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It's one of the very few things Vegas and Pete disagree on. It's the honeymoon phase after all. There aren't many disagreements that don't have an easy fix.
"Pete, is this really practical though? Someone from the main family is going to figure it out eventually and..."
"Khun Nu already knows. He'll make sure no one else does. What difference does it make? He'll be raised as our child anyway. Who cares about the truth? Will we not be his true parents? Will I not be his father?"
There wasn't a lot which Vegas could counter Pete's impassioned argument with. Especially not when Pete was already climbing onto his lap and placing tiny kisses all over his face.
"It's safer this way. Don't you see? No one will suspect a thing. They all know I can have babies after all. And maybe one day we will have another..."
There wasn't a lot of talking after that.
____
They did have another. Fifteen years later.
"Pete, are you sure about this?" Tankhun wrung his hands worriedly as he paced about the room after being delivered the news of the pregnancy. "You're... older. It'll be difficult. Does Vegas know already?"
Pete shook his head.
"Vegas doesn't seem to care to know much of anything about me now. Not since... Not since..."
Tankhun sighed. "Not since Porsche pulled him back into the minor family business."
"I wouldn't call it "pulling him in", Khun Nu. He was glad to go."
Pete took in a deep breath. God he wished he could get drunk.
"I wonder... Sometimes, I have to wonder. Did he just want to distract himself from the loss of the minor family business by playing house with me?"
"Pete, I don't..."
Pete pushed forth before Tankhun could contradict him again.
"Because that's what it feels like. Except I'm just playing by myself now."
He raised his face to give Tankhun a grimace of a smile.
"That's why I need this, Khun Nu," he said as his hand caressed his still-flat stomach. "To distract myself again. To maybe distract him again."
Tankhun doesn't ask Pete why he doesn't just leave. He knows the answer already. This isn't Pete's only child.
"I hope it's a girl this time," Pete murmers to himself.
Tankhun knows the reason behind this wish too.
Women aren't allowed to enter the murky waters of the Theerapanyakul business.
________
It had started out with regular fitness training and then basic self defence.
In fact, it had started out so innocently that by the time the alarm bells started sounding off in Pete's head, Venice was visiting the main family manor with Vegas thrice in a week.
"He's just learning the ropes," Vegas had justified. "He's actually good at it."
"I don't want him to learn the ropes and I don't want him to be good at it!" Pete screamed back.
When all appeals and arguments had fallen on deaf ears, Pete had approached Porsche. They had been friends after all, once upon a time.
"He's just a child, Porsche," Pete pleaded, "He's my baby. Would you want your baby to be a part of this mess?"
Porsche's face remained eerily impassive. That was one of the many reasons why Pete had chosen to let their friendship die out.
"I understand your concerns, Pete. However, I believe you should be talking to your husband about this. And not me. As for whether or not I would want my baby to be in this mess..." Porsche's lips quirked up in a humorless smile, "That's why I chose not to have one, didn't I?"
There was one last person Pete could beg.
His own son.
"Baby, didn't you say you wanted to visit the States? Uncle Macau can show you around. You can even stay there for your college and..."
Venice rolled his eyes as he shoved Pete out of the room.
"Stop this charade, Pa. Dad and I are just doing what's best for the family. Stop advocating for Kinn. You aren't his dog anymore."
Later, Pete would deny knowing the exact moment when he had lost his son.
_______
Tankhun smiles as he looks down at the child in the crib beside Pete's bed.
"So, Pete's wish did come true, huh?" he murmured at the little pink face poking out from the bundle of soft blankets that had been gifts from himself. "You look just like your mama, don't you, baby girl?"
Pete let out a weak chuckle, somehow having caught those whispers.
"She probably looks like a loaf of bread now. As all newborns do."
Tankhun feigned a look of annoyance, "Stop calling yourself a piece of bread, Pete. Your daughter is beautiful."
Pete smiled. And Tankhun knew there were a thousand unspoken words hidden beneath it but he chose not to comment on it.
He chose not to mention how he had been the only visitor at his hospital room ever since Pete went into labour. He choose not to mention how he had lowered himself into calling the demon that Pete chose to call husband, only to have his frantic calls go unanswered.
Tankhun simply chose to fill Pete's room with yellow lillies until it looked like the child and the mother were resting in a garden.
___________
One mishap. That's all it took.
One day of exhuastion when Pete asked Vegas to bathe the child. The one day Pete wanted to go to bed early because Vegas was back home already.
Vegas must not have heard him. Pete must not have been loud enough. Pete should have waited to ensure that Vegas heard the instruction.
"Honey, the baby's in the bath. Could you just take care of her for tonight? I'll be off to bed then."
There must have been a miscommunication.
Vegas stopped speaking the usual two monosyllabic sentences to Pete that day when it was all over. Venice didn't come back home but Pete was too tired to ask where he was.
Tankhun would have slapped Vegas that day but didn't.
There was something grotesque about hitting a father in front of his dead child's grave.
Later, he would regret that decision every single day of his life.
________
Macau didn't receive many voice messages that were longer than "Hey, the meeting's been postponed" nowadays.
Most importantly, he didn't receive messages in Thai.
The familiar voice immediately made him break out in a smile.
"Hello, Macau. This is Pete. Hope you didn't forget me in America."
The legitimate uncertainty in Pete's voice brought about a predictable pang of regret.
It wasn't Pete that he had been trying to forget in America. It was everything else. Everyone else.
"Hope your new job is going great. Your brother has been dying to know the details of it. You should call him."
Macau frowned. This was the Pete he knew. Always trying to paint Vegas in a fairer light that was blatantly untrue. Macau knew better than anyone that even without the minor family resources, Vegas had enough money to fly the entire family to and from America a dozen times if he wanted to.
But he never had. Not even once.
"Venice is doing great too. He really misses you as well. He keeps telling me that he wants to visit you. But I don't want you to worry about him stepping on your toes. He'll only go there when he is capable of taking care of himself."
Macau rolled his eyes. Venice had once been the apple of his eyes too. But he had to be blind not to notice that Venice was a mini-version of Vegas. And as much as he had loved his brother once, he was aware of how he had started missing out on their regular family dinners to hang out with Porsche even years back when Macau still had no plans to emigrate. And Venice had simply followed Vegas' footsteps.
Lord knows how Pete tolerated either of them. Macau had seen Pete deny the fact that Vegas' midnight meetings with Porsche bothered him but those watery broken smiles did not fool anyone.
In fact, Macau had been trying to get Pete to the States for years. However, he needed to get himself settled before he could do so. Moreover, Pete had no excuse to refuse now. Venice was all grown up and Vegas... Well, Vegas could go to hell. As Pete's voice went on listing Vegas and Venice's virtues, Macau started looking up ticket prices from Bangkok to Chicago on his phone.
He wanted to see Pete's face when he tried out the deep dish pizza.
"...Tankhun thinks Venice should go for applied arts but there aren't a lot of jobs in that field, are there? I personally think any kind of engineering will do. It's a steady line of work. After all you're doing great, right?" Pete's voice became softer, "I always knew you would. You aren't like the rest of them."
Macau smiled. He had an enormous crush on Pete once. How could he not? He had never met anyone in his life who was that... giving. He had this crush as a teenager, of course. Even though that teenager was long gone, the part of him that still remained clutched the phone closer to his ear.
Which is the only reason why he could hear the next few words which came as a rushed whisper.
"This... This is why I am calling you, Macau. I hope you can forgive me one day. Don't... Don't let Venice see my body."
________
Pete had left his suicide note with someone fourteen thousand kilometers away for a reason.
Even with the earliest flight that Macau could book, even with his incoherant begging and crying at the airports to somehow decrease his layover time, Pete had already bled out into the tub by the time he arrived.
Yes, there had been guards at the doors. Yes, they had noticed that Khun Pete had not left the house for quite some time.
No, they did not have orders to go into the house and check what was wrong. No, Khun Vegas and Khun Venice had not been to the house in a week.
Macau's first instinct was, of course, to call the police. He had been in the States... away from this hell, for too long.
Of course, he couldn't call the police for a mafia's boytoy bleeding out in a bathtub. Of course, Pete's death, much like his life, refused to be that simple.
Macau calls Tankhun. He has to do it from Pete's phone because he never had the number in the first place.
Unexpectedly, the eldest Theerapanyakul starts crying on the phone before Macau has even decided how to vocalise what has happened.
"Pete? Oh my god, Pete... I must have called you a thousand times already. And those darn bodyguards of yours... I could have have my men shoot them in the face, you know? But you wouldn't like that, would you?" Tankhun stopped his rambling midway to take a breath, "You cannot go on like this. What happened is... Just... Just come back to me, alright? There's nothing stopping you now, is there? Sorry... Sorry. That was the was the wrong thing to say but you can come back to me, Pete. You can..."
"Pete's not here, Tankhun."
The line went silent for a while.
"And who might you be?" Tankhun's voice was steely when he spoke this time, "What are your demands?"
Macau sighed.
"This isn't a ransom call, Tankhun. Pete's... dead."
______
Apparently Pete's last words had been uttered in vain.
Venice was nowhere to be seen when Pete's body was lifted from where it was submerged in its own blood.
Macau had been sent out of the bathroom once Tankhun had arrived with the clean up crew.
Not doctors. Because Pete didn't need doctors anymore.
People needed doctors. Bodies needed clean up crews.
Pete wasn't Pete anymore. He was just a body.
Defying all of Macau's expectations, Tankhun didn't simply instruct the men to take care of the body while he sat outside daintily.
In fact, he was the first one to enter the... the scene and curtly ordered everyone to stay out until he was done. Macau wanted to protest but he was too exhausted to think of a reason why.
When the bodyguards had left, Macau squinted through the keyhole to witness a rather odd, but perhaps expected, scene.
Tankhun was desperately clutching Pete's blood-soaked form to his chest, letting his white suit slowly bloom with pink.
Macau removed his eye from the keyhole.
Tankhun did not let the other men touch the body before he had cleaned and dressed Pete himself. In the loose white shirt and jeans overalls, Pete almost looked like himself again. He didn't look a day older than when Macau had started experiencing his schoolboy crush on him.
Vegas intercepted them when Pete had already left the premises. Tankhun took his hand in a death clasp and pulled him to a grassy plot Macau recognised as the major family graveyard.
Vegas didn't question Macau's sudden appearance or the more startling fact that that the love of his life was being put to ground.
Only when Tankhun forced Vegas to throw some dirt into the grave, did Macau understand.
Vegas was so drugged to the gills that he had no idea it was Pete down there.
That was the only explanation Macau was willing to accept without giving in to the urge of committing fratricide.
Right before leaving, Macau notices the other much smaller grave by the side of the newly dug one. He doesn't stay to find out much else.
Tankhun fills this corner of the graveyard with yellow lillies.
_______
"Fucking hell, he attempted suicide?" Venice blows into the living room like a storm.
Vegas sits at the dining table. Four sets of plates and cutlery laid out.
"Sit down and eat."
One glance at the kitchen counter tells Venice there is no food anywhere in the vicinity. He continues with his line of questioning.
"So, where's he now? Pa? Where's Pa now?"
The lack of answers grates at his nerves but doesn't really surprise him. Vegas has been pretty much out of it ever since... ever since the incident.
"Dad?" He claps his hands in front of Vegas's face to draw his attention. He knows it is a dangerous gesture but he can no longer brush away the steady feeling of unease that is gnawing at his bones. Why does the room seem so cold? Why are the lights in the inner rooms switched off?
"Dad, where is Papa?"
He hasn't called Pete that in years. Seemed juvenile.
Now it feels imperative to call out his name for some reason.
"Sit down and have dinner," Vegas repeats blankly.
"Which hospital is he fucking in?" Venice can no longer control the tremble in his voice. "The family doctors don't seem to know shit and Porsche fucking refuses to speak to me and..."
"Sit down," Vegas' eyes finally focus on him, "He wanted us to eat together. That's all that he ever wanted."
Venice's brain screeches to a stop at the very last word. Vegas continues speaking to fill the silence.
"The family doctors won't speak to you because they're terrified of you. Just like they were terrified of me once."
This accusation doesn't particularly bother Venice. It's nothing more than a fact. He has build up this reputation with hard work.
"Good. Let them fear me," Venice sneered, "Maybe that'll stop them from bulshitting like they are now. Inducing fear in others is what protects us, isn't that your own philosophy? Inducing fear in others protects our family."
Vegas let out a dry laugh.
"Not when we start terrifying our own fucking family. Not when we start killing them off one at a time."
Venice could barely hear over the thudding of his own heart.
"Whom did we kill?"
Vegas smiles.
"Did you forget her just because we never named her? And of course, Pete. We killed Pete today."
An unnatural silence descends over the room. Venice forces himself to speak just so that the black emptiness of the silence does not suffocate his lungs.
"Dad, just... Just tell me which hospital he's in and..."
"Of course, it doesn't count for you," Vegas shrugged, "Not for you."
"What doesn't count?" Venice is forced to ask.
"The kills," Vegas reasoned as he fiddled with an engraved spoon that was Pete's favourite. "The kills don't count for you because they were never your family. They were mine."
It's truly an inexplicable miracle of human nature how an entire tempest inside can be frozen into an almost indifferent reply on the outside.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Venice gritted out.
Vegas simply laughed out loud this time.
"You think you shared any part of your genes with Pete? My Pete? And that beautiful little baby girl that was all him?"
Venice felt an inexplicable stab at his heart. Vegas needed to stop speaking.
Instead, Vegas simply took Venice's immediate lack of reply to twist the knife further in.
"The monster that you are... It's all me, don't you see? How could you ever even dream of being born of someone like Pete? You were born out of the same Devil that birthed me and a twopenny whore who didn't bother sticking around when our father started rotting in the grave."
Venice felt his fingers grasp a table knife that was closet to him but the very next words he was going to speak loosened his grip.
"Pete was my father. And she was my sister."
Vegas chuckled.
"Pete wanted to be your father, yes. He was a lovely fool in many ways. But look at how that turned out."
Vegas' face took a contemplative turn all of a sudden.
"Actually... I have always had this question. Would I have turned out any differently had I not had an asshole of a father like I did? I guess that question's answered now, isn't it? You were raised by Pete and you still turned out to be a perfect little monster of my father's creation. Blood does speak indeed. At least you didn't kill your family like I did."
_______
"There's another news, Macau. Bad news... some would say."
"I know, Tankhun. Just tell me those snakes weren't buried with Pete and the baby?"
"Of course, not. Why would I sully the beautiful lily garden so?" Tankhun scoffed, "They're just resting, Macau. Pete and the child. Come meet them in spring.'