. He knew he’d meant Pete. For a flicker of a second, though, there’d been the mental image of putting it to his own head and pulling the trigger.
Vegas slapped himself. Right side, to mirror his father’s handprint on his face. The first time wasn’t hard enough, so he did it again; he stopped himself before the third time, forcing his arm back down to his side.
He scrubbed his eyes with his hands, took a deep breath, and got up to finish packing.
He might be going into exile but at least he wasn’t going alone.
The house was empty when Vegas regained consciousness. He checked, just in case, like maybe Pete would be sitting on the couch watching TV, or out on the dock dangling his feet in the water, or something. He wasn’t, obviously. Third escape attempt the charm, apparently.
His head hurt. His face hurt. There was the aching bruise on his cheekbone where his father’s ring had left its mark, and a bloody mark swelling on his jaw where Pete had punched him with a handcuff around his fist.
Sorry, he’d said before doing it. What was he apologizing for? Punching him? Leaving?
Vegas wandered into the bathroom and stared at his reflection. He looked like shit. He raised one hand to his own jaw, to Pete’s bruise, and pressed down until the pain spread out in waves through his jaw, up into his cheek.
His dad had never apologized for hitting him.
Keeping his eyes on his reflection, Vegas rummaged blindly in one of the drawers until he found the kit he was looking for. Pulled out brushes and foundation and started to cover up.
He stopped and set everything down, bracing his hands on the counter.
Vegas turned around and left the bathroom, leaving the bruises exposed. Pete on one side of his face, his dad on the other.
He needed to clean up the kitchen.
The cut where the metal handcuffs had bitten into his skin was starting to sting.
Vegas woke up with his chest hurting into a world where his father was never going to hit him again, because his father was dead, a bullet hole between his eyes where his uncle had shot him at point-blank range.
He didn’t cry at the (thoughtfully delayed) funeral, where he had to sit the whole time because even after almost a month, standing for longer than a couple minutes at a time made his chest ache and his head spin. Pete offered his condolences but Vegas could see from the hardness in his eyes and the set of his mouth that as far as he was concerned the world was better without Vegas’s father in it. He and Macau didn’t talk about it.
Vegas didn’t actually think there was something wrong with him for grieving. But it did feel lonely, and strange, and like there was a ragged hole in his life. He was never going to be good enough for his papa now.
At least when he’d been disappointed in him, Vegas thought, staring blankly at the ceiling, he’d known he mattered. If there were expectations to fall short of, at least there were expectations.
Nobody expected anything from him now. He’d gone from being Vegas, heir to the minor family to just Vegas and he didn’t even know who just Vegas was supposed to be.
Maybe that should be liberating. Mostly it just left him feeling weightless and untethered. Insignificant. Small.
Going through his bedroom at the house, trying to decide what was worth bringing with him from this place and what wasn’t (because he couldn’t stay here, at least not right now), he found the makeup palette he’d used to cover bruises.
Vegas stared at it for a while, his stomach tight. He started to throw it in the trash, but stopped himself.
He put it in his pocket instead. He might not have his father’s ring, he thought dryly, but at least he had this.
He cried alone in his room, quietly, the way he had after his dad hit him. And just as he had then, he dried his eyes, splashed water on his face, and walked back out with his mask on.
Untouchable.