VEGASPETE🔞+KILL FOR YOU

Chepter 3

PETE POV

“Always the fuck up, Pete, I don’t know why I keep your sorry ass around, you little cunt,” Jake scolds me.

Tommy, another crew member and kiss ass to my stepbrother stands off to the side, smug as hell smile on his face as Jake lays into me.

We only got home from the hospital five minutes ago after being there all last night and most of today with Shay. I barely got through the door before Jake started in on me.

My cheek is on fire after the punch Jake just landed on my face. The bastard is strong and cruel, but I’m used to his hits. It’s been happening for years. I'm only twenty-four, and I lost count at eighteen. I can’t describe in words how much I hate him, how much I hate everything about him, his crew, and my useless as fuck stepfather who made us this way. My head hurts from the battle between which voice in my head will win as I sit here on my knees, being berated by the person I detest most in life. Jake took away any chance of normalcy I could have had and used his manipulative ways to keep me around.

“I was only trying to help, Jake. They were going to kill Shay,” I argue.

Shay’s the only one in the group I would consider close to a friend, even though that word is a stretch. He’s the only one who tolerates my weird ways and is nice to me. I don't regret stabbing the asshole who was beating on him, in fact, I enjoyed it, but that's a piece of information I keep to myself. I know I would enjoy it even more if it was my dearest stepbrother on the end of the blade.

A shadow casts over the top of me, and I look up to see an angry Jake looking down on me like I’m a bug on his shoe, an irritant. We are such a contrast to each other, mirror images of our biological parents. While I have black shaggy hair, tan skin, and brown eyes like my mom, he has golden blond hair that's always in a messy man bun with blue eyes and fair skin like his evil father. We only match on height at six feet a piece but where he is muscular, I’m more like a lean baseball player. I’m still strong and well-defined.

He continues to stare down at me, and while I know he hates me, there has always been another feeling lurking beneath the surface. It’s the way he looks at me, the way I catch his gaze when it lingers on me for too long, and it sets my body cringing. My insides curl in disgust. I was sixteen when things changed between us. He was too interested in me, and it didn’t help that Jake’s dad encouraged him to mold me to be like them, unfeeling and living a shitty dead-end life of drug dealing and fucking up anyone who got in our way. I’ve lived in hell. Old memories from years ago try to replay like a horrific movie.

“It's about time you started fucking around with girls, boy. Don’t want folk thinking you’re a fag. You need to start being like Jake, acting like a real man instead of a pussy. Your mom was always too soft on ya.”

Shut up! Shut up!

I manage to ward off the memories of my useless stepdad. Now just to deal with his younger carbon copy of a dickhead son.

“You shouldn’t have even been there. Shay can handle himself, and now because of you we have to meet with the Kozlovs tonight.”

He crouches in front of me, grabbing onto my hair so tightly I wince, pulling my head back so he can look me in the face.

“You will take the blame for this, baby brother. You will tell them you didn't know you were on their turf and that it was a mistake. I will not have this crew torn apart and end up buried underground because of you and your curiosity. Do you understand?”

I hate it when he calls me baby brother. It's a trigger that puts me in a trance. It flicks a switch in my head, and I’m that eighteen year old again, afraid. It sounds fucking tragic, never failing to send me into a frenzied panic as I fight to regain control of my mind. But he’s asking me to take the blame and of course I understand that it falls to me. Always falls to me. I have a strong suspicion the dickhead is up to something that will get him into deep trouble with the Kozlovs. I'm not sure what the actual plan is, he doesn't share much with me, but I’ve seen the signs. He’s more on edge nowadays, having secret conversations with other crew members that I’m never part of. To be honest, that's part of the reason I followed Shay, to see what the hell is going on. I’m involved whether I know the plan or not, and I would be guilty by association.