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Vegas had started to feel more relaxed than he had in months, specifically when he was in a dark room with the prisoner he wasn’t supposed to have chained to the ceiling.
Which was definitely more than a little fucked up, but not exactly surprising.
And that’d been before last night, before Pete’s mouth crashing into his like he was starving, before he gave his wrists into Vegas’s hands, before he knew what Pete looked like when he was down and felt what it was like to have him soft and pliant, spread out under him, so warm and tight inside–
Before.
He was well out of the afterglow now but Vegas still felt a little high with it, his body warm and pleasantly buzzy, smiling to himself as he started sauteeing the aromatics, keeping half an eye on the tutorial he was watching. He kept having to pause as it got ahead of him, but so far it was nothing he didn’t know how to do, even if it’d been years since he’d actually done it.
Time spent in the kitchen cooking wasn’t exactly high on his dad’s list of things he wanted from his son and heir.
But his dad wasn’t here right now, and he couldn’t exactly do a lot of other things while he was shut up out here, so. Pete had better appreciate the effort.
A brief twinge that said what if he doesn’t like it? followed by the muttering what are you doing, cooking a nice meal for your prisoner, the one you’re supposed to have killed, do you think he’ll like you for that? Pathetic.
He ignored them both, moving forward with the vegetables.
Vegas had just finished plating the food (unnecessary, Pete probably wouldn’t even notice, but what the hell) and started bringing it to him when he heard the doorknob turn. He tensed, plate teetering on one hand as he half reached for the gun he didn’t have. He tensed more when his dad stepped in and closed the door too hard behind him.
“Papa,” he said. His dad looked at him, then looked at the plate of food. His expression showed scorn; only for a moment but Vegas still saw it.
“What are you doing,” he said.
“I was making lunch,” Vegas said. He was acutely aware of the bruises that were still fading from last time his dad had come around. Acutely aware of Pete, down the hall, who his dad had specifically told him to kill.
“Making lunch,” his dad repeated, the words weighted differently. Vegas’s stomach tightened but he didn’t move, didn’t back away. “I’m trying to salvage something from the mess you made, the disaster you brought down on my head with your stupidity, and you’re here playing housewife?”
“I was hungry,” Vegas said. It sounded stupid the moment he said it and his father’s face darkened.
“Maybe I should just hand you over to Korn,” he said. “Blame all of this on you. At least then maybe you’d do me some good.”
Vegas’s stomach lurched. He wanted to say you don’t mean that but he wasn’t sure. “Papa–”
“That’d just leave me with your brother, who’s even more useless than you are,” his dad said, striding into the house and slapping the plate out of his hands and to the ground. It shattered, food and bits of plate mixed together in a blast radius that Vegas stared at like an idiot as his dad rounded on him. He should’ve been braced for the slap that followed but somehow he still wasn’t; it knocked him sideways a step and he had to catch himself to keep from stumbling.
“Pathetic, idiotic boy,” his dad snapped at him. “What are you good for?” Vegas was breathing too hard and too quickly. “What sort of curse gave me you as a son?”
“Which one gave me you for a father,” Vegas heard himself say.
It was stupid to say it. He knew it even as the words were coming out of his mouth. At least this time the response didn’t come as a surprise. His dad moved slowly and deliberately, giving him plenty of time to move as he turned his ring so the seal was toward his palm.
He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. It wouldn’t have done any good to try.
“I’m sending you out of the country,” his dad said, as Vegas’s cheek started to throb. “Just try not to fuck things up from there. And clean this up,” he said, gesturing at the mess on the floor of the meal he’d tried to make.
His dad’s phone started ringing and he jerked a hand at Vegas in a dismissive gesture as he answered it. He retreated into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and dropped his face into his hands, trying very hard not to cry, or scream, or punch the mirror into shards. At least not until his dad was gone. He probably wouldn’t stay for very long.
The brief warmth he’d been feeling felt very far away.
He took a deep breath through his nose, let it out through his mouth, and exited the bathroom. He wondered briefly if it was worth trying to remake the ruined dish, but he dismissed the idea out of hand. Even if he did have enough to start over again…
The whole project was ruined now. Pete would just have to live with more plain noodles. It was probably for the best, anyway, the idea had been stupid from the jump–
“What,” his father said coldly, cutting into Vegas’s scattered thoughts, “is this?”
His father wasn’t gone. His father was standing in the hallway, the door to what he’d started to think of as Pete’s room open in front of him.
He froze. And stayed frozen, stupid.
“Come here, Vegas,” his dad said. Vegas approached him, heart hammering, feet dragging; his dad slapped him almost as soon as he was in range, then grabbed him and dragged him forward, grabbing his jaw and turning his head to force his gaze into the room. Pete was on the bed, on his knees, awake (alive). He looked wary but not afraid.
Vegas was afraid.
“Explain yourself,” his dad said, his voice harder, his fingers squeezing Vegas’s jaw just shy of the force it would take to hurt him.
He bit down the what does it look like that came boiling up, the ache in his cheekbone fresh enough to stop him. “Papa,” he said. “I–”
“What did I tell you?” His dad cut him off, voice rising. “Didn’t I give you simple enough instructions?”
Vegas was frozen, stupid. “You did,” he said, his voice sounding pathetic, weak. Acutely aware of Pete watching, listening, the sick burn of humiliation and shame eating away at his insides. “I just–”
“Don’t make excuses to me,” his dad said harshly, and shoved him back as he let go, knocking Vegas’s shoulder into the wall. His dad stepped over the threshold into the room with Pete. Vegas trailed in after him and watched his dad’s eyes move from the rumpled bed to the purpling marks on Pete’s neck to a discarded pair of underwear that hadn’t made it to the laundry yet. His stomach plunged as his dad’s lip curled.
“Did you keep him alive so you could fuck him?” he said, looking at Vegas again, his voice dripping with disgust. “I knew you were a slut but I didn’t think you were this bad.” Vegas’s face burned. He couldn’t look at Pete and didn’t want to look at his dad.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t–”
“If you don’t shut your mouth now, I’ll shut it for you,” his dad said, and then turned back toward Pete. “I thought you were one of Tankhun’s,” he said.
Pete said nothing.
“I guess maybe he knows something useful,” Vegas’s dad said. “Did you bother trying to find out before sticking your cock in him, at least?” Vegas felt like he was going to gag on his shame.
“Something useful about what,” he said, his voice sounding childish and sullen in his own ears. “We already have plenty of intel–”
“So that’s a no,” his dad interrupted. Vegas could feel Pete’s gaze, witnessing, judging, and the miserable shame and anger bubbled up and over, his chest burning.
“What are you looking at,” he snapped, lip curling. Pete was still silent, his eyes dark and unreadable, and Vegas thought of the food on the floor in the kitchen and everything Pete had said to him and how monumentally stupid do you have to be, Vegas? How much of an idiot are you?
He took a step forward and Pete flinched. Simultaneously, his stomach turned and a flood of satisfaction warmed up his chest, eager anticipation and the desire to hurt rising like a cobra.
Vegas kept his eyes on Pete when he said, “I didn’t think it’d be worth the effort. I only kept him as a pet so I didn’t get bored out here.”
“I don’t care about your entertainment,” his dad said, but he wasn’t telling Vegas to shut up again. “Don’t you already have a pet?” Vegas didn’t look at the empty cage. “But…” he paused. “This house has a wine cellar, right? Bring him there. I don’t want to spend any more time in this – perverted little cave of yours.”
Pete was still quiet in the wake of his exit. No mouthing off, no snarky commentary.
But he wasn’t looking at Vegas anymore, the steady, perceptive gaze no longer fixed on him.
He could almost feel his stomach acid burning.
Vegas swallowed hard and moved to unhitch Pete from the suspension without freeing his hands, acutely aware of the warmth of his body when he got close.
“You don’t have to do this,” Pete said abruptly, his voice quiet and a little hoarse. The muscles between Vegas’s shoulder blades seized.
“Shut up,” he said harshly. “Just because I fucked you doesn’t mean I’m interested in your opinion.”
What Vegas could see of Pete’s expression flickered, his shoulders hunching like that’d hurt him. Vegas wanted to hit him for it. He wanted to hit himself almost as much.
He didn’t do either.
“Let’s go,” he said. He watched Pete’s hands, half expecting him to go for an attack, almost hoping he’d try. He imagined for a moment Pete beating him to death with his bare hands while his dad waited downstairs. How long would he wait for Vegas to show up before he came looking and found his corpse? And Pete would go running back to his masters, obviously, where he’d be a fucking hero–
Vegas ripped himself out of his own head and focused.
By the time Vegas got Pete downstairs, his expression had settled into a kind of blank resignation that made him unreasonably angry. He wanted the defiance, the sharp smile and slightly insane gleam that had caught his attention to begin with. Pete wouldn’t even look at him.
Vegas needed Pete to look at him. He at least needed Pete to hate him, otherwise–
His dad was waiting for them. He gestured at a chair he must have brought down from upstairs, since he didn’t think there was usually one down here, and Vegas tugged Pete over and shoved him down into it. He used chain to bind him.
Rope would’ve been easier, but for some reason he’d balked at that.
Pete’s gaze lifted, moved over Vegas without pausing, and focused on his father. Something hot and ugly surged up Vegas’s throat and he grabbed Pete’s face, forcing him to meet his eyes.
“Don’t look at him, look at me,” he snarled, and for a moment Pete did look at him again, briefly focusing on him, long enough for Vegas to see hurt and betrayal in eyes so recently hazy with bliss, bliss Vegas had given him and he let go of Pete like he’d been burned. Then the focus was gone and Pete went back to looking through him with that same blank resignation he’d had before.
It felt like punishment. Vegas hated him for it, how dare he, how could he make Vegas feel like this–
(It’d been good. For a little while, there, it’d been good.)
“What do you want,” he said, turning a little in his dad’s direction. “Is there something specific or do you just want me to hurt him?” He could hear a harsh note in his voice and knew it was dangerous even before his dad crossed the distance between them and clamped his hand on the back of his neck.
“Watch your tone,” he said. To Pete, he said, “what information did you give the main family before we caught you?”
“I downloaded the files Vegas had on his computer and sent them to Arm,” Pete said, his voice remarkably calm. His dad’s fingers dug into Vegas’s neck harder and then released.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Vegas said. “I didn’t retain everything, some stuff was just on my phone and not all of it was in one place–”
“Shut up,” his dad said. Again to Pete, “are there capabilities Korn has that we might not be aware of?”
“I don’t know what you’re aware of,” Pete said. He didn’t say it exactly like he was trying to be a smartass, but his dad stepped back and away and said, “Vegas.”
Vegas’s mouth filled up with saliva that he swallowed down. This was supposed to be good. This was supposed to be his, had always been his territory, what he was good at but right now everything felt all wrong, the excitement not there, the thrill gone sour.
He hadn’t exactly brought a kit. But he did have a knife. He flicked it open. Crouched down in front of Pete, close, so he could slide the blade flat up under the bandages he’d wrapped around him so goddamn carefully, it’d taken forever, trying to work with Pete’s heavy, limp body–
He felt the muscles of Pete’s stomach tense and remembered how he’d been able to feel him tense just like that when Vegas was fucking him. A corkscrew of arousal and shame twisted through him and Vegas gritted his teeth and twisted the knife, one abrupt movement slicing upward.
Blade out, so it cut through the bandaging instead of skin, but the tip still sliced a shallow cut into Pete’s skin, and the little flinch made it clear that Pete had been at least half expecting the sharp edge. He peeled the bandages away, exposing the scabbed over wounds from the belt and bruises mostly faded to greens and yellows. Vegas could hear his own breathing getting faster and tried to slow it back down.
“Answer the question,” his dad said. “You should start talking. I’m sure you’re aware of Vegas’s…skillset, and you wouldn’t be the first boy my worthless son fucked before killing.” Vegas’s jaw tightened, the shame sharpening to its own knife. It’s not true, he wanted to say, even if it was, technically. He wanted to curl into himself like a woodlouse and forced himself to keep his spine straight.
Pete’s chin lifted a little, traces of the defiance Vegas remembered, but somehow duller. “I told you,” he said. “I don’t know what you already know. So I don’t know what you wouldn’t be aware of. Ken was spying for you. Do you not trust his information?”
Vegas didn’t need his dad to tell him what to do. He stood back up, braced one hand on Pete’s shoulder, set the knife to one of the wounds he’d made before and started to open it back up. Slowly, deliberately, fixing his eyes on the flesh parting under the blade and trying to lose himself in it: the spill of fresh blood, the grotesque satisfaction of the cut itself.
He was too aware of his dad’s presence at his back. Too aware of Pete, the way his breathing changed, of how close his body was, the heat of his skin. He didn’t want this. He wanted it too badly, but not like this.
I’m sorry, he wanted to say. You know how it is, don’t you, you understand, I don’t have a choice–
I’m not choosing, he heard Pete say. I’m just not eating.
Weak. He was weak, so fucking weak.
“What resources is Korn holding back?” his dad said.
“I don’t know,” Pete said.
“Think harder,” his dad said.
He was his father’s hands and his father’s knife. Vegas the weapon, Vegas the monster, Vegas the attack dog, turned loose and brought to heel. Hands and a knife, or sparking wires, or pliers, a drill, shards of glass.
He blinked and realized that Pete was meeting his eyes.
“Vegas,” he said. “It’s your choice.” It wasn’t a plea. Mostly it just sounded tired.
When he’d been a kid, before he was old enough to understand the difference between main and minor, Vegas had been running around the main family house pursuing Kinn in some game he couldn’t remember. He’d taken a corner too fast and crashed into a pedestal; watched as the vase on top teetered and fell. He was too young to understand that he was going to spend the rest of his life chasing Kinn and never catching up, but he wasn’t too young to realize, as the vase shattered into thousands of pieces on the floor, that he’d broken something precious and irreplaceable.
It was the same feeling now, plowing into him like a semi-truck into a motorcycle.
His throat closed like his hand around Pete’s neck. He pressed his thumb into his racing pulse and said, despairing, “you know it’s not.”
He tightened his grip.
“Vegas, stop,” his dad said, but too late. As soon as Pete went limp Vegas let go, trying to look like he hadn’t realized what he was doing.
“Sorry,” he said, out of a numb mouth. “I was just…”
His dad stalked over and cuffed the back of his head. “Stupid boy,” he said. “If you’re not even good for this then what are you good for?”
Good fucking question, Vegas thought.
“Waste of time,” his dad said, and started to reach for his gun, but then his phone rang and he changed directions, picking it up and walking away, talking quietly, his voice heated. Vegas didn’t try to overhear.
He looked at Pete’s head hanging, unconscious, blood dribbling from the freshly opened wounds on his chest, and a void opened between his navel and his spine.
His dad hung up and said, “I have to go. Clean up this mess now. Properly, this time, is that clear?”
“Yes, Papa,” Vegas heard himself say. “It’s clear.”
His dad looked at him in a way that made Vegas think momentarily he was about to get hit again, but then he just left, and it was just him and Pete again.
Just him, really, since Pete was out. He should just go and…clean up this mess. He felt like something stinking and rotten and wretched.
And he still had to clean up the kitchen, too.
He’d take Pete back first, though. Lock him down, fix the mess of his stupid…cooking experiment. And then – and then decide what to do next.
It won’t matter. Nothing’s going to get better. You might be doing him a favor, putting a bullet in his head.
You’d be doing everyone else one, putting a bullet in your own.
Vegas shook both those thoughts out and pulled Pete up out of the chair, heaving him over his shoulder. He could feel blood seeping through the fabric. It was almost certainly going to stain.
That only seemed fair. One way or another, when Pete was gone, at least he’d still have a stained shirt.